The day 144,000 words
Got slashed ten times over
By one single blade
A podium awaited in quiet
.
Writers and wannabes
Unwittingly at this requiem
For every exile
Bled untold stories on paper
Or dreamed such sacrifice
.
As a blind man
Rushed the stage
With eyes were geographic balloons
Filled past capacity
From breathing
The stale air of barbarism
.
Unleashed like a perfect storm
Fermented in machinery
Operated by deformed Wizards of Oz
.
Who like the assailant
Believe they can see God
Unfalteringly
.
So to cover blindness
Under permission’s blanket
.
Albeit no Oz will be caught
Associating with any miscreant
In rumpled T-shirt and skinny jeans
Doing their dirty work
The insulated wear pressed suits
Or fine robes beneath carefully coiled turbans
.
We who still can see
Are on our own
Though keep alive
A most strange
Kind of vision
Necessary
.
To find one another
To save ourselves
By imagining
Then making
Every sentence come true
.
In the mythic land of art
Of ideas on the move
Beyond borders
Bet your life on it
Salman Rushdie did.