The Hymns of an Arrested Rebel

By Jan Pêt Khorto

At night, when the corpses are laid in queues
I sit...Alone
Staring at your offspring, Adam,
And I remember Able
Feeling shivering in my limbs without motion,
In fear of a sleep like your murderer son’s sleep.

At night,
When the owls escaping from our smells
I sit
And penetrate with my eyes the webs of spiders that surrounding me,
I push with my deadbeats arms
Flies that are bored like me of the breath deadbeat people,
And remember you, father
I remember you Noah,
Remember your drowned people
Remember your pigeon and crow
Remember the olive brunch
And close my eyes.

At night,
When the lamps of God are putting off,
And the light is taken off our solitude,
I sit
With creaking overwhelming my ears,
Humming, probably, I don’t know
I hit my forehead with my fist .. I hit .. hit
Fleeing from your talks about me in your houses
Among your women and children
Among your parents,
And a monster wears me.
I stand in rebelliously
Rapping the silence of the night
Pressing the air with my hands
Right...left
Keeping you away
I fight with imaginary knives, phantoms that lurk for me
I cruse you,
I cruse the nights, the days, lamps, knives
I cruse ethnicities, revolutions and nations
I cruse the scriptures, maids and hymns;
And I reach the borders of God
To be blocked
After a punch from a warden who calls me a Kurdish...

I close my eyes,
Bend my head
And sleep under a rain of swearwords.