Savagery / Christchurch Mosques

By Taofeek Ayeyemi

for the 50 Muslims shot dead at the Christchurch Mosques, New Zealand, March 15, 2019

 

A man welcomed his killer with a smile

and a stretched arm, said hello brother

 

because his faith is another word for love,

and its adherents are vendors of affection.

 

But he responded with arms vibrating

under the weight of a rifle,

 

plucked the sun from his face

and tucked him in eternal darkness.

 

A new Muezzin is born after

the previous threw up seven cartridges,

 

only the Imam dodged the bullets

as he fell into sujud,

 

into the blood of the congregation laid flat

by bullets, the tiles and walls taking colour.

 

The minaret puts on the harem of grief,

even the Kaaba felt the fracture of bones.

 

At night,

the headline read:

 

a series of bullets falls from

the mouth of a psychotic’s handgun.

 

It’s on days like this the West Media remembers

that terrorism has no colour, no religion.

 

Taofeek Ayeyemi is author of the chapbook Tongueless Secrets (Ethel Press, 2021) and a collection “aubade at night or serenade in the morning” (Flowersong Press, TBD 2021). His works have appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, Up-the-Staircase Quarterly, Lucent Dreaming, Ethel Zine, The Pangolin Review, hedgerow, the QuillS, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, cho and elsewhere. He is Editor at Fitrah Review and Amrayn Poetry Series. He won the 2021 Loft Books Flash Fiction Competition, Honorable Mention Prize in 2020 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize among others.