Benjamin eats burning tents for breakfast.
Smoldering and braided with decay.
Soaked in the oxidized blood of children.
His arteries are clogged with melted I.V. lines and the last breaths of fathers clutching their charred infants.
Acidic and stretched like leather over shaved bone.
His rotting sulfurous teeth chew through dreams deferred by rubble and two-story collapse of school-aged hearts.
His cowardly fingers double their joints, and their conflicted interests, as they sift through the severed off limbs of young girls who should have been braiding each other’s hair instead of suturing their mothers’ limbs,
amputated,
without anesthesia.
Benjamin dressed himself in the stolen flesh of brown women.
He adorns his crown with laundered organs plucked from gutted mass graves.
He presses their frozen expressions with the heat of hot gun barrels, and slips his foreign fingers into the corpses of those who won’t bare their right of return.
He gargles the thievery,
flosses with kite strings reaped from stolen mornings,
dressed in Mediterranean heat.
A False King.
Crowned by Martyred boys and rust.
Benjamin the unjust,
burns olive groves and displacement tents
filled with the sick, starving, and maimed.
He carries the weight of cursed cinder and ash.
Carcinogenic and remotely detonated pagers.
The blotted-out sun behind black clouds and unholy nights.
Benjamin builds walls that can’t stop the scent of zaatar and musk.
He signals toxic rain and the blood thirst occupying reign.
The truth is that God is never late.
Everything is written and the bells toll under the wait.
Benjamin is fueled by his disillusion and the taste of crushed crucifix.
He must get his fix.
Curdled red rivers,
Benjamin, a low hanging rootless husk.
He chokes out the natives and grinds their pollen to dust.
Mary Kamal Gagnon (b. 1986, Dearborn, MI) is a Lebanese American polymath, celebrated for her work as a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and lead teacher at Inside Out Detroit. With a foundation in Education, English, and Gender Studies, her art explores the feminine voice, Arab diaspora challenges, and the power of intimate storytelling. Mary’s work, spanning painting, writing, culinary arts, and community collaborations, intricately weaves displacement and identity. As an influential educator, she mentors students, fostering self-discovery and empowerment through poetry. Mary’s art challenges societal norms, advocating for untold stories and inspiring others to embrace authenticity. Her vision exemplifies the transformative power of art and education, contributing to a more inclusive and vibrant world.
