I saw him on the edge of a crowd
of dim cartoon figures dragging
half-broken bodies into the
marketplace and there he was,
doing nothing, saying nothing,
for it is written, teen torturers
playing twister with the captives,
sticks poking from every hole,
and he is in the wilderness,
submission in its stage clothes,
human offerings at his feet –
heads and hands, genitalia,
blood on a white sheet,
rotten meat full of teeth
and bone and here’s a hole
to stick a hand or head
through, full of the dead
and not quite dead,
the caliphate of the final
passage raising its hand
through burnt flesh
scored with bullets
and one last message.
Here, the voice of God
is a puckered anus
clamped to the mouth
and small moving parts
may cause catastrophic
internal damage
Tim Cumming
illustration Nick Victor