Boghos Artinian’s most recent poem to appear here was “SETI” (April 2015)

Mock Sacrifice
By Boghos Artinian

It was a quiet spring morning.
Little Faysal was playing
as usual with his sling.
Unfortunately, that day,
he hit the eye of Nadia,
the beloved cow of Jad,
his uncle, and blinded it.
‘Wallahi la idbahak’
‘By God I’ll cut your throat’,
furiously shouted uncle Jad.
And that was the ‘final’ verdict,
for Jad had just sworn to God.
Like Abraham, he had to
sacrifice a nephew this time.
Being obsessive compulsive
and relentlessly insistent,
the clerics arranged for a mock
theatrical sacrifice.
But the stupid lot gave Jad
a real butcher’s knife thinking
he wouldn’t use it on Faysal
his young nephew. But Allah’s word
cannot be tampered with; He had
demanded a real sacrifice.
And there being no ram in sight,
Jad plunged the knife into Faysal’s throat.
The father seeing blood gushing
from his poor son Faysal’s throat
rushed into his house, and fetched
his Kalashnikov and sprayed
a volley of bullets on the mock
theater, killing all the actors.