Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Anti-Martyr” by Ayaz Pirani.

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Anti-Martyr

By Ayaz Pirani

I don’t have to love my lashes
to be a prophet among my people.

You’ll never see me on fire

or at the moment of impact.

My glories aren’t blazes.

I won’t drink blood or eat brain.

My people don’t ask for my head

to be put in the lion’s mouth.

They don’t mind if I lie in gutters

since dust ignores me.

None of them want to see me in pieces

or remembered as a wisp of smoke.

I’m not to be kept in dungeons

or away from my favorite food.

I’m not the kind of prophet

you worship or stone.

Don’t worry about the jokes I tell.

I’m just trying to keep the birds happy.

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Copyright © Ayaz Pirani

Previously published in the Antigonish Review and Kabir’s Jacket Has a Thousand Pockets. First appeared in Poetry Pause on September 23, 2020.

Ayaz Pirani’s books are Happy You Are Here, Kabir’s Jacket Has a Thousand Pockets, and How Beautiful People Are. A short story collection is forthcoming from Gordon Hill Press. My work has been reviewed in Toronto Star and Globe and Mail.

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