Bring Now the Angels

This collection juxtaposes text from Google Search autocomplete with the intimate language of prayer. Corporate jargon co-exists with the incantatory and ancient ghazal form. Ahmed's second book of poetry explores the terrain of lossof a beloved family member, of human dignity & potential, of the earth as it stands, of hope. Her poems weave mourning with the erratic process of healing, skepticism with an unsteady attempt to regain faith.
With poems that are by turns elegiac, biting, and tender, Bring Now the Angels conveys a desire to move toward transformation and rebirth, even among seemingly insurmountable obstacles: chronic disease, corporate greed, environmental harm, and a general atmosphere of anxiety and violence.

BRING NOW THE ANGELS

To test your pulse as you sleep.
Bring the healer the howler the listening ear

Bring an apothecary to mix the tincture
We need the salve
the tablet the capsule
of the hour Bring sword-eaters
and those who will swallow fire
Fetch the guardian

to flatten the wheelchair,
to hoist it toward heaven:
the public shuttle awaits
the ceaseless trips to the clinic.
To the bedside manner
summon witness: this medic's
disdain toward patients the physician's dismissal
of pain
And call the druggist, again, to drug us senseless

Bring a nomad to index our debts
tuck each invoice into broken walls

of regret Call the cleric the...

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