Sunday, December 21, 2014

On Seeing Salman Rushdie


I've just stumbled on a short, whimsical poem I wrote many years ago.
Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ was published in 1988; a fatwa for his execution was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. After this, Rushdie had to go into hiding. So imagine my surprise when, a few years later, I saw him, (well, it looked like him), drinking coffee in a window in George’s Street. Then a thought struck me.

 Under Fatwa 
In a coffee shop window,
couldn’t be!
He’d never sit in a window,
would he?
It must be someone else,
surely.
Now there’s a thought
just struck me:
I wouldn’t want to look like
Salman Rushdie!

 
 

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