Before he died, they cut his fingers off
To signify he would not write again,
Nor smooth a lover’s hair, curtail a cough,
But most that he should no more wield his pen.
His killers tortured him, and gave no quarter,
Their conscience blunted while their music played,
And, making him a corpse, made him a martyr
To truth and justice which his words conveyed.
He was a gentle man, kindhearted, true,
Poised on a new endeavor in his life,
But with a saw they cut, and blade they drew
His blood, honor dismembered with a knife.
Despots and autocrats will have their day,
Serving their idols, strewing death and pain,
While innocence and truth are left to pay
The price for tyrants’ vanity and gain.
Jamal Khashoggi, may he rest in peace,
Has left behind a world of rife despair,
Who marshalled words that were not vanities,
And his example permeates the air.
Let us resolve ourselves to tell the truth,
Though tyrants hate its threat thereby to power;
For murders may be reasoned out by sleuth
And any man must meet death’s fateful hour.
Be not afraid. The martyrs of the world
They have preceded you, as into throes
Of nightmare and fiasco they were hurled,
But guilty men—theirs be the greatest woes.
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