I must howl, even if I argue only with myself

THE only Muslim in a Tuesday night workshop, I read my assignment about the Anglo-American stand on Iraq, civilisation’s cradle, which is being bombed back to the Stone Age for flaunting weapons sold

I am a witness, I said. I must howl. In every well in Baghdad a Rafik is weeping while long black coats (with gas masks) huddle at the Wailing Wall, as if words could halt Smart bombs.

The response from the class was harsh. “Rhetoric, not lyric,” my peers said, echoing Yeats. “Argue with yourself, not others.”

The teacher, an adjunct, said: “Presidential warhead rising from its silo was over the top. Nike stockpiling kneepads, sick. Not ars poetica.”

Rafiq Kathwari,

4, Spencer House,

Irish Financial Services Centre,

Dublin 1