"Terrorist" (Khaled Mattawa Response) -- January 28, 2015

When reading Khaled Mattawa's poem "Terrorist" for the first time, I was struck with an incredible amount of symbolism representing the inner turmoil of a single human being, and the traumatic personal grief that has served him in developing extreme hatred towards the entire world. The poem outlines the idea that the central character has experienced both death and misery as a surrounding feature from a very young age, very clearly pointed out when he describes "the fire that lances the sky", "the arabesques of strewn corpses", the description of rubbing his brother's ashes on to his face, and using the "siamese twin" as a symbolic way of saying, I believe, that all this darkness both of the world around him and his brother's violent death at the hands of war have become a fused part of him, encouraging him to lash out with hate and aggression -- it seems at this point that we are starting to view the development of a terrorist. And he describes himself as always permanently connected to his brother. What will this vengeful connection lead him to next? It seems he views himself as both a murderer and a victim, a coward with poisonous thoughts built up within himself. All humans have many personal shades that warrant investigation.