An Exile’s Psalm

By the Euphrates, by the Tigris, and the Kebar,

by a thousand other rivers and streams we sat
and we wept, our tears mingling with the waters of Babylon.

“Sing!” they shouted, right up in our faces.
“Sing us one of your sorry songs of Zion,”

and they laughed great rolls of heaving laughter. “Sing!”

But how could we…
                        “Sing! Har-har-har”

How could we sing a song of Yahweh
in this god-forsaken place?

If I forget Jerusalem, my home, I hope to lose my right hand
and my tongue should rot to the roof of my mouth
if I forget to remember Jerusalem, my home, and my only joy.

Look at these kids running around, the children of our captors, you see them?

A blessing on anyone who takes them by their fat toddler legs
and swings them over head to smash their heads on the rocks!

This is a poetic paraphrase of that horrid psalm, psalm 137.