A SNOWDEN SIGHTING

by Rick Gray

I don't know who I'm betraying, my TV doesn't work, 
but I must confess I saw Ed Snowden yesterday
on Chicken Street in Kabul.

It was only a glimpse
from the cracked, glaring window of a coughing taxi
near a dangling, pine-scented Quranic quote

but I'm certain it was him.
He was clutching a naked chicken over a laptop
and had the hunted look of a refugee

sort of like everyone in town
sort of like me
maybe that's why I couldn't help waving

and maybe that's why he nodded back
in the secretive, American way of those
gone to ground

and searching for a cheap hotel room
to spend the rest of your life
not going crazy in.

You've been a bad boy, Ed.
Me too, though in a less Boozy way.
So when all this toxic dust settles

which you will soon learn the UN calls "fecal matter"
let's get together at an undisclosed location and
shoot the shit.

I encourage you to let the postmodern goatee grow primitive,
and ditch those glasses. They are as deadly here as a square Humvee.
I'll teach you everything like a big brother

though you probably don't like Big Brother
call me whatever you want
I'm just another one who fell

between the new, prismatic cracks
and am searching for the old rainbow of
friendship untapped.


Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. When not in Kabul, he lives with his wife Ghizlane and twin daughters Rania and Maria in Florida.

KABUL, 5:30 AM, MAY 25, 2013

by Rick Gray

“Taliban Attack U.N. Affiliate’s Compound in Kabul, Testing Afghan Security Forces” By ROD NORDLAND and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK, The New York Times, May 24, 2013

KABUL, Afghanistan — In what appeared to be a concerted effort to test the capabilities of Afghan security forces in the capital, Taliban insurgents sought to penetrate the heavily fortified heart of Kabul on Friday, blasting their way into a residential compound of the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations-affiliated agency.

The Afghan forces managed to hold the attackers at bay, and hundreds of international agency employees in nearby compounds escaped harm. But at least two people were killed and 13 wounded, including an Italian woman, and it took more than six hours for hundreds of Afghan police officers to subdue no more than six attackers with suicide vests, guns and grenade launchers. Explosions continued through the night. The authorities said they were from booby traps the attackers had planted in the compound.

It was the first example of what the military calls a “complex attack,” involving both gunmen and suicide bombers, in the capital since insurgents attacked the headquarters of the unarmed traffic police force in January. It took Afghan forces nine hours to bring that to an end.

Photo: A wounded Afghan police officer was rescued from a checkpoint. Omar Sobhani/Reuters

The morning after the attack
I'm woken by the rough voices of
men banging together metal scaffolding
and joking in a language
I'm too sleepy to learn.

I rise with them
to bang together a
rough draft of whatever
my aching brain can translate
from this wrecked mess.

Reaching open my thick, black curtain
I'm blinded with golden windows
exploding with a raging peace.
"Get out here, professor!" a Brooklyn voice leaps
impossible from an unfinished roof

and comes crashing into my space
riding a wild Afghan light, burning me
like a dead brother returning.
"We need your body!" he keeps singing
into my sunken chest, pounding. 


Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. When not in Kabul, he lives with his wife Ghizlane and twin daughters Rania and Maria in Florida.