In prison he went on hunger-strike
his guts alive in the hope of feeding tragedy
with the leavening of farce.

Water and salt
to delay death from the body of the cause
and keep oppression living that God might quicken
our salvation;
the miracle of our age a law that throws open
prison doors with miraculous hands.

We tried to bring our lives back to life
and build a state for all
not one legitimated by divine promise as they claim
or by Balfour, heavenly representative, to
resolve the matter.

What a strange world:
the wounds of people heal at life’s end
but my wound unlike all the people keeps spurting
for when the bleeding stops
the bleeding starts itself all over again.

What a strange world:
we’ve become prisoners whose only crime
was to fire the clay of tragedy
as though the pottery
had shaped itself in hollowed-out eyes.

We brushed off the occupier in the West Bank
and asked for our rights to the land, that’s all,
not out of greed for the life of the free in ease
and luxury.

Arabs and foreigners are deaf to us
as though we were mutes weeping over ruins on Mars
we groan in the guest’s prisons so we might live.
Where have you buried yourself? Please tell,
so-called honour.