The bitter ruins of Gaza
sprouted the arm of a child.
It waved at God two days ago
but the heavens were overcast
as their symbolic resonance had been rented to jets
to render that hand,
pregnant with the phoenix
of the ashes, and so-called hope,
invisible.
Last night I convinced myself to sleep
and not watch television.
I saw beyond the imagination of one with wounded dreams:
The dogs in Rafah
were tasting pain.
Our wounded childhood
was begging a dog:
“Kill me,”
so feelings might have a reprieve from the jackboot.
Death, who sent you?
Who swept away the clouds of deepest winter, so their
vultures could be seen swooping down to the brink of life?
Death,
seek not the children,
depart.
They’ve gone on their own to the chilled compartments of the morgue.
All their loved ones are there, staying up late.
On the top level, their mother Hasna
dies hurriedly
to stake a place in the graveyard for her little ones.
Death, who recommended me?
Death ...
How long have you been looking out for your children at school?
You know they’re not there.
Didn’t your amateur wildness tell you it’s a holy day?
Let me ask you ...
Where are the prophets of old
to deliver the victims from the guileless bullet?
The house next door has no room for salvation ...
By the God who made grief a joke
before my eyes,
and who made my assailant laugh at me,
I can see the unseeable.
Bewail the slaughtered my truce-seeking heart, and take note
of the calibre of the gun and the world’s silence.
Forget atonement,
time and again you have slaughtered me tolerantly
and howled at nothing.
The Gospels are meaningless not wiping away the tears of the wound
on the day the butcher endlessly flays my skin. So I continue
in agony, the mystique having fallen away.
Merciful one, tell me
are you ignorant of the modern warmonger?
Do you equate the sword of tribesmen to the bomb?
By God, speak!
Has he who loves you won?
By God,
answer!
See Qur’an 4:56, “Surely those who disbelieve in Our signs -- We shall certainly roast them at a Fire; as often as their skins are wholly burned, We shall give them in exchange other skins, that they may taste the chastisement. Surely God is All-mighty, All-wise.”
sprouted the arm of a child.
It waved at God two days ago
but the heavens were overcast
as their symbolic resonance had been rented to jets
to render that hand,
pregnant with the phoenix
of the ashes, and so-called hope,
invisible.
Last night I convinced myself to sleep
and not watch television.
I saw beyond the imagination of one with wounded dreams:
The dogs in Rafah
were tasting pain.
Our wounded childhood
was begging a dog:
“Kill me,”
so feelings might have a reprieve from the jackboot.
Death, who sent you?
Who swept away the clouds of deepest winter, so their
vultures could be seen swooping down to the brink of life?
Death,
seek not the children,
depart.
They’ve gone on their own to the chilled compartments of the morgue.
All their loved ones are there, staying up late.
On the top level, their mother Hasna
dies hurriedly
to stake a place in the graveyard for her little ones.
Death, who recommended me?
Death ...
How long have you been looking out for your children at school?
You know they’re not there.
Didn’t your amateur wildness tell you it’s a holy day?
Let me ask you ...
Where are the prophets of old
to deliver the victims from the guileless bullet?
The house next door has no room for salvation ...
By the God who made grief a joke
before my eyes,
and who made my assailant laugh at me,
I can see the unseeable.
Bewail the slaughtered my truce-seeking heart, and take note
of the calibre of the gun and the world’s silence.
Forget atonement,
time and again you have slaughtered me tolerantly
and howled at nothing.
The Gospels are meaningless not wiping away the tears of the wound
on the day the butcher endlessly flays my skin. So I continue
in agony, the mystique having fallen away.
Merciful one, tell me
are you ignorant of the modern warmonger?
Do you equate the sword of tribesmen to the bomb?
By God, speak!
Has he who loves you won?
By God,
answer!
See Qur’an 4:56, “Surely those who disbelieve in Our signs -- We shall certainly roast them at a Fire; as often as their skins are wholly burned, We shall give them in exchange other skins, that they may taste the chastisement. Surely God is All-mighty, All-wise.”