This poem was written on 22 April 2002, in the wake of Palestine being bombarded by Isreal and the invasion of Iraq.
A poem for Palestine
This world which has conceived
So much misery
In her bloated womb
Must be blown up by
A suicide bomber
An American bomber
An English bomer
Or
Sa’adam Hossein’s
Weapons of mass destruction.
*
Those humans
Who grew up
In the gas chambers
And the Auschwitz camps
Must be frozen enmasse.
*
Our opaque eyes
which stare at the TV screens
Day and night
In disbelief
In horrid
In fear
In indifference
In admiration
At the scale of destruction
And the holocaust
Of olive groves
And orange groves
Must be washed
In clean, cool waters
Of an unpolluted
Highland spring
In planet Mars.
*
Our brains
Entangled
In the barbed wires
Of words
Humanity, justice, retribution
Brotherhood, sisterhood
Compassion, peace
In a steel dictionary
Do not comprehend
The scale of human savagery.
*
Our hearts
Our machine-made hearts
Synthetic-made,
Nylon-made hearts
Ache no more.
*
And our opaque eyes
Which look for silk
In a steel dictionary
Do not see anymore.
*
And our thoughts
Swim in pools of blood
In a world with no eyesight
No heartache
Sterile.
*
Our machine-made thoughts
Media-made thoughts
Corrupt thoughts
George W. Bush-made thoughts
Blairite-made thoughts
Thatcherite-made thoughts
Made in the civilised world
Thoughts which are not allowed
To think of a world
Which overnight
Creates foes from anonymity
Foes who were not terrorists
Fundamentalists
Suicide bombers
When on this side,
Foes, who once
On the other side,
Aim to destroy
The civilised world
The birthplace of
The atom bomb
Weapons of mass destruction
The centre of mass destruction
And barbed wires.
*
And Him, who
One cool summer night
Turned from a tamed scholar
Fully equipped
Fully trained with American weaponry
Into a foe
And brought with him
Down the whole world.
*
And I, who in normal circumstances
am a normal, below average cirtizen
Is cornered to make friends
With George W. Bush
And ally with him
Or declared his enemy
And eligible for destruction
On the spot.
*
And my synthetic thoughts
Machine-made thoughts
Are ordered to shape
To decide and cast vote
For one candidate
Robert Mogabe
Or Robert Mogabeh.
*
And my eyes are ordered not to see
And not to register
The haolocaust of Palestine
And the refugee camps
And the woman
Who is a refugee
In her own home
Who scatters dead soil
On her head and wails
For her son
Whom she cannot marry off
And whom, he would not
Bring her grandchildren
And whose naighbours
Have been massacred enmasse
By the fully trained
Survivors of the concentration camps
Those who are not victims
No more
But occupiers
And
Murderers of
Olive groves
And orange groves
And the subterranean waters
And foetuses in the womb
Of every Palestinian woman.
*
And my tamed mind
Is ordered
To get ready for the timing
When, after a barbeque
At the White House
George W. Bush
In a jolly mood
Decides to call
The Right Honourable Tony Brair
To both agree
On the timing
To bomb the Iraqi people.
*
Oh, God
If you are
From wherever you are
Please demand
That your Messangers
Christ, Moses and Mohammad
Convene their general assembly
And give their followers
Hearts to feel
Eyes to see
Brains to think
And
Order them to add
A clause in their declaration
Aimed at George W. Bush
To soften his stand
To let me decide between
Him and
Tony Brair
Him and
Margaret Thacher
Him and Atiel Sharon
Benjamin Netynyahu
Him and Sa’adam Hossein
Him and Khomeini
Amen.
22 April 2002
