From within an Avalanche of rubble…. 10
Cactus spikes form, erecting defensive stubble. 12
Where the dimples of a smile ought to reign, 11
Gazans strain like the foreign Canary Pine trees dry out in Palestine. 18
Brave men transform into solid sticks
yearning to lift concrete Stones off beloveds’ bones …
they cannot. Cage-like crosses of olive wood
collected contagiously in the Land of Milk and Honey imprison
Palestinians holding headless kids
into the war-seeped air starving for sea and glee.
They forego intimate grief with the pleas for all
to witness blackened trees… crucifixes cutting chords…Controversially ~
Swapping Religious sanctity for Truth—
The oppressed transmute into journalistic Sleuths.
Calling us Terrorists, when you bomb us,
in our enclaves, as though we were your African slaves, 1817.
Except we can neither work nor construct,
as even singing or eating obstructs
your stark cause, agenda for inhabiting
a historic olive tree land, unbeknownst to you and your elders.
What may we do right to temper your hate?
How may we merge ‘indifference’ with love?
Turtledoves torpedo freely between strips,
inseaming the two diverging sections of one land, inciting frenzy.
Visceral Earthquakes unforeseen to man
on such ghastly scale, red boils normalize Death.
A deep mourning breath taken in Palestine
is fine insofar your child remains alive with one good wing intact…
Only then may you locate glory amid the shards of shrapnel,
and inhale an Awakening so severe
it ripples musically into sea waves
Turtle-ing future airs into tails of freedom: betrothed martyrdom.
