In Spirit -- CCMEP
member Brian WoodColorado Campaign for Middle East Peace
Poetry
What She Said -- Lisa Suhair Majaj
Twins -- Norberto Valdez
Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself -- Genevieve Cora Fraser
Poem to the Children of Afghanistan -- Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi
"they never stop. they never do stop." -- Trevor Baumgartner
On the brink of... -- Suheir Hammad
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad -- M. JUNAID ALAM
The Death of Rachel Corrie-- David Rovics
In Spirit -- CCMEP
member Brian Wood
Of Dream and Revolution -- Paul Laraque
A Moment of Silence for 9/11 by Emmanuel Ortiz
self evident by ani di franco
No to War Rap by M. Junaid Alam
The Children Of Iraq Have Names by David Krieger
Thanks for all those who shout their humanity and solidarity: Poetry from Aida Refugee Camp - AbdelFattah Abu-Srour
Drink Delirium, by Naguib Surur
fire, by Abbas Khajeaian
I'll Never Return, by Meena
there have been no words, by Suheir Hammad
Speak to that Young Israeli by Andrew Watt
What She Said
by Lisa Suhair Majaj
"They don't have snow days
in Palestine, they
have military invasion
days." (International
Solidarity Movement
activists, describing
Palestinian children's
lives under Israeli
military occupation.)
She said, go play outside,
but don't throw balls near the soldiers.
When a jeep goes past
keep your eyes on the ground.
And don't pick up stones,
not even for hopscotch. She said,
don't bother the neighbors;
their son was arrested last night.
Hang the laundry, make the beds,
scrub that graffiti off the walls
before the soldiers see it. She said,
there's no money; if your shoes
are too tight, cut the toes off.
This is what we have to eat;
we won't eat again until tomorrow.
No, we don't have any oranges,
they chopped down the orange trees.
I don't know why. Maybe the trees
were threatening the tanks. She said,
there's no water, we'll take baths next week,
insha'allah. Meanwhile, don't flush the toilet.
And don't go near the olive grove,
there are settlers there with guns.
No, I don't know how we'll harvest
the olives, and I don't know what we'll do
if they bulldoze the trees. God will provide
if He wishes, or UNRWA, but certainly not
the Americans. She said, you can't
go out today, there's a curfew.
Keep away from those windows;
can't you hear the shooting?
No, I don't know why they bulldozed
the neighbor's house. And if God knows,
He's not telling. She said,
there's no school today,
it's a military invasion.
No, I don't know when it will be over,
or if it will be over. She said,
don't think about the tanks
or the planes or the guns
or what happened to the neighbors,
Come into the hallway,
it's safer there. And turn off that news,
you're too young for this. Listen,
I'll tell you a story so you won't be scared.
Kan ya ma kan - there was or there was not -
a land called Falastine
where children played in the streets
and in the fields and in the orchards
and picked apricots and almonds
and wove jasmine garlands for their mothers.
And when planes flew overhead
they shouted happily and waved.
Kan ya ma kan. Keep your head down.
This poem was a finalist in the 2004 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About the author: Lisa Suhair Majaj, a Palestinian American, has published poetry and creative nonfiction in World Literature Today, Visions International, South Atlantic Quarterly, The Women's Review of Books, The Atlanta Review, The Poetry of Arab Women, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East, Unrooted Childhoods and elsewhere. She has also co-edited three collections of critical essays.
Twins
by Norberto Valdez, Assoc. Professor of Anthropology
Colorado State University
September 11, 2004
Six months after the fateful events
on the day of twin digits in September
twin beams of blue lights
symbolizing twin towering structures
reaching erect as twin phalluses
penetrating the clear Manhattan sky.
Twin towers that symbolized and coddled
the twin capitalist projects
of free markets and neoliberalism,
of profit and imperialism.
Twin bombings in NY and Washington DC,
the twin imperial homes of
investment capital and military force,
directing and imposing their will
in the name of the twin ideals
of economic growth and democracy.
Twin behemoths led by fraternal twins,
corporate CEO and US president,
with the twin pearls of oil and profit
gleaming in their eyes.
These are the sponsors and defenders
of the twin-headed Bretton Woods monstrosity,
the World Bank and the IMF
who in turn co-sponsor the twin harvests
of Third World poverty and death.
Human suffering so incessant and obvious
to the millions of ill-clad women and men
but hidden behind the twin elite evils
of military dictatorship and media distortion.
Forty thousand child deaths per day
from the twin killers of diarrhea and dehydration,
dead from the twin factors
of higher standards of living in the white North
and colonial profits stolen from the darker South.
Twin attitudes of superiority and racist hate
feed twin threats of materialist individualism
and militarism of the mythical and glorified West,
applying their death grip of poverty and debt.
Where are the twin human qualities
of love and human compassion,
the twin ingredients of human dignity
and sisterly coexistence?
Where is democracy, the dream of workers
searching for dignity, livelihood, and choice.
Yet finding the evils of rigged elections,
bamboozled voters, hanging chads, and
unelected squatters in the halls of power.
We must intensify our search for a new society
based on twin goals of justice and fraternity,
respect for human rights and democracy,
an ability to see in the face of poverty
other terror perpetrated by wealth and privilege.
We must extricate ourselves
from the twin behavioral patterns of
the culture of gross materialist consumption
and the pathological culture of silence.
WE must dedicate our voices and actions
to the defense of peace and justice,
challenging elite defenders of
militarist power and privilege,
for without justice there will be no peace.
Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself
April 22, 2004
Dressed in his best
The little boy sat
Upright and proud
Hands folded on his lap
On the cracked
Front step of his home
His mother
Screamed
To come back in
Curfew, curfew
She cried
Drowned out
By the rumble
And roar of the IDF
Tank thundering
Down the narrow
Balata refugee camp
Rubble strewn street
Certain of death
For defying Mighty Israel
He stared
Straight ahead
Unflinching
Alfawwar camp
Was visited
In the evening
IDF troops in search
Of a wanted man
Instead found
Twenty year-old
Mujahed with an invalid mother
Cancer-ridden
Frighten by sounds
Her son checked
To allay her fears
An Israeli sniper
Shot him in the leg
Bleeding profusely
An ambulance
Called was stopped
Neighbors screamed
Save him
Instead
They killed him
With a shot
To the chest
As he attempted to escape
To return to
His dying mother
A major incursion
By Israeli soldiers
Netted a child
Clinically dead
Nine killed
Forty wounded
Like fish in the sea
Troops cast the net
Once caught
Shot bullets
To the head and heart
From Erez crossing
To "Nissanit" settlement
Into Beit Lahia.
The raid spread
To al-Nada Housing project
A serious escalation
The media droned
Naming names
An agonized chant
Of the dead
The main battle
They reported
Now is focused
On ambulances
Allowing time
For the injured
To bleed to death
"they never stop. they never do stop." (part I)
*for Dr. Samir Masri & Rachel Corrie
April 25, 2003
you could be the one
the only
doctor
wedged b/w
four story cinder block
refugee
homes & the bulldozer
will smudge tracks
straight up to your
front door that you leave
unlocked
b/c you are the one
the only
doctor and you've memorized
each & every wrinkle
every scar jutting under
every single almond eye
you've set the broken
clavicals fusing
bone to bone
you've dug into the
stomachs
the backs
to pluck bullet fragments
out
you've refused to be
forced
from your home
wedged b/w the four-
story cinder block
refugee homes
& the bulldozer
that never stops
that never does stop
--
(part II)
"nothing is more cruel than the soldiers who command the widow to be grateful that she's still alive" --June Jordan, fm. "Kosovo Suite"
& nothing no-
where approaches
barbarism quite like a bulldozer
shoving poisoned soil over
the young woman
then
the home
of the doctor
the local pharmacist
who only attempts
to salve
the scars
the lacerations under
the right eye of the farmer
who only attempts
to salve
the earth under which you
& i trudge regardless
of race of national
boundaries that delineate this ethnic
cleanse from that nothing
is more cruel
than the contempt for you
& i & our relentless reaching
across each border
toward each
other
--
Sons and Daughters of
Baghdad
by M. JUNAID ALAM
March 23, 2003
The intent here is to impose a regime of Shock and Awe through delivery of instant, nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society writ large
--Excerpt from Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
The hour of your liberation draws near
Stand in shock and awe
At the strength of our much-burdened shoulders.
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
The hour of your liberation draws near
Watch as your homes and buildings burn
Cower as the earth around you shakes
Cry as your windows smash and shatter
Run and flee as our armored forces gather
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
The hour of your liberation draws near
Watch the skies for the first signs of your freedom:
Cruise missiles
Electricity fizzles
Microwave bombs
21,000 pound
Laser-guided
Radar-guided
And God-guided munitions
To bring your democracy to fruition.
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
The hour of your liberation draws near
We extend towards you our white hand
Once embraced by many in vain:
Indian, African, Vietnamese,
And washed clean of their colored red stain.
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
The hour of your liberation draws near
Spread the good news to the hospitals
To the cancer wards
To the 500,000
Lying quietly in their tiny coffins
And to those among you
Who will soon join them.
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
The hour of your liberation draws near
Rest assured--your fate is secured
Prepared by the Messianic and the Chosen
Inspired by the liberators of Palestine:
By tanks, settlers, bulldozers,
By starvation, torture, curfews
By occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing
By 1948
And 1492.
Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:
Shock and Awe is here
Prepare your eulogies, your epitaphs
For the hour of your liberation draws near.
M. Junaid Alam, Northeastern University, Political Science Undergrad, Member of Northeastern University Campus Against War and Racism, alam.m@neu.edu
The Death of
Rachel Corrie
David Rovics (Singer and songwriter)
When she sat down in the dirt
In front of your machine
A lovely woman dressed in red
You in military green
If you had met her in Jerusalem
You might have asked her on a date
But here you were in Gaza
Rolling towards the gate
As your foot went to the floor
Did you recall her eyes
Did her gaze remind you
That you've become what you despise
As you rolled on towards this woman
And ignored all the shouts to stop
Did you feel a shred of doubt
As you watched her body drop
And as your Caterpillar tracks
Upon her body pressed
With twenty tons of deadly force
Crushed the bones within her chest
Could you feel the contours of her face
As you took her life away
Did you serve your country well
On that cool spring day
And when you went back across the Green Line
Back to the open shore
Did you think that this was just another day
In a dirty war
And when you looked out on the water
Did you feel an empty void
Or was it just one more life you've taken
One more home destroyed
[Yesterday, Saturday, March 8, thousands of women marched on the White House in Washington DC, demanding peace and standing up for the values of caring and compassion. The march included a pageant of giant puppets and an attempt to encircle the White House with giant pink ribbon. Below is her fable to inspire the pageant.]
Once a people lived along the banks of the river of life
The river of life is a river of sweet water, that awakens the seeds of spring
and nourishes all growing things…
The river of life is a storm wind, blowing fresh across the earth..
The river of life is the deep molten fire that shakes the continents…
And the people should have had all they needed for happiness and joy,
But they were plagued by a terrible monster, the triple-headed monster of Greed,
Hate and War.
Greed sucked up all the colors of life and locked them inside his fortress…
Hate severed the threads of love and taught the people to fear each other…
War threatened destruction to anyone who opposed the monster’s rule…
And the people were separate, and afraid, and poor…
The threads of connection were frayed…
The fabric of care unravelled…
And War took the young and marched them off to slaughter and die in places far
away…
Greed stole their future...
The river of life ran dry.
The women saw the springs go barren, the new sprouts fail, the trees die, and
the hills turn brown…
And they wept and mourned, and didn't know what to do.
The women, too, were divided, for some had more and some had less.
Old wounds and present injustices kept them apart.
But as War shook his fist, and threatened to unleash
weapons to destroy the earth.
The women turned to each other, They said: "We are scraps of a torn fabric,
but if we tie them together,
We can bind wounds, dry tears,
weave a net to carry heavy loads.."
"We must amplify love, and throw off dread,
Take back our power and spin a thread,
A life line, held in our strong hands,
A living web of shining strands."
"And our hands remember how to spin.
We spin freedom on the rising wind,
We spin threads of life, the cords of fate,
We spin love into a river that can overrun hate,"
"We spin justice burning like a flaming star,
We spin peace into a river that can overcome war.
And if you want to know where true power lies,
Turn and look into your sisters’ eyes…"
"So come mothers and grandmothers,
Lovers and daughters,
Come spinners and weavers,
Tool makers, potters,
Dancers and dreamers,
Fixers and changers,
Singers and screamers,
Forget all the dangers,
Come ancestors, guardians, Goddesses too,
You who teach us, you who speak true,
You who plant, and you who reap,
You who soar and you who creep,
You who cook, and you who drum,
You who have been, and you yet to come,
You who fight with the sword,
You who fight with the pen,
Unreasonable women,
Unmanageable men,
Come harpies and banshees and gorgons and Witches,
Come sweet loving hearts and furious bitches!"
"Break the chains that have kept us bound,
Weave a web to pull the monster down.
In the face of truth, no lie can stand,
Weave the vision, strand by strand."
"We are sweet water, we are the seed,
We are the storm wind to blow away greed.
We are the new world we bring to birth,
The river rising to reclaim the earth."
This is not a struggle between the US and Iraq.
This is a struggle of the powerful whites
Against the voiceless browns.
This is a struggle of the overweight and well-fed
Against the chronically malnourished and starving.
This is a struggle of the rich and famous
Against the outcast and dispossessed.
This is a struggle in the spirit of Christopher Columbus,
Who killed, enslaved and colonized natives
For the Spanish empire,
only this time, George Bush is sailing an Israeli ship
towards well-chartered territory.
This is a struggle for civil rights
In the spirit of our enslaved brothers and sisters
Under a white supremacist yoke.
This is not a struggle between East and West,
Islam and Christianity, or civilizations.
This is a struggle of corporate life
For the air and earth of another people.
It has everything to do with the IMF and World Bank
Tightening their white, well-dressed hands around the necks
Of more and more colored peoples ancestral lands;
Take off the suit and the skin is clear: Economic slavery,
In the spirit of our grandfather’s beating their “property” on the cotton plantations.
This is not about oil or votes or simple anecdotes
But of white supreme-ism, western colonizing, IMF enslavement,
Rich fuckers killing the poor by dysentery, water-born diseases, and starvation.
Think about that next time you order your Big Mac.
The struggle doesn’t end there.
The US soldiers in Iraq: What language will they be speaking
to the people they are killing, rebuilding, monopolizing?
While the ears they are yappin’ at won’t understand a thing.
You see, it’s a lingual thing as well.
English is the tongue everybody has to know
Or they're left out on the street, far away from all the show.
English: The language of domination, spoken by the latest colonizers
Trotting all the world around.
But I don’t want to get on board
‘Cuz your train will soon be swept up
By the pages of the hist’ry books
And those on board will be lookin’
As the naked, timid, hungry ones they are.
They will soon have to see that they are not so far
Away.
From those their killing.
Link the issues or you will fade away.
Fade away and you become accomplices.
February 20, 2003
A Moment of Silence for 9/11
By Emmanuel
Ortiz, 9/11/02
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to
join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who
died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last
September 11th.
I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of
silence for all of those who have been harassed,
imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in
retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in both
Afghanistan and the U.S.
And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence for the tens of thousands of
Palestinians who have died at the hands of
U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million-and-a-half Iraqi
people, mostly
children, who have died of malnourishment or
starvation as a result of
an 11-year U.S. embargo against the country.
Before I begin this poem, two months of silence
for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
where homeland security made them aliens in their own
country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, where death rained down and peeled back
every layer of concrete, steel, earth, and skin and
the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Viet Nam
- a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or
two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives'
bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos,
victims of a secret war ... ssssshhhhh ... Say nothing
... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in
Colombia, whose names, like the corpses they once
represented, have piled up and slipped off our
tongues.
Before I begin this poem, an hour of silence for El
Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guetmaltecos ... None of
whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living
years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal,
Chiapas.
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans
who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than
any building could poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to
identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the
heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the
east, the west ... 100 years of silence ...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples
from this half of right here,whose land and lives were
stolen, in postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge,
Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail
of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the
refrigerator of our unconsciousness ...
So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust
Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.
Because this is not a 9/11 poem
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 99 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be
written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem,
Then this is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South
Africa, 1977
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at
Attica Prison, New
York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date
that falls to the ground in ashes.
This is a poem for every date
that falls to the ground in ashes.
This is a poem for the 110 stories
that were never told.
The 110 stories that history
chose not to write in textbooks.
The 110 stories that
CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children.
Before I start this poem
we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us.
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.
If you want a moment of silence,
Put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses,
The Penthouses, and the Playboys.
If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it on Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room
where MY beautiful people have gathered.
You want a moment of silence
Then take it now,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence
Take it.
But take it all.
Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.
But we, Tonight
We will keep right on singing
For our dead.
by Emmanuel Ortiz 9.11.02
"Where There'z Fear, Freedom Diez.
Where There'z Peace, Freedom Flyz."
self evident
by ani di franco
yes,
us people are just poems
we're 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning
approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says>
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair
there on the bow of noah's ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its indian summer breeze
on the day that america
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please
and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening
between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for to fly
and then while the fires were raging
we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands
and jumped into the sky
and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
looked more like war than anything i've seen so far
so far
so far
so fierce and ingenious
a poetic specter so far gone
that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
and i'll tell you what, while we're at it
you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every tv
that's been trying to convince me
to participate
in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
is still hanging in the air
and there's ash on our shoes
and there's ash in our hair
and there's a fine silt on every mantle
from hell's kitchen to brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories
sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
with tales of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin
like never before
as all over the country
folks just shake their heads
and pour
so here's a toast to all the folks who live in palestine
afghanistan
iraq
el salvador
here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore
here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
who daily provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city
just to listen to a young woman's voice
here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner's guillotine
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
to find
peace in the form of a dream
cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
i mean
it don't take a weatherman
to look around and see the weather
jeb said he'd deliver florida, folks
and boy did he ever
and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 george w. bush is not president
#2 america is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
i've got no room for a lie so verbose
i'm looking out over my whole human family
and i'm raising my glass in a toast
here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
i dream of touring like duke ellington
in my own railroad car
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face
give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else's desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever
cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall
and while we're at it
remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn't even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?
can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their
design
following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?!
it was a joke, of course
it was a joke
at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that
the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
and scoping that scene
religiously
the CIA
or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse
for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn't have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
should be more than pawns
in some asshole's passion play
so now it's your job
and it's my job
to make it that way
to make sure they didn't die in vain
sshhhhhh....
baby listen
hear the train?
by M. JUNAID ALAM
Who can deny
The violence of the policies we decry
Inflicted against innocents who defy
The deep lies of our time?
Who can deny the crimes
Committed for line after line of nickel and dime
To the rhythm and rhyme of bullets and mines
Broken by women's' cries?
Bombs explode the ground so the sound
Of the soul that implodes is heard, learned, and told
For before the cannons reload we must break a new mold
And capture in rapture the conscience of the cold--
Heart.
Bullets dart while bombs dubbed smart rub against
Toddlers in tubs-now tombs
Depleted Uranium looms, the daisy-cutter cracks
Babies' craniums en masse as another mother stutters, taken aback
She wails and-boom
Injustice sets sail and over our voices prevails
Until we make decisions un-reversed by revisions in detail
To derail the hail of hellish weapons dropped on flailing brethren
Dropped over Baghdad, ironclad:
Explosives corrosive to our morality
Conducive to brutality of-who?
The ruling-class crew that
Wipe's Bush's ass squeaky clean like glass while
Callous and crass towards humanity:
American, Iraqi, our universality
Let's grab back from the backstab of humanity's scabs
and enemies
Our own dreams and destinies
Against reams of lies
Against screams of 'fire!'
Against hate designed
Against fate maligned
And make good of the common brotherhood that is ours
Before it's devoured by cowards creeping in corners and crevices
Of power
Whose graceless faces grate and turn sour when
We roar:
No to war!
M. Junaid Alam is a student at Northeastern University and a member of the NU Students Against War and Racism Coalition. He can be reached at: alam.m@neu.edu
by DAVID KRIEGER
November 2, 2002
The children of Iraq have names.
They are not the nameless ones.
The children of Iraq have faces.
They are not the faceless ones.
The children of Iraq do not wear Saddam's face.
They each have their own face.
The children of Iraq have names.
They are not all called Saddam Hussein.
The children of Iraq have hearts.
They are not the heartless ones.
The children of Iraq have dreams.
They are not the dreamless ones.
The children of Iraq have hearts that pound.
They are not meant to be statistics of war.
The children of Iraq have smiles.
They are not the sullen ones.
The children of Iraq have twinkling eyes.
They are quick and lively with their laughter.
The children of Iraq have hopes.
They are not the hopeless ones.
The children of Iraq have fears.
They are not the fearless ones.
The children of Iraq have names.
Their names are not collateral damage.
What do you call the children of Iraq?
Call them Omar, Mohamed, Fahad.
Call them Marwa and Tiba.
Call them by their names.
But never call them statistics of war.
Never call them collateral damage.
David Krieger is
president of the Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation. His latest book is
Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age. He can be
contacted at dkrieger@napf.org.
Drink Delirium
There will be anger
Followed by the deluge.
We know we will be among the drowned.
But we will take the devil with us down
To the deepest of deeps:
Our end will be his...
But slowly... What will be said
Of us when they look back on it all?
What will be said
Of us after the deluge,
After the coming drowning, after the coming anger,
What will be said of us poets and writers?
Were we men in truth,
Half-men
Or mere shadows?
Fear,
Fear of the sword,
Made of us something unspeakable --
Except in the vulgar tongue.
[...]
What will be said?
Will it be said we chose silence
For fear of death?
The letter has an edge like a sword,
Can turn against its speaker.
[...]
What will be said?
Will it be said that we chose to speak in symbols,
Whispers, silent gestures,
In all the arts of coded speech?
We said it all -- in vino veritas,
But people
Had other concerns:
Their daily bread,
A kilo of meat.
[...]
Maqrizi,
You who always come after the deluge:
A plague is a plague --
It always comes on the tail of a famine.
It snatched your daughter, and many other daughters
As the wolf was standing guard.
[...]
I hereby solemnly swear, Maqrizi,
Not to leave this world
Without scandal.
I ask no one for justice:
True justice is not to be begged.
Our judges are high priests,
Our high priests are distant
And all are traitors.
Let someone else write poetry,
I am writing the Chronicles of Maqrizi.
[...]
I drink, day
And night I drink.
Sinking... I sink into my depths.
There I see him,
In my heart a holy pearl,
Unbreakable,
Even if a giant mountain falls upon it.
When I sober up, I float to the surface, lose my pearl.
Was it lost? No. It was me who was lost--
When I sobered up I floated to the surface.
For sure the pearl is down there in the depths...
No.
It is between two thighs, trampled under feet
Shod in military or civilian boots,
Under the wheels of petro-dollar cars.
[...].
Usually I drink from two glasses...
My comrade in the madhouse died.
He used to share my drink
And share my grief.
We had no time for joy:
He used to share my past anger,
And present anger -- and that to come.
Usually I drink from two glasses,
The second to toast him.
But tonight I drink from one glass:
It seems my friend, upon his death,
Had given up drinking;
Or maybe it was me who gave up.
Then let me drink to giving up drinking
Until the last of all the Noahs' arks has left
With all those who will be saved from the coming deluge.
.................
I sink and sink
And see in my glass
Monkey fornicating with rat
Or rat fornicating with wolf
Or wolf with owl.
................
Maqrizi's daughter is lost
In the plague
And the plague always comes on the tail of a famine,
When prices are measured against a kilo of meat,
Even the price of writers, novelists, poets,
Artists and scientists,
When the stuff of the dreams of the poor is meat;
And fuul beans,
Fruit for the masters.
[...]
I recall a poet's saying:
I shall sleep not to see
My country being bought and sold.
[...]
Then drink from two glasses,
Or, if you wish, drink from one.
If my death cannot be driven away,
Then let me engage with it
With what I have at hand.
- Naguib Surur
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translated by Mona Anis and Nur Elmessiri
Extracted from the Faris Akhir Zaman (Knight of Our Time) collection of poetry;
published in Naguib Surur's Complete Works, vol. 4, General Egyptian Book
Organization: Cairo, 1997
* Naguib Surur's son, Shohdy Naguib (Al-Ahram Weekly's webmaster), was arrested in the early hours of Thursday November 22 from his home in Sayeda Zeinab, Egypt.. Security forces raided his house at dawn, confiscated his computer and took him to Al-Sayeda Zeinab police station. According to Naguib, he's accused of posting the above poem, online, by his late father Naguib Surur, the renowned poet, playwright, actor and controversial figure. More on this story here.
fire
gather around
you love seekers
it is time to set the fire in your breast
the thieves of
your souls and saffron
have rampaged your towns
for eight hundred years
stealing from you
days and celestial nights
taken the earth
and the ancient roots
to be sold
at the marketplace
of degradation and shame
you have inhaled
their breath of darkness
your heart is poisoned
your eyes can't
travel beyond your toes
your hands are empty
and your feet have no direction
gather around
you love seekers
it is time to set the fire in your breast
bring your caged heart
your tarnished soul
and cleanse them with
the fire of love
take your borrwed rational
your iron intellect
to the dream killers
and stamp them
rejected
let all established paradigms die
in the flame of love
and come back to me
with sun in your eyes
mountains in your spines
then
i will help you
to cross the river
to where
all shades of colors
are in harmony
and as brilliant as
hope
I'll Never Return
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of my burnt children
I've arisen from the rivulets of my brother's blood
My nation's wrath has empowered me
My ruined and burnt villages fill me with hatred against the enemy,
I'm the woman who has awoken,
I've found my path and will never return.
I've opened closed doors of ignorance
I've said farewell to all golden bracelets
Oh compatriot, I'm not what I was
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've found my path and will never return.
I've seen barefoot, wandering and homeless children
I've seen henna-handed brides with mourning clothes
I've seen giant walls of the prisons swallow freedom in their ravenous stomach
I've been reborn amidst epics of resistance and courage
I've learned the song of freedom in the last breaths, in the waves of blood and in victory
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, no longer regard me as weak and incapable
With all my strength I'm with you on the path of my land's liberation.
My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women
My fists are clenched with the fists of thousands compatriots
Along with you I've stepped up to the path of my nation,
To break all these sufferings all these fetters of slavery,
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, I'm not what I was
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've found my path and will never return.
—Meena (1957-1987)
Meena was the founder of the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan. Her entire life was dedicated to the service of her people, and most especially her the women of her nation. Her active social work and effective advocacy against the views of the fundamentalists and the puppet regime provoked the wrath of the Russians and the fundamentalist forces alike and she was assassinated by agents of KHAD (Afghanistan branch of KGB) and their fundamentalist accomplices in Quetta, Pakistan, on February 4,1987.
Below is a piece by Palestinian-American writer Suheir Hammad, author of "Born Palestinian, Born Black." Suheir was born and raised in NYC.
1. there have been no words.
i have not written one word.
no poetry in the ashes south of canal street.
no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris
and dna.
not one word.
today is a week, and seven is of heavens, gods,
science.
evident out my kitchen window is an abstract
reality.
sky where once was steel.
smoke where once was flesh.
fire in the city air and i feared for my sister's
life in a way never
before. and then, and now, i fear for the rest of
us.
first, please god, let it be a mistake, the pilot's
heart failed, the
plane's engine died.
then please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now.
please god, after the second plane, please, don't
let it be anyone
who looks like my brothers.
i do not know how bad a life has to break in order
to kill.
i have never been so hungry that i willed hunger
i have never been so angry as to want to control a
gun over a pen.
not really.
even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human
being.
never this broken.
more than ever, i believe there is no difference.
the most privileged nation, most americans do not
know the difference
between indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims, sikhs,
hindus.
more than ever, there is no difference.
2. thank you korea for kimchi and bibim bob, and
corn tea and the
genteel smiles of the wait staff at wonjo the smiles
never revealing
the heat of the food or how tired they must be
working long midtown
shifts. thank you korea, for the belly craving that
brought me into
the city late the night before and diverted my daily
train ride into
the world trade center.
there are plenty of thank yous in ny right now.
thank you for my
lazy procrastinating late ass. thank you to the
germs that had me
call in sick. thank you, my attitude, you had me
fired the week
before. thank you for the train that never came,
the rude nyer who
stole my cab going downtown. thank you for the
sense my mama gave me
to run. thank you for my legs, my eyes, my life.
3. the dead are called lost and their families hold
up shaky
printouts in front of us through screens smoked up.
we are looking for iris, mother of three. please
call with any
information. we are searching for priti, last seen
on the 103rd
floor. she was talking to her husband on the phone
and the line
went. please help us find george, also known as
adel. his family is
waiting for him with his favorite meal. i am
looking for my son, who
was delivering coffee. i am looking for my sister
girl, she started
her job on monday.
i am looking for peace. i am looking for mercy. i
am looking for
evidence of compassion. any evidence of life. i am
looking for
life.
4. ricardo on the radio said in his accent thick as
yuca, "i will
feel so much better when the first bombs drop over
there. and my
friends feel the same way."
on my block, a woman was crying in a car parked and
stranded in hurt.
i offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see
before she said,
"we"re gonna burn them so bad, i swear, so bad." my
hand went to my
head and my head went to the numbers within it of
the dead iraqi
children, the dead in nicaragua. the dead in rwanda
who had to vie
with fake sport wrestling for america's attention.
yet when people sent emails saying, this was bound
to happen, lets
not forget u.s. transgressions, for half a second i
felt resentful.
hold up with that, cause i live here, these are my
friends and fam,
and it could have been me in those buildings, and
we"re not bad
people, do not support america's bullying. can i
just have a half
second to feel bad?
if i can find through this exhaust people who were
left behind to
mourn and to resist mass murder, i might be alright.
thank you to the woman who saw me brinking my cool
and blinking back
tears. she opened her arms before she asked "do you
want a hug?" a
big white woman, and her embrace was the kind only
people with the
warmth of flesh can offer. i wasn't about to say no
to any comfort.
"my brother's in the navy," i said. "and we"re
arabs". "wow, you
got double trouble." word.
5. one more person ask me if i knew the hijackers.
one more motherfucker ask me what navy my brother is
in.
one more person assume no arabs or muslims were
killed.
one more person assume they know me, or that i
represent a people.
or that a people represent an evil. or that evil is
as simple as a
flag and words on a page.
we did not vilify all white men when mcveigh bombed
oklahoma.
america did not give out his family's addresses or
where he went to
church. or blame the bible or pat robertson.
and when the networks air footage of palestinians
dancing in the
street, there is no apology that hungry children are
bribed with
sweets that turn their teeth brown. that
correspondents edit images.
that archives are there to facilitate lazy and
inaccurate
journalism.
and when we talk about holy books and hooded men and
death, why do we
never mention the kkk?
if there are any people on earth who understand how
new york is
feeling right now, they are in the west bank and the
gaza strip.
6. today it is ten days. last night bush waged war
on a man once
openly funded by the
cia. i do not know who is responsible. read too
many books, know
too many people to believe what i am told. i don't
give a fuck about
bin laden. his vision of the world does not include
me or those i
love. and petittions have been going around for
years trying to get
the u.s. sponsored taliban out of power. shit is
complicated, and i
don't know what to think.
but i know for sure who will pay.
in the world, it will be women, mostly colored and
poor. women will
have to bury children, and support themselves
through grief. "either
you are with us, or with the terrorists" - meaning
keep your people
under control and your resistance censored. meaning
we got the loot
and the nukes.
in america, it will be those amongst us who refuse
blanket attacks on
the shivering. those of us who work toward social
justice, in
support of civil liberties, in opposition to hateful
foreign
policies.
i have never felt less american and more new yorker,
particularly
brooklyn, than these past days. the stars and
stripes on all these
cars and apartment windows represent the dead as
citizens first, not
family members, not lovers.
i feel like my skin is real thin, and that my eyes
are only going to
get darker. the future holds little light.
my baby brother is a man now, and on alert, and
praying five times a
day that the orders he will take in a few days time
are righteous and
will not weigh his soul down from the afterlife he
deserves.
both my brothers - my heart stops when i try to pray
- not a beat to
disturb my fear. one a rock god, the other a
sergeant, and both
palestinian, practicing muslim, gentle men. both
born in brooklyn
and their faces are of the archetypal arab man, all
eyelashes and
nose and beautiful color and stubborn hair.
what will their lives be like now?
over there is over here.
7. all day, across the river, the smell of burning
rubber and limbs
floats through. the sirens have stopped now. the
advertisers are
back on the air. the rescue workers are
traumatized. the skyline is
brought back to human size. no longer taunting the
gods with its
height.
i have not cried at all while writing this. i cried
when i saw those
buildings collapse on themselves like a broken
heart. i have never
owned pain that needs to spread like that. and i
cry daily that my
brothers return to our mother safe and whole.
there is no poetry in this. there are causes and
effects. there are
symbols and ideologies. mad conspiracy here, and
information we will
never know. there is death here, and there are
promises of more.
there is life here. anyone reading this is
breathing, maybe hurting,
but breathing for sure. and if there is any light
to come, it will
shine from the eyes of those who look for peace and
justice after the
rubble and rhetoric are cleared and the phoenix has
risen.
affirm life.
affirm life.
we got to carry each other now.
you are either with life, or against it.
affirm life.
suheir hammad