MUHAMMAD AL-KASBEH(1998-2015)

A middle-aged man shoots a fleeing child

in the back, then kicks him

as he lies dying, and

leaves without giving first aid

or calling an ambulance.

A middle-aged man, a colonel

in the occupation forces,

and an illegal settler

squatting on brutally occupied land,

kills a child who never tasted freedom

and died with the taste

of his own blood in his mouth.

A child whose two brothers

were killed before,

by men in the same

occupying forces' uniform,

adult men killing children

knowing murdering children

carries no punishment.

Only praise.

Later the killer will claim

that he, a career occupier

in a uniform and out of it,

was 'afraid' and felt

he was 'in danger'.

Thus bullets in the back

of a fleeing child,

and leaving him to die,

he said.

The killer's name?

Israel.

30.04.2020

COSMIC DEATH

If we could perish

like blazing stars die,

birthing a vivid nebula,

a cosmic butterfly

opening its wings

in rushing stellar winds.

25.02.2014-30.04.2020

we never had a chance

it's always

too late

in this

life

it's always

too late

in this

life

and yet

and yet

we can't

but hope

and dream

we can't

but hope

and dream

and forget

and forget

that we

never

had a chance

that we

never

had a chance

30.04.2020

THE DEAD II

Let us not try to

speak for the Dead,

for they have

their own voice

in the silence

that chimes

through every

moment in time

we exist in;

just like they

are present

in the absence

that cuts a wound

through our

every waking moment.

29.04.2020

THE DEAD I

Let us not try to

speak for the Dead,

for they have

their own voice

in the silence

that follows

when we

expect to hear

their voice,

just like they

have their presence

in the absence

that pierces existence

like a lance

the side

of a crucified god.

29.04.2020

THE PAST IS A BLEEDING WOUND

The past is a bleeding wound,

and it will go on bleeding

through all our remaining

grief-stricken days

until we die

from sorrow's gangrene.

29.04.2020

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIBERALS, CONSERVATIVES AND FASCISTS

The difference between

liberals, conservatives and fascists

is that the first one
carries his hate mostly inside,

the second allows it to show

while keeping up the facade of 

supposed civility,

and the third one shows his hate proudly,

with the liberal and the conservative

following in his wake

like destroyers follow a battlecruiser.

28.04.2020

one day it will all end

1

one day

it will all

end

&

there will be

no more

days

2

you

live in a

closed universe

beginning in

birth ending

in death

&

nothing

exists

outside

that

island universe

of thought

27.04.2020

THE BARENTS SEA

The sea comes gray

in great cold waves to eat

away the gray cliffs

standing treeless

under the gray sky,

wave after gray wave:

Patient is the sea

and patient are the cliffs,

falling into the sea

so slowly through

the ages. The sea

will have its victory in patience,

the doomed sea

that shall once die

under an older sun,

leaving schorched cliffs to face

the slower waves

of great dunes.

24.04.2020

ALAN SEEGER(1888-1916)

War is a fairy tale

of doomed heroes

seeking their destiny -

until comes the

Fourth of July

on the Somme,

and crossing the

No-Man's-Land

you get shot in stomach.

1638 bodies

and one of them yours

in the mass graves at Lihons.

23.04.2020

THE HOUSE WE BUILT

Far from the best of times,

this blighted era we inhabit,

but we did our part in fouling it,

building on the rotten foundings

our forebears threw together,

this pile of misery that sways

in the winds of the growing storm.

Blame the architect and the mason,

blame the carpenter and the roofer,

all made their work in ill haste,

all were drunk with illusions,

all thought themselves masters of their craft

when mere apprentices were

building this pile of misery that sways

in the winds of the growing storm.

Hear the winds of the growing storm

rise, howling outside walls

through which their chill comes;

listen to the sound of rain

dripping through the rotten roof,

hear how this pile of misery

in agony creaks around us.

23.04.2020

GONE ARE THE DEAD

Gone are the dead,

gone are the living,

and soon shall we

go and never return.

Beyond the radiant,

withered fields of April,

beyond the pale blue

horizon of dark hills,

gone are the dead,

gone are the living

and soon shall we

go and never return.

Beyond thought

and beyond sight,

beyond hope

and beyond despair

gone are the dead,

gone are the living

and soon shall we

go and never return.

23.04.2020

THE AUSTRIANS AND THE GERMANS AND THE REST

There is no end to the long lines of occupied

Palestinians the Austrians and the Germans

and the rest are ready to send through the gates

of Death at Israel's hands to make amends

for the Jews they killed themselves; and

as then, so now: Those who die appear not

human to the Austrians and the Germans

and the rest, for the long lines of the victims

are mute to them, and have no faces, as

they go to their deaths to pay old debts

in blood with their blood; those never spilled

the blood the Austrians and the Germans

and the rest did, dying, so that the Austrians

and the Germans and the rest can say, from

one decade of occupation to the next and

the one after it and so forth: "We stand on

Israel's side!" Yes, you do - and still, be

honest, pull the triggers, as you did to the Jews.

23.04.2020

LIMBO

O my friend, perhaps this is Limbo

and we all died,

and never noticed:

Remember the horror stories

where you at night wander

to a bar or a gasoline station,

after being run over on the road,

and finally in the end realize

the patrons and the staff

are all dead - like you;

but, my friend, in our case

perhaps the whole planet died

(an asteroid, coming from the Sun,

or just god(s) bringing down the curtain?)

and send our souls to Limbo,

and the great revelation

is still to come?

22.04.2020

POINTLESS TEARS

Don't cry, my lovely, for me

for you, too, shall die -

you, who will lament

your grief beside my open grave,

shall in a new grave soon lie;

pointless tears shall be

shed to you, too, by those

whose own coffins soon are made.

22.04.2020

NO SURVIVORS

Life is a horror novel,

as much as it may seem

a comedy on occasion,

or give an illusion

of a happy ending

if we stop

following the story

until its end;

happy endings

are just ends of a chapter,

not of the story.

The triump of Death

can only be

postponed,

it can never be

denied in the

horror novel of Life.

At the end

of each story, always,

there are no survivors.

No sole heroes emerging

to the light of day.

Everybody dies.

This is the

lesson of Life

to the doomed protagonists

running from Death:

There are no survivors.

22.04.2020

SCISSORS

At the occupation forces' Container checkpoint near Bethlehem on the morning of Wednesday April 22nd

Look at what the occupied

have to use against

their occupiers - scissors!

And you, who shout

that the killers today

"Are just defending themselves"

- against scissors -

you claim that if the chains

would be broken, if the oppressed

would be given their freedom,

their oppressors would suffer...

So, you say, liberty must be denied,

to preserve the safety of those

who stamp on it

with their military boots.

How weak are these household gods

in uniform of yours, raised on a pedestal,

when scissors and liberty both

are a danger to them!

22.04.2020

PRESERVED IN AMBER

A Conservative worships on the altar of things

that have been; his ideal

is a society preserved like an ancient insect

beautiful in amber,

dead for millions of years.

A Progressive sees what could be -

and that what is can't be sustained forever;

things preserved in amber

are but gilded flakes

from a long fallen crown.

22.04.2020

each of us

each of us

is a sad

clown,

a bystander

in their own

farce.

20.04.2020

EACH DAY

I never imagined

I would make this big of a mess

of other peoples' lives,

or so short of them,

when in my god-believing youth

I asked each day

in my prayer

to die before

my loved ones.

If you are there, god,

you better not give me

an afterlive, or

I will come

to kill you.

20.04.2020

ON TRANSLATING SHELLEY'S ADONAIS

After translating a stanza

I feel satiated, like having

eaten a filling meal -

thus the gracious art feeds

even its least servants.

20.04.2020

A WALK IN BLEAK APRIL

Went outside yesterday; walked

the deep forest path

through the river valley

in the warm April air

and the bright light,

in the bleakness of early

spring and late life.

The fallen leaves 

of yesteryear scattered

on the ground lacking green,

like all the dreams we had. 

How I wish I would be

heaving frost on your graves.

20.04.2020

GREED'S HARVEST

A time of dying, yes,

but we had it coming to us -

we put the profit of the few

before the planet whole,¨

and now reap the harvest

of that choice in graves.

19.04.2020

THE HAPPY DAYS OF YOUR LIFE

The happy days of your life

are at an end;

you have known them,

and their afterglow as memories

will bring some warmth

to the many cold and

dreary days awaiting.

This is their last gift

and it's yours to choose

if it will be a bitter one

or one that brings some joy

into a life that otherwise

knows none.

29.06.2013

sound of rain

rain in the darkness

manifests itself

through sound only

07.10.2013

only the sound

of rain

in the darkness

18.04.2020

cold earth washed clean

falling snow at midnight

rain in the morning darkness

under the hidden sky of october

the cold earth washed clean

23.10.2013-18.04.2020

DRAINED LAKE

The wind that rises,

the grass that sways,

heaving like the waters

that once were,

just time flowing

on landscape

sunken in existence.

18.08.2013-18.04.2020

GOD'S ENGLISHMEN (NOT)

Answer to Charles William Stubbs(1845-1912)

God has no Englishmen,

but the Devil -

he has many;

and in their ranks

Arthur stands not,,

for he who fell at Camlann

was a Celt,

a warlord over shores

where still the richly-laden ships

that sailed from Constantinople

set their gifts,

and many an Angle

and Saxon his blade

cut down in crimson spray

and to the Devil sent.

God has no Englishmen,

but the Devil -

he has many!

18.04.2020

LOVE AND DEATH

Love can't defeat death

which will always win,

but love can delay death's triumph,

and briefly cherish

a memory of what death took

until love, too, dies.

17.04.2020

TRUTH

Truth is the one constant

thing which doesn't change

with distance or time -

truth and the guilt

which it grows and tends

in a grieving mind.

02.02.2016-16.04.2020

EVENING IN LATE JULY

The evening arrives

with it's lengthening shadows,

in which the coming night

lurks, waiting for the first star

to appear in the dark blue

to unfold

it's wings of a raven;

no more cobwebs

of shadows,

just the distant light of suns

in the black ink of time.

22.07.2013-16.04.2020

TWILIGHT

Dusk in late May:

After the heat

of the day

cool air, soft light

and birdsong

to wander among.

21.05.2014-16.04.2020

WINDS

winds

whispering autumn

in evening

light

sun goes down

beyond forest in black

a red globe blazing

among joining shadows

winds

whispering autumn

in the cool

night

light of distant

stars cold points

above land

dwelling in darkness

winds

whispering autumn

in fading starlight

until dawn and mist

30.08.2013-16.04.2020

MAN THE RABID BEAST

What beasts we, who so

brutally tear each other apart

- like no predator lacking

our sentience does?

We are driven by instincts

baser than those of our own survival,

we fight our kin to deny

the survival in flesh or seed of all.

Cruelty and malice are

the gifts intelligence has gifted us,

bitter gifts we use to shed

both blood and hope alike.

16.04.2020

THE COSMOS OF GIORDANO BRUNO(1548-1600)

Four thousand planets,

Giordano, four thousand planets

orbiting other suns

and dozens, dozens of planets

in habitable zones around

those stars, and many,

dear Bruno, rocky

planets like our Earth.

It's your cosmos,

Giordano, it's your

cosmos out there.

15.04.2020

ON YOUR FOURTH BIRTHDAY

Birds are flying up in the evening sky, black wings

against twilight

and you ask from me
what is the name of those birds.

I have no idea, even if they would be close

I might not recognize them,

so I just say that they might be

crows, magpies, ravens or sparrows

and you choose sparrows,

asking where they are going?

Are they going back home to their eggs,

you say to me,

and I say that yes, they are

going back home to their nests eventually,

but at this time of summer

they will already have nestlings

and that they will be carrying back food to them.

Insects, and seeds and mice, I say,

some of them will swallow them, and then

vomit them to the open mouths of their young;

and I explain to your upturned face that

 that way they can take
more back to their young,

instead of making many trips bringing

just one insect in their beak.

29.06.2013-15.04.2020

DESTINATION: VOID

To PRC

Reading an appropriate book this

morning watching snow falling behind

the living room window laying

on the bed still your scent present

here in this mess of life and apartment

frank herbert's 1965 destination: void

i'm afraid that we won't have a literal

deus ex machina as our happy ending

lost in our own interstellar separation

15.04.2020

A WHITE SPRING

To PRC

The brown-and-black 1970s curtains

on my unwashed window

frame falling snow in a chill

mid-April morning landscape

of black, gray and white;

a drab painting of woe.

Past the brown winter of rain and pale Sun

we who remain in this Limbo

get a white spring - a cold

burial shroud for this tormented world

in our little desolate, frozen-hearted

corner of the suffering Earth.

Almost 127 000 dead, officially,

in the same world framed

today with death, 

the world where the snowflakes

fall on leaves that fell 

when you were still here.

15.04.2020

A SCENE FROM THE OCCUPATION

Young lives lost in crimson blood

sinking on muddy native soil,

"terrorists" scream the colonists

who take trophy photos of them as they die,

bleeding forty minutes in the cold and the rain,

as colonist medics are

caring for their lightly injured kind.

25.01.2016-14.04.2020

THE COWARD'S WISH

Let my death come

to me, for I am

a coward

and far too afraid

to go and find it.

Let my death

come to me.

Surely it's my time

to be no more;

let my death come

for I am weary

and so much has gone,

but I am

a coward

and far too afraid;

even half-way

I shall not dare

to go to meet it.

Let my death come

to me, for I am

a coward

and far too afraid

to go and find it.

Let my death

come to me.

14.04.2020

THE PALE DAWN OF THE DAY

These gray mornings to which we awake

half-asleep from the activity of the night,

with a dirty mug of coffee on our side,

even the feeble pale iron light hurting our eyes

- these gray morning resurrections

to all the griefs of the day, the fears

that gnaw the heart in light but sleep at night;

those faraway and lost, they come back

in the scent of their clothes left behind,

those closer and unattainable in their graves

come back as memories cutting deep in the brain.

This is why the day is harder than the night,

not for the skeletal trees rising from the mud

and dead grass under the weight of

the unbroken ashen clouds; those

are just inconveniences for the soul,

like the cat scratching the door or the bill

that should have been paid week ago, or

the pile of dishes growing in the sink.

No, the iron day has a more terrible hold

than the mere pieces of the puzzle its broken into;

the day reveals to the eyes in their sockets

and the unwilling eyes of the mind what

both are loath to see, the life we lead

in its horrible pettiness and soul-cutting tragedy,

the rdiculous comedy of our mistakes and the deep

hurt we have carved across now shattered lives,

the dead and the dying, those wounded to the

core of their being, all the great evils

and the little things that infect the wounds

we struck in others' flesh and carry in ours,

the wreckage we have left that no one

can forgive. The pale dawn of the day

shows to us ourselves in

all our pathetic cruelty, the flotsam

on the shore of the gray light from the dreams

we sank, when the night in its mercy

gave us darkness in which to hide,

like the loving mother we once betrayed.

14.04.2020