On November 5th, election day in the USA
You were taken by surprise, a testimony of America's fall forward demise

By the gruesome, hate filled attacks both verbal and physical,
the cameras showed civility, morality, and class are what she lacks

Pushed aggressively, swung at, hit, and even knocked to the ground
by Holland's blistering, demonic, uncontrollable winds and sound

Put your hands on my family again
Put your hands on my friends to try to vicariously win
And a jacket will show up
By any means necessary flowing over in a cup

GOD has asked me to remind you lovingly
that HE'S observing you sacrificing willfully
HE is your shelter, and HE is your protector

When the unpredictable, randomly appearing bitter cold front takes a jab,
wrap yourself in the jacket given to you and fear not,
don't hide away in a DMV cab  
No giving up, no surrendering, no exiting allowed
if you're on HIS Potomac River front boat living for the oppressed out loud

I have heard your heart's plea
Oh, dear GOD, Have a jacket on me
Oh, dear Kibbutzim leaders fighting for the human rights violations of the oppressed people of Palestine to end and for their freedom to be granted Hazami and Atefeh,
"Have a jacket on me"
and wear it close to continue your efforts to set Palestine free

By: Najwa Kareem

Did I see you wearing a Prada outfit while your boyfriend held his phone snapping away playing photographer?

Didn't we watch you on your Instagram post waving in front of Taj Mahal?

Don't you often drive slow in your Porsche as you enter the parking lot of car shows?

Is it not so that you often wear sweatshirts with your alma mater's name on the front and on the back read, Graduated in 2021 with an M.D.?

Why haven't I seen you, you who broadcast most things, in a pic making Yemeni desserts and then offering them to children in the community who are hungry reminding them that their family in Yemen are hungry too and are beyond desperately in need of food?

What's the reason you haven't taken purchased copies of THE ASCENDANT QURAN authored by Muhammad al-Asi to a few local communities in America to pass out as gifts to single mothers colored black who know that they are oppressed or are interested in learning that they are, desire help, and are appreciative of it (the most oppressed person in the USA is the Black woman though the corrupt ones in power and many Black men don't want you and I to know this very fact; they don't want it to be disseminated, don't want it to be common knowledge in societies and in the world for some very specific reasons; they keep it under the rug and make you and I believe via a number of ways that it is the Black man) who could certainly benefit from reading it and learning from her GOD to help her better cope with and navigate the harsh reality of and daily sufferings in her life?

How come you music artists and performers who write lyrics and sing or rap for audiences publicly have not released a song about Palestine or Lebanon?

Where's your YouTube on your YouTube channel that regularly showcases many of your personal happenings, personal outings, personal likes with a talk about the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and what chief contributions we can make to end it?

If you show off for your friends, why aren't you showing off for the oppressed?

If you show off for strangers, why aren't you showing off for the oppressed?

If you show off for your colleagues, why aren't you showing off for the oppressed?

Show off for the oppressed so that the oppressed know and their oppressors know that the oppressed must be freed immediately, before I can say again,

"Show off for the oppressed."

By: Najwa Kareem

Here you go again.

Confiscating another House of Allah's. In a precious land. In a historical place.

When will you man up. When will you assess your arrogance of the past and your arrogance of the present and STOP.

STOP thinking you are superior.
STOP believing you are entitled.
STOP acting in ways that are unfair.
STOP executing in ways that destroy, in ways that ****, in ways that harm.
STOP dominating ruthlessly.
STOP being threatened by a faith growing the fastest in the world, a faith apart of your history.

Here you go again.

Confiscating another House of Allah's. In a precious land. In a historical place.

When will you man up. When will you assess your arrogance of the past and your arrogance of the present and STOP.

STOP the madness.
STOP the evilness.
STOP hiding behind lands with money and power.
STOP partnering with men dressed in thobes on thrones drenched in oil.
STOP being a thief - taking things that don't belong to you, occupying places that aren't yours.
STOP the ego.

Here you go again.

Confiscating another House of Allah's. In a precious land. In a historical place.

When will you man up. When will you assess your arrogance of the past and your arrogance of the present and STOP.

STOP discriminating.
STOP hating.
STOP colonizing.
STOP cozing up with missionaries who divide Muslims, who **** Muslims and innocent others.
STOP listening to your loud-mouth desire to control and start listening to the calm, just voice of your God.
STOP being the bully of the world.

Here you go again.

Confiscating another House of Allah's. In a precious land. In a historical place.

When will you man up. When will you assess your arrogance of the past and your arrogance of the present and STOP.

When Muslims and others begin to think.
When Muslims and others aren't afraid to think.
When Muslims and others individually and collectively don't fear speaking up.
When Muslim lands with Muslim leaders start practicing what they preach and stop turning their heads and putting their fingers in their ears.
When non-Muslim lands with Muslim leaders stop being fearful and start preaching using the Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), with an understanding of God's words in the Quran and the words of the Prophet.
When Muslim leaders and other leaders abandon their pre-occupation with making money to provide comforts for their own families and children and begin concerning themselves with speaking the truth and doing right to ensure the comforts of all families and children.
When Muslim leaders and other leaders stop playing politics and begin speaking about politics and the hard issues affecting Muslims, humanity, our world.
When Muslims start holding themselves and holding their religious leaders accountable.
When Muslims and others start supporting their God-fearing, truth-telling, justice seeking leaders and role models.
When Muslims and others really believe Allah hu Akbar/God is Greater than and La ilaha illallah/There is no God or Authority but Allah or God.
When Muslims start seeing and understanding those who perceive and practice Islam based on a particular school of thought...Sunnism or ****'ism or Sufism, etc. and those who do not align themselves with one particular school of thought or ideology as all one Ummah, one brotherhood, one body.
When Muslims and others end resorting to the cultures of their countries and ethnicities and begin relying upon God's culture, one that unifies and strengthens all.
When lands of the world start making alliances with Al-Quds and with Palestine.
When humanity acknowledges the hypocrisy of Zionist Israel and the disaster and mayhem it has caused the world.
When the world realizes the criminality of Zionism.
When people of the world start thinking and acting globally and not individually or nationalistically.
When people begin to see, understand, and act in ways that reflect that the Muslims of Al-Quds and of Palestine are oppressed, grieving, struggling, bleeding members of one human family.
When each of us STOPS and thinks of them and their situation and the siege of the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque and what role we all play.

by: Najwa Kareem

These are poems about Palestinian children and their mothers...

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Epitaph for a Palestinian Girl
by Michael R. Burch

Find in her pallid, dread repose,
no hope, alas!, for a human Rose.



who, US?
by Michael R. Burch

jesus was born
a palestinian child
where there’s no Room
for the meek and the mild

… and in bethlehem still
to this day, lambs are born
to cries of “no Room!”
and Puritanical scorn …

under Herod, Trump, Bibi
their fates are the same—
the slouching Beast mauls them
and WE have no shame:

“who’s to blame?”



Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of Gaza

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable …

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss …

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears …



For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go ...
when lightning rails ...
when thunder howls ...
when hailstones scream ...
when winter scowls ...
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?



Night Labor
by Michael R. Burch

for Rachel Corrie

Tonight we keep the flame alive;
we keep the candle lit.
We burn bright incense in your name
and swear we’ll not forget—
your innocence, your courage,
your commitment—till bleak night
surrenders to irrevocable dawn
and hate yields to love’s light.

Amen.



Well, Almost
by Michael R. Burch

Jews and Christians say “Never again!”
to the inhumanity of men
(except when the object of phlegm
is a Palestinian).



I, too, have a dream …
by the Child Poets of Gaza (a pseudonym of Michael R. Burch)

I, too, have a dream …
that one day Jews and Christians
will see me as I am:
a small child, lonely and afraid,
staring down the barrels of their big bazookas,
knowing I did nothing
to deserve such scorn.



Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable to sing.

What songs long forgotten occur to you now—
a babe at each breast? What terrible vow
ripped from your throat like the thunder that day
can never hold severing lightnings at bay?

Time taught you tenderness—time, oh, and love.
But love in the end is seldom enough …
and time?—insufficient to life’s brief task.
I can only admire, unable to ask—

what is the source, whence comes the desire
of a woman to love as no God may require?



Suffer the Little Children
by Nakba, an alias of Michael R. Burch

for the children of Gaza

I saw the carnage ... saw girl’s dreaming heads
blown to red atoms, and their dreams with them ...

saw babies liquefied in burning beds
as, horrified, I heard their murderers’ phlegm ...

I saw my mother stitch my shroud’s black hem,
for in that moment I was once of them ...

I saw our Father’s eyes grow hard and bleak
to see his roses severed at the stem.

How could I fail to speak?



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all *******
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure!
Your intentions were noble and ineluctably pure.
And what the hell does THE LORD care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



King of the World
by the Child Poets of Gaza, an alias of Michael R. Burch

If I were King of the World, I would make
every child free, for my people’s sake.

And once I had freed them, they’d all run and scream
back to my palace, for free ice cream!

Why are you laughing? Can’t a young king dream?

If I were King of the World, I would banish
hatred and war, and make mean men vanish.

Then, in their place, I’d bring in a circus
with lions and tigers (but they’d never hurt us!)

Why are you laughing? What else is a king’s purpose?

If I were King of the World, I would teach
the preachers to always do as they preach;

and so they could practice being of good cheer,
we’d have Christmas —and presents—every day of the year!

Why are you laughing? Some dreams do appear!

If I were King of the World, I would send
my counselors of peace to the wide world’s end …

But all this hard dreaming is making me thirsty!
I proclaim Pink Lemonade; please bring it in a hurry!

Why are you laughing? Mom’ll make it in a flurry!

If I were King of the World, I’d declare
a year of happiness, with no despair—

only playing allowed, for my joyful subjects!
Not a toy left behind! Repair all rejects!

Why are you laughing? Surely no one objects!

If I were King of the World, I would fire
racists and bigots, with their message so dire.

And we wouldn’t build walls, to shut people out.
I would build amusement parks, have no doubt!

Why are you laughing? Should I use my clout?

If I were King of the World, I would drive
a red Ferrari, like no man alive!

But behind would be busses for my legions of friends:
we’d party like maniacs; the fun never ends!

Why are you laughing? Hop aboard! Let’s be friends!

If I were King of the World, I would make
every child blessed, for my people’s sake,

and every child safe, and every child free,
and every child happy, especially me!

Why are you laughing? Appoint me and see!

Keywords/Tag: Palestinian, child, Palestine, Gaza, children, mothers, death, grave, Israel, USA