Legend has it that Delilah was very beautiful
Yet her continence and deeds were all evil.
And even though Sampson wasn't very careful,
I think the power of love made him an anvil.

Delilah's pseudo-love was certainly deceitful
Maybe love chooses its own victims or preys.
Especially if the woman involved is beautiful
A factor that enhances the power of love always.

Did the power of love overwhelmed Sampson?
No, he was the victim of a contagious disease
That has no cure but when given a reason,
It will just invade your thoughts and increase.

Love is blind and it made Sampson very blind
Courtesy of the overwhelming power of love
It failed him and never treated him kind
Which leaves us an amorous mystery to solve.

Delilah, Sampson's love, was a vindictive *****
Yet his love for this woman was real and deep.
In her, he saw a very pretty woman, not a witch
Oh Man up strong man, giants don't ever weep!

Delilah the woman you Love was truly wicked
Do you clearly See what she did to you, Simpson?
Know ye that to trust a woman is to be stupid
It is my hope that you have learned your lesson.

IB-Poetry©️
2/15/2018

The screaming
children of Gaza
torment the sleep
of a troubled world,
and remain a real-time
unending nightmare;
anointing The Levant’s
fevered brow
with a diadem of
incessant grief.

Gaza is a burning
ankh that sears the
madness of sorrow
upon Egypt’s skull.

Gaza,
an unblinking
third eye
of shame,
peers into
Lower Egypt’s
closed window
ever reproaching
it’s turbulent
conscience;
chiding fellow
Muslims with
the ugly memory
of abject affliction,
the endless images
of a living Guernica
suspended in the hell
of indefinite imprisonment
all Palestinians are forced
to suffer.

As Zionists ***** the
steep walls of Apartheid to
extend its occupation
of Palestine, it
condemns the youth
of Gaza to a life of
incarceration with no
possibility of parole;
hardening the hearts
and steeling the resolve
of a new generation of
militants to demolish the
walls and the wardens
that imprison them.

The Zionist jailers
bestow upon
Ishmael’s Children
phylacteries of shame,
wearing the rolled
prayers of wailing pain
scribed with bits of
dust from the
the broken walls of
demolished buildings
and desolate homes
beyond habitation,
now housing grief
of trampled souls,
forcing recitations
of deliverance
to Allah while
davening an
incessant drone
of anguish at
the Wailing Wall
of Resentment;
decrying the
blood lust of
undying acrimony,
victimization and
the slaughter of
innocents, carried on
with the imperial license
of state sanctioned impunity.


Father Ibrahim's
feuding children may
share a sacred paternity
but remain the
divided brothers
of different mothers;
stoking a sibling rivalry
more bitter then
Cain and Abel.

Our anguish
never dissipates,
the gnawing
impulse of empathy
to assist the distressed
of Gaza is dashed
by omnipotent
powers recusing
the ability to act.

Sympathy is
embargoed
in the black
obfuscation
of religious
partisanship
while timely
assistance
to aid the
distressed
lie netted in
blockades of
realpolitik
affinities.

Gaza, where
Hashim is granted
his eternal rest,
restlessly inhabits
his unknown grave
from the destitution of
his profaned homeland.

Ghazzat,  “the stronghold”
countlessly conquered,
falling to Roman Emperors,
Lionhearted Crusaders
Ottoman Caliphates,
and British Mandates;
slipping from Egypt’s
geopolitical grasp as
as a casualty of
The Six Day War.

Gaza is now a stronghold of
resent and desperation for a
desperate conquered people.

Ghazzat, the prized city of
the western Mediterranean,
a four star Phoenician port of
caravansaries now unable
to trade with any partners
due to ungodly blockades.

Gaza, has grown wholly
dependent on the largess
of UN aid and meager
subsistence portions
doled out by well
meaning NGO’s.

Gaza, the foot stool of
the Levant and surely
the pathway Father
Ibrahim, Jacob,
Joseph and Jeremiah
traveled to escape
Canaan's famine;
finding at the close
of their sojourn
a table set with the
plenteous bounty
the Blue Nile
unconditionally offered;
the veritable feast
of abundance,
the generous yields
of the blessed delta
that sustained the
Prophets of Judah
and a thousand
generations of the
Nile’s Children.

Gaza, the Achilles
heal of Middle East
peace, land of the
Canaanites, Philistines
and Old Testament
heroes.

Gaza, a fortress for
Philistines who
imprisoned the storied
Sampson, revered for
breaking the chains of
imprisonment and righteously
destroying a pagan temple
in a suicidal act of heroism.

Gaza, where the myths and
legends of rapacious
holy crusaders captured
the western imagination
with the chivalrous gallantry
of religious warfare and
valiant last stands of
Templar Knights employing
the tactical imperatives
of terrorism in service to their
higher God.

Gaza, an oasis
by the sea now
lies dry and brittle
as the precious Hebron
waters of Wadi Ghazza
are diverted to serve
the agriculture of
Judah; condemning
a dehydrated Gaza
panting of thirst
to an imposed drought
and a war of
self preservation
to remove
the dammed rivers
of justice controlled
by intractable powers
laying upstream beyond
Gaza’s mean borders.

The Qassams
lunched by Hamas
are desperate
expressions of
exasperated people,
eager to call
world attention
to the growing
insufferable plight
of a people living
in a perpetual
state of siege.

Its a modern day
David slinging rocks
against an armor
clad Goliath.

Each Katusha
serves as
a justification
for Zionist
intransigence
and condemns
any possibility
for peaceful
coexistence
of a Two State
Solution.

The pointless attacks
invite massive
disproportionate
retaliation and succeed
in prolonging and
increasing the
measure of Gaza’s
agony.

The mystic grace,
the divine power
of satyagraha
-a non-violent
response to the
cruel enforcement of
Apartheid- is Allah’s
way to secure the
moral high-ground
and the surest way
for Palestinians to
expose it’s unholy
adversaries innate
contempt for civil rights
and a refusal to
recognized the
shared humanity of
all of Father Ibrahim’s
wayward progeny and
recalcitrant prodigal sons.

Mubarak’s fall
has allowed the
Rafah Gate
to swing open again.

The concertina
wire that separates
Gaza and Egypt
has been removed.

The prisoners
of Gaza have
an open portal
of freedom.

It is a Day of
Jubilee, a day
of pardon for
for the inmates
of prisons built
for victims.  

It is a day of
possibility for peace.  

It is a day to declare an
Exodus from the land
of bitterness.

Humanity is
offered the hope
of escape from
the prisons of
acrimony, to
freely move across
the staid borders
of intractability
and exclusion.

The hearts and
minds of Palestinians
and Egyptians
are free to connect
and unite once again.

Liberation is
possible only
when we uphold
and honor the
affirmation
of all humanity.

Music Video:

Silk Road
We Will Not Go Down

Oakland
2/9/12
jbm

Noble knight arms himself with half smiles that fill the spaces of conversations he can't find words for

He, indelicate yet so fragile you'd think his bread bits would crumble neatly into a pile of precious innocence

He's a sunshine boy so bright i had to sheild my eyes
I hate it when tears leave his eyes

I wish to sit behind him and draw pictures on his back of all the things i don't know how to say

"Sampson. Do you ever pretend your life is a movie cause you'd rather have happy cliches than tragedy?"

"Yeah."

the old stone walls are still standing
though they no longer echo with sounds
of cornball jokes, bottle caps poppin’ off cokes
and the happy humming of a repaired motor
  
the old man was there when
the first car pulled in for gas  
28 cents a gallon, all fluids checked for free
spotless windshield guaranteed  
he hired that Mexican boy because he was polite
yes sir, and was the best **** 20 year old
grease monkey in the county
(hell, the state)
boy had one leg shorter than the other  
and had him a twin brother
whose two fine legs carried him that place,
somewhere between honor and complete disgrace,
called Vee-et-nam
but those strong legs couldn’t bring him home  
he come back in a box,
both his good legs blown clear off  

he hired Lolo the day before
his brother come home      
was hot as Hades at that graveside  
but he went and stood by the boy,
his sobbing mama, his sober father
and the hot hole in the caliche
where his brother was gonna spend
forever    

business was good  
the boy spent most of his time
under the hood
of Riley’s ‘51 Ford
or Miss Sampson’s Impala,
(white 1962, with red interior, clean as the day she bought it)  
Nixon beat that old boy from Minnesota  
told everybody he would end that crazy Asian war  
the right way  
but the old man had been
in those foul trenches in France,
killin’ krauts when he was 18  
and he knew there was
no “right” way  

he and the boy had many a good day
with the register cling-clanging,
mechanical mysteries being solved  
and a good hot lunch now and then
when the boy’s mama brought  
fresh tortillas and asada
or the old man would spring
for chicken fried steak sandwiches from the café

yes, many a good day

until
that hot July afternoon  
the day after we landed on the moon
when “they” came  
not from some lunar rock  
but from an El Paso *******  
where graffiti were their psalms
and switchblade knives their toys  
“they” came,
parked their idling ‘57 Chevy in front of the bay,
and bust through the front door
with a gun and a ball bat  
both had hair slicked back
with what looked like 30 weight oil,
“they” smiled, and smelled
of beer and sweat  
“Dame el dinero! Give us the money!
Give us the money old man, cabron!”  
the old man glared at them  
the bat came down and grazed his head,
cracked his shoulder  
“they” did not see the boy with the wrench
who laid the bad *** batter out
with one righteous swing  
the one with the gun did not aim
but pulled the trigger three times  
and two of those hot speeding streams
sliced through the boy’s throat  
the shooter was through the door and burning rubber
while the boy lay bleeding red blood
on the green linoleum floor  
the old man knelt over him, helpless  
saw his eyes close a final time
while the sting of the burned rubber
was still in his nose, and the hellish screech
of the tires still in his ears  

the old man had seen the dead before
piled in heaps in the dung and mud
of those trenches, faces bloated
with their last gasps from the nightmare gas  
but he hadn’t shed a tear
in the pale pall of the dead  
until that hot July day, with a man on the moon, all those miles away
and the best boy with a wrench in the whole state, Lolo,  
silent on the floor in front of him  

they caught the shooter
(sent him to Huntsville for a permanent vacation)
the one Lolo laid out with a wrench died
on the way to Thomason Hospital in El Paso
the ambulance driver was Lolo’s cousin  
and he may have been driving a bit slow    

Lolo was buried the day they came back from the moon
right beside his brother in that ancient caliche
his mother sobbed softly, “mi hjos, mi hijos”  
both boys now cut down
her left with prayers
and memories…  
the boys at the ballpark
their first communions
the grandchildren she would not have  
and the gray graves where they
would return to dust  

the Saturday after, the old man turned 69  
when he flipped his open sign to closed that day, he  
climbed the ladder slowly, painted over his store bought sign
with new white wash,
and red lettered it with “Lolo’s”  
not a person asked
about him using the dead boy’s name  
and things would never be the same    

the old man lasted another nine years  
until the convenience store started sellin’ gas
(they wouldn’t even pump)  
his hands were stiff with arthritis
and his shoulder stilled ached from the crack of the bat  
he closed on a windy winter Friday  
yet painted the sign
a final time that very day  
nearly falling, as he made the last red “S”  
but he made it down the ladder that last time  
and saw the boy’s name in his rear view
as he drove into the winter dusk