"Every first issue
of the womb is Mine,
from all your livestock
that drop a male as firstling,
whether cattle or sheep.
But the firstling
of an *** you shall redeem
with a sheep;
if you do not redeem it,
you must break its neck."

Adored words, taken holy
out of any context, save time.

Today, we have wars, where once,
certain ones of us were told peace
is impossible, madness lies below,

all we were required to know,

numbers in sequence,
letters on blocks, stiches on
***** that roll, flatten
into wheels,
squared away, to
cubes that don't, but
do crystalize polygenic
univalent angulate orthogonic
planes, tied at the edges framing empty
solids, using science used
for stomachs,
and gourds,
hollowed solidities
growling distracting rattlings

Deathly Silence
from the sky
the trumpets
do not cry

while all around the world
children
are torn apart by bombs unfurled

And the parents
must dig
the graves

if the remains
from the rubble
they manage to save;

While their weeping
vanishes in the void,
many still believe war
it's just a toy.

In Gaza’s hush, the night ignites,
With fire that falls from foreign heights.
No lullabies, no peaceful skies
Just sirens' wail and mothers’ cries.

The olive trees, once full of grace,
Now bleed in every sacred place.
A child clutches a broken toy,
Still searching for a taste of joy.

Walls close in where hope once grew,
Beneath the dust, the sky turns blue
But no one looks, or dares to see
The lives erased so brutally.

The sea is near, but not for play,
It mirrors smoke by light of day.
And prayers rise up through shattered glass,
For peace to come, for war to pass.

O world that watches, cold and still,
Why must the blood of dreams be spilled?
How loud must grief begin to scream
Before you fight for more than dreams?

In Gaza’s heart, they still resist
Each breath they draw is a quiet fist.
And even when the nights are long,
They sing the truth in trembling song:

“We are not rubble, we are the roots,
We are the echoes in the flutes.
We are the dawn you’ll one day see
A people’s pain, a people free.