"I dream of the day I would see the flowers bloom in Palestine", says an ally.
"I dream of the day I would see the flowers again",
cries an old lady from Palestine
"I dream of the day I would see Palestine",
prays a refugee in a faraway country
"I dream of the day when I would not dream and pray that there would be another day for Palestine",
screams a little child in Palestine


And the sun is the witness
The sun knows it all,
it has watched, witnessed and waited...


I dream of the day I would see the flowers bloom in Palestine!
From the bullets bored through little children's ribs,
to the bloodied blouses hanging in the clothesline.

I dream of the day I would see flowers again!
From the people's laughters and childish ease,
to the tears and pain I can't even begin to imagine.

I dream of the day I would see Palestine!
From the river, in the desert, in the colorful markets,
to the sea, in the beach, taking our sweet sweet time.

I dream of the day when I would not dream and pray that there would be another day for Palestine!
Because there would only be days of freedom!
Only for the children, for Gaza, mothers, fathers, doctors, soldiers, every Palestinian!
Days that are theirs!
Days and endless days are all there is!
And it is all theirs!


And the sun is the judge and the jury
The sun grants it,
the justice for every injury, freedom for every perjury...

“So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, "Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc. etc." - Anthony Hecht

All I have ever been,
Is a girl
With the heart of a flower
Red in the hurricane winds
Red through the dust
That disguises the slaughter.

I can still see the bodies,
Red on the broken streets,
Red on the surface of the sea
Red on the plains that are rapidly darkling

And the ignorance is markedly
Growing.

The children bleed out in Aleppo,
in Gaza, Darfur, Yemen, Caracas, more;
Tiny bodies pressed between bricks
Like little flowers crushed in hard bindings,
Or innocence impaled on the blades of
Savagery and shame,

Like so many
Crucified prophets.

The puppeteers of these armies are

Irrevocably  

*******

Heartless;

Yet, let the wildflowers bloom
Reclaim the humanity that is ours to
Own. I command my heart to open like a sunflower to the moon.

We can’t ever give up.
We must keep standing
For all who are falling, kicked down the cliffs on bleeding knees,
Crawling.

Dig into the dust;
Plant a flowering heart in these arid crossings:

Grow here

Bright fields of compassion.

Let them bloom red,
Like our open hearts
Beating for our sons and daughters.

Outraged by indifference,
On the streets, neighbors once friendly Now stand in opposing lines. Propaganda posters cover the walls, Spreading fear and dividing minds. Ukraine or Russia, Isreal or Palestine. Capitalism or communism the greediness and division funding all wars

In countries once united and with the hope of, now torn apart.  Hopes and dreams dashed, shattered like glass.  The future once bright, now a dark unknown.  How can we navigate our way into a peaceful world

Blue and yellow flags, now stained with blood. A nation once united, now torn asunder.  The echoes of shelling, ringing in their ears.  The land of golden wheat, now a barren wasteland.

So the streets are filled with chaos and fear,  And the violence rages on without cease. Bombs and bullets tear through the night,  and civilians cower in their homes, bereft of peace. The loss of life and suffering is great, And the scars of war run deep and true. The conflict rages on without end,  And hope seems hard to hold onto.

A home, once a dream of safety. Now a battlefield, a place of terror. The faces of loved ones, now distant memories. hearts, once full of hope. Now shattered and broken.

Amidst the chaos and despair, we search for a light. The occurring wars, the reasons to unite, for a glimmer of hope is a reason to go on.  So they cling onto the small moments of joy,  like the laughter of a child, or a flower in bloom. In the darkest of times, they try to find strength in the small things.

Though the scars of war may run deep, the world can still heal. We can still choose love, choose forgiveness.  We can choose to build a better tomorrow, Where peace reigns and hope abounds.  May we never forget the lessons of war, and may we always strive for a brighter future.

May we learn to forgive those who have wronged us,  and work to heal the divisions in our society.  May we reach out to those in need,  and work to create a more just and equitable world.  May we never lose sight of the beauty of life, as we hold fast to the belief that a better tomorrow is for us

Black bombs fly
religious people lie
sky scrapers cleric capers
THOSE!!!! archaic papers rise
here human dwelling must crumble
and masses must die.
WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO???????
in this barren space of Arabic land
feet aimlessly plod
the elderly pray
widows wail
orphans weep
and babies cry
on the order 1947
sacked from a place called heaven
waves in a sandstorm
40 nights and 40 more....
THOSE!!!! ghouls are rotten to the core
killing innocence
and much, much more....

The Story
by Kamal Nasser
translation by Michael R. Burch

I will tell you a story ...
a story that lived in the dreams of my people,
a story that comes from the world of tents.
It is a story inspired by hunger and embellished by dark nights of terror.
It is the story of my country, a handful of refugees.
Every twenty of them have a pound of flour between them
and a few promises of relief ... gifts and parcels.
It is the story of the suffering ones
who stood waiting in line ten years,
in hunger,
in tears and agony,
in hardship and yearning.
It is a story of a people who were misled,
who were thrown into the mazes of the years.
And yet they stood defiant,
disrobed yet united
as they trudged from the light to their tents:
the revolution of return
into the world of darkness.

Kamal Nasser was a much-admired Palestinian poet and Palestinian Christian, who due to his renowned integrity was known as "The Conscience." He was a member of Jordan's parliament in 1956. He was murdered in 1973 by an Israeli death squad whose most notorious member was future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak (born Ehud Brog) later ruled as Israel’s tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. His adopted Hebrew name Barak means "lightning." As a younger man, Brog/Barak was a member of a secret assassination unit that liquidated Palestinians in Lebanon and the occupied territories. In the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, which was part of the larger Operation Wrath of God, he disguised himself as a woman in order to assassinate Palestinians. The raid resulted in the deaths of two women, one of them an elderly Italian. Two Lebanese policemen were also killed, along with the poet Kamal Nasser.

Nasser was the PLO's most prominent Christian and he enjoyed "great appeal" in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq "both as a distinguished poet and likeable personality." He was the “conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” according to Nazih Abul-Nidal, who worked with him on the magazine Filastin al-Thawra. Nasser “had the most democratic outlook of all Palestinian leaders at the time,” he recalls. He respected opposing views, admired the commitment of young people, and was a major recruitment asset for the Palestinian revolution. “That is why he was put high on the hit-list.” The previous year, the Israelis had murdered another renowned Palestinian writer and activist in Beirut, Ghassan Kanafani, by *****-trapping his car. Nasser’s successor, Majed Abu Sharar, was also assassinated by Israelis, in Rome in 1981 while attending a conference in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Keywords/Tags: Kamal Nasser, Palestinian, Palestine, PLO, Conscience, Ramallah, Christian, religion, poet, Arab, Arabic, Arab Spring, betrayal, conflict, courage, devotion

I can barely catch my breath,
there’s a sea of swirling madness
bodies bursting with endless
tragic tears of sadness
and all the sobbing leaves me
heaving and breathless.

Wishing I’d see death less
and more days of happiness
for all the world’s children,
but I can always hear them
crying, begging, for heroes
who will save them.

Little girl amidst the wreckage
loves her people,
lives in fear of the evil
acts of other nations
as bombs burst her foundation,
and she is left feeling
lifetimes of devastation.

Years of boots on throats,
of truths I wrote
of true experiences
only slightly altered
by my lack of living in it.

but I can see the way they live it.
Fear, and sorrow, pain planted upon
the soft soil of childhood.

I can breathe but I
don’t think I should,
don’t think people are good
as other human beings suffocate
I don’t want to take their place,
but I would exchange pained
lungs and ease the air of despair
from their chest to mine
to give them time to repair
their hurting hearts
as they breathe in fresh oxygen.