From a tent to another, I move.
It’s raining,
and sometimes, snowing.
It doesn’t matter how cold it is,
because I am cold.
I have only one blanket,
when I sleep,
one sweaters,
when I move from a tent to another,
under rain,
and sometimes snow.

Wait! I am day-dreaming.
I don’t live in a tent anymore.
I live in a makeshift home.
I have more blankets.
I have more sweaters.
My life is better,
but I still feel cold.

I look out from the dusty window,
that looks like those in jails,
in my room I share with my brother.
It’s sunny outside!
It’s hot!
but why am I cold?

I am still looking outside from the same window.
More makeshift houses appear,
all around,
“Our refugees’ rights?”
written in Arabic, I read on the walls around.
By then, I realized I am still called a refuge.

I saw people marching,
holding banners,
asking for human rights,
holding Palestinian flags,
and wearing the Kofeya.
I realized I am still a refuge.
I see people,
forced to leave their homeland,
to another,
where they live with no rights,
to have jobs,
to build houses.

I see kids,
looking at the protesters,
not knowing what they are looking at,
but I know they realize that,
they are still refugees,
in a neighbouring country,
oppressed and cold.

Mohammed Arafat
03-08-2019

Strips along the road:
my dreams rose themselves to pieces
torn by their over-pressure

Fellow-sufferers hang in the water
rippled, on broken legs
skinny from waiting

too tired to go on
and not strong enough
to stand still

I only cry tears
that do not come
to relieve or redeem

The light of the lighthouse
swings brightly
but the eye is blind

Europe grants a lot

of past, but not a future –


for poor refugees.

It is going well, we are driving fast
away from where the bombs fall
Fatima's hand sways move move

We are many
stronger than the rules
we break through them

to a rich country, not a monastery
we do come to live slowly
but we bring our own rules

We want to work, take time
to learn and get married
to have a future

and to give it
to our parents
who did not believe in it

A fossil in foam, five toes under a formed sole,
preserves the flight of a thousand border treks.

A layer of thermite and blood settles the right pad
of every hastily fled soul, a rusty preservation
of the ash of those who were enflamed.

Their left clod is encased with the dirt of broken roads,
the green of weeks of refuge in the forest from patrols,
the gray movement from villages to mountains and back.

At night they would mend and repair, knotting
broken y’s with twigs, rope threads, thatch,
anything that will last one more day.

The young’s heels are scuffed with the abrasions
left from the playful kicking parents endure
carrying them on their shoulders.

The old heels are full of the bristle
of slow moving donkeys led
by sons and daughters taking turns.

Under the shelter of grey canvas
their trek ends with fresh water,
food, a sturdy cot and new sandals.

The old plastic soles will rest in honor
on the mantle of their new hut,
ready for the next journey.

down bilsdean creek where fresh and salt water meet
the bladderwrack rehydrating incoming tide chases
tiny trout upstream  to the overhanging hazel branch
sanctuary of dappled dancing sunlight where they flit
back and forth under the ever watchful kingfisher
shimmering blue glints of nervous anticipation

by whelk denuded tidal pools, Freddy the refugee
with his rusty bike, tin can kettle and bent safety pin
waits patiently for his stream water to boil
a hip flask of vinegar and folded envelope of pepper
are produced with theatrical flourish from a tattered
baling twine belted overcoat and placed on the rock

from Fife the haunting groans of the fog horns echo
around the mist cloaked cliffs where Glasgow boys
once set up their easels and squeezed red ochre
onto pallettes of roof slate to sing praises to nature
the water boils in the smoke blackened tin can
the mussels open in surrender among the whelks
the tide inches forward grinding empty shells to sand

good health
i have had a comfortable life
with middle class privilege
but i have known and seen
bullies in my class
making me stand against it always

they are leading the country now
and are demonstrably showing
brutal intransigent power
over those without citizen identity
because we had wars
in their countries

so they have done nothing more
than seek a better life
who wouldn’t have?
and now they can’t go back

so many people compromised
by oil greed and power avarice
rendered without country
without wealth
without identity
without dignity
these people are no different
in human need
yet

i have place
i have citizen identity
i have freedom

Blood spilled
Tears streamed
But no matter how much you beg on your knees
That’s what war can be

The child cried as his mother’s body lied
With the building burning to ashes
Ashes to the ground, as you hear the child plea
But alas that’s what war can be

The man strangled out cries
As his dying breaths suffocated
Underneath the collapsed building, trying to flee
But alas that’s what war can be

Remember the father who starved himself so his children could eat?
Who had been stripped from his luxury?
His happiness, his love? Who wanted to be free?
Is that what war can be?

What about the brother?
Who lost his leg, saving his sister from a shooter?
What about the sister?
Who died so that her brother could survive his gun inflicted blister?

What about the children?
Who think the parents went to the store?
Only to have the parents in a Ranger’s view
Lying on the ground, blood seeping through

What about the men and women?
Lined up, not knowing their final words
Tears prickling, not being able to see
Is that what you want your people to see?

But that’s all fine
Get the victims in a line
For it’s all for honor
For it’s all for power

What do you think
Goes through the people’s heads?
Oh how great is our country,
For being torn to shreds?

Or oh it’s fine your son died,
Even if you had cried
All this bloodshed is just insignificant clatter
to such an elite matter

What about the bloodshed?
The dead families?
The orphans?
The starvation?
The pain, the agony?
The tears?
The lost homes?
The children living in fear?
The bonds broken?
Is it all worth ego?
While you bet the lives like a gambling casino?

Imagine suffocating slowly and painfully, still having so much to do
Imagine watching your mother die, right after she attended the stew
Imagine holding your child, trying hard to erase all doubt
Imagine living a life, where nothing goes right and about
Imagine seeing your school friends cry
While blood trickles from your thigh

So go on with your slaughter
But remember the mother
Every eye you made shed salty water

The sister
The brother
The father
The farmer
The doctor
The peasant
The teacher
The student

So hold your ****** weapons up high
But remember
That once blood is on the hands
it never fades or becomes dry

I came from a beautiful place,
Full of trees of olives and oranges,
A running river and golden beach.
From north to south and east to west.
We had our own land,
a spacious house.
animals for food and milk.
I was a poet,
my sister an engineer,
my brother a doctor.
My parents owned a business,
And my mom was pregnant;
she wanted twins,
a boy and a girl.
I loved my country.
We lived in peace.
Until the hatred spread:
of my family,
my religion,
the way we talked.
We were unwanted.
They knocked down the door of my family’s home
and “disappeared” my father and brother.
My mother aborted the twins for whom she hoped.
I tried to protect my sister from ****,
but I couldn’t.
How cowardly I was!
We decided to leave, to flee.
Like thousands, we walked toward a mirage,
a dream of a better life.
My mother could barely walk,
my sister lost in her personal pain.
Only cacti, heat and sun for miles:
We crossed rivers and deserts.
mountains, hills and valleys.
Smugglers awaited us at the border,
demanding thousands to pass to a safe place.
“If you don’t pay, you die!”
What lay ahead we did not know.
But I knew no place could be better
than where I was born.

Mohammed Arafat

you listen to what passes for the TV news
you read some
but not all
of social media views
you notice that
despite all internationalism
it‘s mostly old sensationalism
combined with more or less suggestive speculations about
how many people may have died in forest fires
to what imaginable depths the president aspires
whether the North Koreans have more rockets
     despite the wonderful achievements
     of the national superdealer
who of the leader‘s staff might be the next
      to lose her job or his credentials
etc. etc.

in short
the world has mostly shrunk
to domestic politics and power games
plus a few places on the globe where
U.S. soldiers still are dying
     in order to protect their country‘s interests
     in oil, assorted mineral resources
     or allies of political expedience
or a few thousand refugees from countries plagued
      by persecution or dictators are
      marching for weeks to claim asylum
           in the home of the brave and the free
           under the statue of liberty
     only to discover that they are seen
     as an invasion threatening
            that blesséd city upon a hill

visions have grown smaller
more petty voices dominate the talk

a nation made of immigrants
faced with the poor who flee from their oppressors
decides to close its borders to the immigrants‘ next wave
oblivious of the times when they themselves
still searching for a better life
found a new place where they felt safe
led by the statue‘s torch that shone its light
upon a poet‘s words of welcome:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"