"ehud" poems - Hello Poetry

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 booby-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

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Dec 9, 2021

Dec 9, 2021 at 7:55 AM UTC

michael-r-burch

Translation of "The Story" by the Palestinian poet Kamal Nasser

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 booby-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

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...in more ways than you realize. (sonnet #MMMMMMDCCCLIII) Come, wherefore dredge up Tolkien's silly tale, With that girabbit hard in tow, as hence The Scriptures count off Ehud and how thence He judged ya, Isr'el, killing in betrayl That fat, fat king ole Eglon to avail, Me seeing lost visions of the shire for sense, And Mister Bliss' adventures rising whence I canna say why, to trip 'long as bail?! From movies of far distant climes in tour, With savage ninjas, or the sixties too And student riots, loss, *** as it were Their capping triumph of that mixt-up view, Have I a minute to drift off, all's poor-- Yet why see fables when I half hear You? 01Jan18b

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Jan 15, 2018

Jan 15, 2018 at 11:35 PM UTC

JennyGordon

Tis "...Yet A Little Sleep, Yet A Little Slumber--"

...in more ways than you realize. (sonnet #MMMMMMDCCCLIII) Come, wherefore dredge up Tolkien's silly tale, With that girabbit hard in tow, as hence The Scriptures count off Ehud and how thence He judged ya, Isr'el, killing in betrayl That fat, fat king ole Eglon to avail, Me seeing lost visions of the shire for sense, And Mister Bliss' adventures rising whence I canna say why, to trip 'long as bail?! From movies of far distant climes in tour, With savage ninjas, or the sixties too And student riots, loss, *** as it were Their capping triumph of that mixt-up view, Have I a minute to drift off, all's poor-- Yet why see fables when I half hear You? 01Jan18b

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my spine grows further and further up my neck it releases seeds of thought upblooming in my very heavy head weeds and flowers alike it drops enwombed in my crescent head the weeds grow right the flowers grow left each soil my mind with beauty and reason the flowers they speak of creating and love all other things ascetic the weeds teach me logic, numbers, and phrases they warn me of anything poetic I am inclined to deny my bias for either For such a balance they create But as of late I am pruning my mind with deft And find that I am of Ehud’s left.

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Oct 4, 2011

Oct 4, 2011 at 8:24 PM UTC

hayley-neininger

God.

my spine grows further and further up my neck it releases seeds of thought upblooming in my very heavy head weeds and flowers alike it drops enwombed in my crescent head the weeds grow right the flowers grow left each soil my mind with beauty and reason the flowers they speak of creating and love all other things ascetic the weeds teach me logic, numbers, and phrases they warn me of anything poetic I am inclined to deny my bias for either For such a balance they create But as of late I am pruning my mind with deft And find that I am of Ehud’s left.

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