"palestinian" poems
***I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I'd rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest
And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialisation of an ancient religion
To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it
I'm looking forward to Christmas
Though I'm not expecting a visit from Jesus
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy
And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs
I'm not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolate is just fine by me
Cos I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun
I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun***
**And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You'll be handed round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won't understand
But you will learn someday
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who'll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl
And if, my baby girl
When you're twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You'll know what ever comes
Your brother and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun
Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum
We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Darling, when Christmas comes
We'll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you...
Waiting...**
***I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know...***
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 12:33 PM UTC
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
Dec 9, 2021
Dec 9, 2021 at 7:55 AM UTC
Sixty-seven children have been slaughtered.
Sixty-seven dreams have been shattered.
Sixty-seven beautiful faces have now vanished.
Sixty-seven vibrant smiles have faded.
Sixty-seven beds are left empty.
Palestinian children, like all children, love to play.
Palestinian children are longing for peace.
The children of Gaza dream to be teachers, nurses, artists, engineers, and doctors.
Palestinian children want to breathe.
Palestinian children's lives matter!
(Palestinian children killed by Israel in Gaza in May, 2021)
Hussein Dekmak
May 29, 2021
May 29, 2021 at 5:05 PM UTC
Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein”
by Michael R. Burch
for Trump
I went to Berlin to learn wisdom
from Adolph. The wild spittle flew
as he screamed at me, with great conviction:
“Please despise me! I look like a Jew!”
So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom
from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes.
“If we lose this small square,” they informed me,
earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!”
I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom,
but his Book, from its genesis to close,
said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!”
(I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.)
So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv
where great scholars with lofty IQs
informed me that (since I’m an Arab)
I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes.
At last, done with learning, I stumbled
to a well where the waters seemed sweet:
the mirage of American “justice.”
There I wept a real sea, in defeat.
Originally published by Café Dissensus
Keywords/Tags: Einstein, Adolph, ****** Berlin, Jew, Jews, Arab, Arabs, Palestinian, Palestinians, Vietnam, Vietnamese, American, Americans, Yankees, Domino, Theory, Dominoes, Jesus, Christ, Bible, Christian, Christianity, Slave, Slaves, Slavery, Israel, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv
Jul 21, 2020
Jul 21, 2020 at 4:11 AM UTC
This Distant Light
by Walid Khazindar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Bitterly cold,
winter clings to the naked trees.
If only you would free
the bright sparrows
from your fingertips
and release a smile―that shy, tentative smile―
from the imprisoned anguish I see.
Sing! Can we not sing
as if we were warm, hand-in-hand,
sheltered by shade from a sweltering sun?
Can you not always remain this way,
stoking the fire: more beautiful than expected, in reverie?
Darkness increases and we must remain vigilant
since this distant light is our sole consolation ...
this imperiled flame, which from the beginning
has constantly flickered,
in danger of going out.
Come to me, closer and closer.
I don't want to be able to tell my hand from yours.
And let's stay awake, lest the snow smother us.
Walid Khazindar was born in Gaza City. He is considered to be one of the very best Palestinian poets; his poetry has been said to be "characterized by metaphoric originality and a novel thematic approach unprecedented in Arabic poetry." He was awarded the first Palestine Prize for Poetry in 1997. Keywords/Tags: Arabic, translation, Arab, Palestine, Palestinian, Gaza, distant, light, flame, fire, autumn, winter, trees, birds, sparrows, fingertips, smile, sing, shade, sun, fire, darkness, hand, hands, snow
May 29, 2020
May 29, 2020 at 4:24 AM UTC
Not by religion
Just by human
nature and social
concern...
And, not by
country I am
living
I am Palestinian
Free Palestine and
Palestinians...
May 19, 2021
May 19, 2021 at 7:57 AM UTC
Palestine
I shall rescue you
Palestine smile for me
I shall set you free
Palestine be brave in life
Palestine so peaceful I can see
And Palestine
A beautiful Country
On there's knees every day
And there happiness taken away
No smiling in Palestine today
I shall set you free
PALESTINE just believe in me
And my heart weeps
For all the suffering
PALESTINIANS every day
But Palestine I'll promise you all
I'll love and pray for
Every Palestinian suffering in life every day.
Mar 12, 2021
Mar 12, 2021 at 6:12 PM UTC
*This is a poem for Rachel Corrie. I am not religious, and a far cry from spiritual, but I refuse to imagine Rachel Corrie insentient and six feet under, slowly amalgamating with the soil encasing her. Before her death, Rachel Corrie said “I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my co-workers. But I also want this to stop.” In the words of contemporary Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad “God has a better imagination than all of us combined” in either God's words or my own, I will not imagine in/on the same ground in/on which I maybe soon will be and more words from Suheir “What do I tell young people about non-violence when they can see for themselves how even orange bright and megaphone loud and cameras and US citizenship will not stop your ****** what do I tell young people/anyone even myself about “non-violence” when every single thing I've seen presenting itself/perhaps even masquerading as “non-violence” has been in my face and /rude/harsh/unavoidable and most of all, violent? I do not believe in God and humanity is pushing it's luck, but I believe in Rachel Corrie. This is for Rachel;*
I should study a she-wolf's prose
she wanted to write about death
but life would frequently
weasel and wheedle it's way in
there’s an overhanging image
a smaller
yet
infinitely larger
organism
continuously broached
by each word
I only want to study
a caterpillar’s motion
backward/forward /onward
across arms/legs
of this deer/dear
[her] surname/
[my] given name/
separated by [semi/totally] circular VOWels
***** blond hair
dirtied by dust /
rubble /
rhyme /reason/
whatever/ in compliance
with a rep/RESENT/ative democracy
several shades lighter
literally
figuratively
whiter
than she
need no permission
pat benatar
would/should croon
to your moves
every
boy and girl friend
i will/may/have/had
should be yours
entomo/insecto/[social] phobias
I never would’ve said so
I never
would’ve/
could’ve
told the caterpillar
to go
Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 8:41 PM UTC
For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch
Where does the butterfly go ...
when lightning rails ...
when thunder howls ...
when hailstones scream ...
when winter scowls ...
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?
Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow,
where does the butterfly go?
And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?
Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab. Keywords/Tags: butterfly, children, storm, lightning, thunder, hailstones, snow, frost, night, shelter, comfort, safety, rose, fire, warmth, Holocaust, Nakba, Gaza, Trail of Tears, slavery, injustice, abuse, ethnic cleansing, genocide
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 4:39 AM UTC
who, US?
by Michael R. Burch
jesus was born
a palestinian child
where there’s no Room
for the meek and the mild
... and in bethlehem still
to this day, lambs are born
to cries of “no Room!”
and Puritanical scorn ...
under Herod, Trump, Bibi
their fates are the same —
the slouching Beast mauls them
and WE have no shame:
“who’s to blame?”
What is happening to Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank is a crime against humanity, financed by American taxpayer dollars. Keywords/Tags: Palestine, Palestinian, children, Gaza, West Bank, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jesus, Christ, meek, mild, lamb, lambs, kids, Herod, Trump, Bibi, slouching, Beast, American, Christians, shame, blame
Mar 25, 2020
Mar 25, 2020 at 2:08 AM UTC
This is not a poem, a poet wrote some white lies about Israel and I want to share the truth that we’re not told by our media’s.
Remember, we can disagree about things and still agree about a lot of other things.
If you search, you can easily find this information.
Most of it comes from Israel media.
Israel already had over 10,000
Palestinian prisoners locked up long before the Oct 7 when the genocide begin.
Men, women and children in their prisons with no path to freedom.
Not to mention the open air prison that the Israeli’s kept the Palestine society trapped in for the past 50 years called Gaza. Committing human rights violation against the indigenous people of the land.
The biggest percentage of all the people that were **** on Oct 7th, were killed by Israeli’s killing their own people because they were ordered to follow the Hannibal directive.
I suppose you’ve never heard of that, no? Then your news source is limited.
Last year in Israel, their high court decided that **** and torture in their prisons, being committed by the Israel army was no longer illegal. Most of their society did not want these prison guards to get in trouble for torturing and ****** the Palestinian prisoners.
All those things you claim some unnamed source told you, have already been debunk by many credible sources.
Hamas did not do it, Israel rapes, cheats, lies and kills indiscriminately. They own our leaders using AIPAC lobbist who have Trump by the *** (They own Epstein’s library)
AIPAC is the reason you believe lies. They own media and congress.
Their propaganda rules the networks.
And just in the last two years, Israel has started war with Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
And of course their genocide happening now to the people of Palestine. I don’t understand how anybody support them. But I’m not a superstitiously impaired Zionist either.
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 27, 2025 at 12:29 PM UTC
"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, the colorful markets,
to the sea, there 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…
The moon and the stars commands it,
the promise that Palestine and its people will be free!
Nov 27, 2023
Nov 27, 2023 at 11:43 PM UTC
So here we are again
The land of suffering
PALESTINE PALESTINE
And we softly whisper PALESTINE
PALESTINE be Free
PALESTINE is forever in my heart
Beating with me and
We pray for you every day
I even lit a candle today
So try to be strong and please hang on
Help is on its way so try to
Smile today but there's no happiness
Or joy in PALESTINE today
It's just an other PALESTINIAN women
***** today but the world can truly
See this evil including me
And Lord Jesus Christ never
Forgets the suffering but Palestine is not free
And PALESTINE can never free
Without there freedom in life
And I promise you all
I'll love and pray for
Every Palestinian who's
Suffering every day.
Mar 23, 2021
Mar 23, 2021 at 11:23 AM UTC
Drinking like savannah beasts at rivers edge she
is left to ferment
lethal like wine in an hourglass
she denies death and is weaponized
she defies god and is made a woman
she aims and in doing perfect harm is made
stricken with regret your running target stems
consequences whose stomach is filled by feather
memorials bound by leather turmoil
Shells in my face says Henry the eighth and Rome
will burn gladly on
a nest of Palestinian violins
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 8:36 AM UTC
Holy hell I hate you,
we sit,
we laugh,
we lie,
about what we should love.
But I know that you do not love me,
you despise me like a Jew in Germany.
You know I do not love you,
for I despise you like a Palestinian in Isreal.
Holy hell we hate one another,
and we both know,
but we lie,
and say we agree with one another,
while we **** each other.
Holy hell I ******* hate you,
how could you do this,
how could you lie,
how could you not care,
how could be be like me.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 10:28 PM UTC
My Facebook page is a cluster of
Saturday nights drinking-
And Gaza.
The fusion of blood and alcohol
Created a fierce dichotomy
That shouldn’t exist;
My bed is a crimson clover field,
With big dreams
Attached to every leaf,
Hidden in pockets of brand new shirts
That I bought
Just to grab your attention.
My mind is doing jumping jacks
Over the thoughts
Of rebellion
And fighting for the dead youth
As opposed to-
Enjoying my own.
My head grew muscles,
As their feet
Grew tired-
Of running at night,
When the dark hinders their sight
Till they get confused between
Rocks-
And skulls;
But they run,
And dodge,
And jump,
And crack broken bones
As long as they are still alive.
In Gaza I die.
Every day,
Reading the reports ,
Calculating the number of deaths
Over the number of minutes spent
Surfing web pages
Jumping from one link to the other
Hoping that I would find
Something to hang on to;
In Gaza I die.
When I see mothers
Flustered and desperate,
Trying to cheer up their children
In a hopeless case;
And nothing would cheer a child up
Like a piece of cake,
But they have nothing left-
So they bake them a cake
Out of their broken limbs,
They gather the tears
They’ve cried on white cloth
To make them soup.
They chip a piece of their heart off
Every other night,
Because that heart will hurt
When they call their children
And they seize to answer,
Because that same heart will shatter
Like rockets in a Palestinian sky
When they prepare food for Five
But there would be no one left to eat.
In Gaza I die,
I was once four years old;
In Gaza I die,
I married your mother when I was 16,
I brought you and your sister
Before I was 25
In Gaza I die,
Yesterday he looked at me,
In the shelter,
I smiled
But not the smile that shows that I’m infatuated
But definitely interested!
In Gaza I die,
She is so into me
But
In Gaza
I wish i could just
Live.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC
I’m sick and tired of people rabbiting on a load of ****
About their ******* duty and fighting for freedom
For the fat ugly patriotic selfish folks "back home"
And pathetic ****** neo-fascist ******** like that
And gabbling on a load of sentimental horsedung
About giving their all for their ******* useless country
When honestly they’d rather be at home in some ugly provincial hick town
Patting their nasty mongrel dogs and groping their neighbours’ wives' arses
And eating mumsy-wumsy’s over-cooked meat and stodgy apple pie
Whilst ensconced on the sofa watching sodding Celebrity Big Brother.
How can a soldier nowadays say he didn't want to be there?
Are people so ******* thick or blind or moronic not to realise
A person volunteers to be in the armed forces in most countries nowadays?
There’s no ****** press gangs or ****** conscription any more;
People become soldiers because they choose to do so
(exceptions include filthy ******* shit-holes like Israel
where the young men queue up to **** Palestinian babies for fun) .
Therefore soldiers DO want to fight, they DO want the chance to ****
And they willingly risk their own ugly unwashed redneck necks.
So they have no right to whine and bellyache when they get asked
To earn their daily state-paid bread and do a spot of killing
Instead of sitting on their overweight arses at MY expense.
Or course, they could show some real guts and resign instead,
But what the **** why pass up on a chance to do some
Legalised ****** and get paid handsomely at the same time.
Just in case you think I forgot, I am totally and fully aware
That 'he' includes 'she' in this context now that women
Have an equal chance to have their military buns blown off pointlessly.
So don't whinge or expect sympathy when your body parts come home in a bag.
Personally, I am of the belief that the only good soldier is a dead soldier,
And the more the merrier. RIP military thugs and up yours.
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
As I sit alone I see
Slaughter after slaughter
Innocent children dying
For greed greed o my heart
Is saddened by greed and
Deaths deaths the smell of dead
Body's building up around me
I cannot take it no more
We are alone we are alone
We or dying one by one
Evil has taken over I sit
Alone alone I am I'm saddened
By life a dream of a bright future
And no tomorrow never comes
O why why why am I alone
My heartache had dying
I'm dying my future never
To be seen I'm alone the tears
Running down my face
O why o why I'm crying
Over over over again
A life time of war and
No dream of a better future
My days alone of hurt
Pain sorrow nobody
Cares about me nobody
Comes to help me
For others life is a perfect
Dream smiling laughing loving
Each other's hearts but
Please I'm dying I'm crying
And don't come for me
I'm worth nothing in life
While your children are
Worth more than me
I'm only a little Palestinian
Boy waiting to die
From Israeli soldiers
Nobody will ever come for me
I'll just wait to die.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 11:05 AM UTC
Well,
people never ask about what I love,
what I hate,
It seems that "I" have to fade
it seems that "I" is not important
because "I" is Palestinian.
I'm not allowed to work,
I'm not allowed to get proper education,
I'm not allowed to talk,
I'm not allowed to speak of liberation.
They call me a refugee,
but, dear, I am a slave.
I'm not a terrorist
I'm not blinded by religion
I'm not blinded by traditions
I'm only human
I have no liberty
because of my nationality.
You, who call our for human rights,
Am I not human?
Am I not a victim of insignificant fights?
Well,
All I know is that I'm alive,
I exist.
So keep your prejudiced selves away from me,
and let me be,
let me be free.
I am only a human
a human
I have a beating heart
I love art
I have ambitions
and dreams
stop shattering me
because of a nationality.
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 12:16 PM UTC
Palestinian Liberty
I hear your cries, I harken to your call,
Beautiful children, loving mothers I see you all,
Weeping orphans, bereaved parents I share your tears,
The bombs fall, panic, chaos I feel your fears.
Stay strong children of Palestine,
Stay strong oh family of mine,
For the day shall surely come,
When we will rise up as one.
Mutilated corpses, Rivers of blood,
Severed limbs lay on your sanctified mud,
Upon which prophets and martyrs stood,
Pillars of faith, your forebears, upholding all that is good.
You gave refuge to your captives in their hour of need,
You roots of usurpation, you planted that seed,
Graciously breaking bread with the holocaust survivors,
It is you who carry the standard of the emancipators,
Now it is you who call out for the liberators.
Will we laugh or cry at the irony,
That only the men of Palestine carry the bravery,
That only the women of Palestine bear the humanity,
That only the children of Palestine possess the capacity,
To sacrifice, to provide liberty.
Aug 6, 2016
Aug 6, 2016 at 5:19 AM UTC
Grandpa is a Nasi
Papa a Jew
And me - Palestinian
Grandma, *Gandari
Since Long
And Mom Never Had
Veto Power, ever.
When the Portico is yesterday’s Europe
And the Living Room is today’s Asia
The Kitchen is all-time Africa,
It’s quite natural for
The Bedroom to be Antarctica.
= = = = = =
*Gandhari is a character in the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. Gandhari voluntarily blindfolded herself throughout her married life. Her husband Dhritarashtra was born blind, and on meeting him and realizing this, she decided to share the pain of her blind husband.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 4:44 AM UTC
A bearded Sikh is practicing
his faith, you'll say
but a bearded Muslim is
extremist and has gone astray.
A pious nun can be covered
from head to toe
but a covered Muslim girl
is oppressed you know.
Respect for western woman
when she stays at home to look her child,
same is done by Muslim woman
then from outer world she is exiled.
In schools and colleges
semi **** girls are allowed
but with unjust laws
a covered Muslim girl is scared and cowed.
A Jew kills someone then case
against a criminal is filed.
but when a Muslim does any crime
then Islam goes under trial.
For acts of ******
Christianity is not blamed
then why with every bomb blast
hatred against Islam is flamed.
When a Palestinian takes gun against oppression
terrorist you shout and call
but when blood is spilt for oil and wealth
why your voices are not heard at all.
when an imperfect driver bangs a perfect car
no sane blames the car.
then why for vicious acts of few Muslims
Islam is put behind bars.
O media! O world!
why you hate why you detest.
against this double standards
I voice my strong protest.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 9:33 PM UTC
I killed Abraham Lincoln
and John F Kennedy.
I am a confederate soldier,
a United States marine,
a supremacist fugitive.
I killed Martin Luther King
and Robert F Kennedy.
I am a Palestinian immigrant.
Last Monday I went to the market
to buy fresh fruit,
ripe mangoes and bananas
you could smell from tables away.
Grapes red purple green
and I squished one between
my thumb and forefinger,
grape flesh the color of farm villas.
Melons pears peaches plums.
I am a fruit connoisseur.
I am a customer.
I am Mark David Chapman.
I killed John Lennon.
I killed your mother's brother
and a homeless woman.
I am Edgar Allen Poe's inspiration
for the Tell-Tale Heart.
I killed the old man
the young man -
any man.
I am anyone
anywhere
and I am armed.
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 9:06 PM UTC