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Michael R Burch Dec 2021
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
Ken Pepiton Nov 2018
life more abundant calls forth an expandable reality primo,
thus wisdom, the principal thing when-ce all other
things may be made

machine level codifiers ifying
meaning back into idle words.

Keep the secret. Answer the call,
who will help the widow's son?

You, Templar, what message bear ye to my child?,
asked the widow.
Fi-del-e-tus. with a squeeze and a tap,
wink and grin

Poet, who named the prophet?
who named the teller to tales?
who gave thee hearing ear and seeing eye?

Some mind imagined those as yet unformed in forever past.
You agree. You experienced living, so far.

So good, we move on, figurative re re re al-it if-ity
Haps apt to appear be fore your veri variety of being even
hapt as a thing thought, imagined made for a function, as yet

undone. Conserve the NULL set, that whole idea is dangerously
close to fading…

Have you seen those videos of soap bubbles filled with H
and no O?
You should see those, to recall the phenomenonal pre-dictatorial
image, see the bubble, invisible but
for reflection of ambient ambits in our epigenetic radiosphere,

bubbles collapse, and for a flash, flame orange shaped
as the bubble was.
No ex-plo sion it-a-tivity, mere dis cipation,
loss of grip on the shape of things that were, now
con forms to re per ceive,

try again, get a good grip, swing and a miss, go again
take a Mulligan, I think, some game has such a rule,

We can use it here. We can scroll back up,
like a rope lift on the bunny hill at Big Bear, back when…

wheels in wheels, bubbles in bubbles, forms in forms

this is the information age I was informed. Adamkind, those
qubitical, ambitical little images of

Who, who? would a name comfort-you worth more than a breath?
Fresh air after a minuted moment twixt out and in again,

Power, create ific power haps twixt out an in again,
the cipitation, the d was missed, what if it were not?

re-read, religion once meant that, re-connect, too,
religion meant that state of having re-read the map,
re-tied the worth carrying,
stacked the worthless by the trail so
some hapless stranger may see
the treasure it was and is, to any who care to

receive, or con ceive it for the
truth I found in it and kept, which I leave to you
here:
Both treasure and truth are where ye find them,
and shall be for ever, when ever starts for you.

Ezekial, judge my riddle, please. The fool missed the
point of conception…
No, no no no

A fool's dance in a Phrygian cap with useless, symbolic wings…
gee, Phrygian, means nothing to you? Google it, you live in the future.
Later,
A time upon which a Mercury dime would comfort
a rich American Tyrant, son of the Flim-flam man,
no lie, this is mythic, you can't make this stuff up
its history. Hysterical, right
John D. Standard-for-Petropower-manifestation,
the dead's carbon footprints bubbling up
to fire and fridgin' ice, whoa, who broke the world,

I was distracted. Did you know the planet is
as self healing as those scabs on my grandkids knees?

ah, caper, eh? Capere, to grasp, to take,
ceive means accept by taking,
be liefing an idea ceived ex nihilo, is likened unto

Drinking from a still pond in a distant land. Sults,
results. may result in,
Dear Rhea revenging Montezuma, at a gut level.

However, a sort of how in an open mind facing forever,
a sort of omni-directional saliency
seeing further,
--Bomb, Jesus-bomb--

At least two reasons for thinking Jesus is objective, out side
you or inside you. You aren't Jesus. Jesus is a friend of mine,
in my mind, object-if-I-try
to pray, listen pray hopes
happen
shapes form
forever from ever point, every point, not of, in buy

a why..
why does a y on the end of every mean any thing?

That's the y-factor. You will learn why wise men still seek those.
As treasure, they are light, and the taste is beyond

the grasp of tongue to tell

that whole class of moded-ever words weave wards
whenever, forever, however, whatever
used proper, everafter,
that will save Dresden, some time, we think.

However, now, Rhea by name has entered the game.

Who is this named femofame? What game is she good in?
Or does she just knock the **** out of lying spirits?
Cool.

Ah, mother of all the gods, I recall, I mean
I meant to say
I remember, then I for got the power words hold here
exactly heare in eleven metrixed mentions,

this point, in time, not of time.
In the world, not of the world, you've heard the pharse?
The allusion is not lost on you, you know the phrase,

In the world, not of the world, holier men than I have
claimed to be, while I follow a few fine words,
linguistic kief, sprinkled fairy dust, like the stuff
captured in the gleaming film on your
microscopic-outer eye

see a salient point in time.

A pin point 'pon which one,
no more,
one story begins for ever, a gain in good net
value, if

we have tasted that word, chewed the gristle,
indigestible ligaments and sin-yews and such,
which once anchored meat to bone,

value is first good. Good e nough, nough
Gut genug, okeh,
maybe not my best, my best is yet to come, they say.

sufficient for today
------

enough (adj.)
c. 1300, from Old English genog "sufficient in quantity or number,"
from Proto-Germanic compound *ganog "sufficient"
(source also of Old Saxon ginog,
Old Frisian enoch, Dutch genoeg,
Old High German ginuog, German genug,
Old Norse gnogr, Gothic ganohs).
First element is Old English ge- "with, together"
(also a participial, collective, intensive, or perfective prefix),
making this word the most prominent surviving example
of the Old English prefix,
the equivalent of Latin com- and Modern German ge- 
(from PIE *kom- "beside, near, by, with;" see com-).
Second element is from PIE *nok-, from root *nek- (2)
"to reach, attain"
(source also of Sanskrit asnoti "to reach,"
Hittite ninikzi "lifts, raises,"
Lithuanian nešti "to bear, carry," Latin nancisci "to obtain").

As an adverb, "sufficiently for the purpose,"
in Old English; meaning
"moderately, fairly, tolerably" (good enough) was in Middle English. Understated sense, as in have had enough "have had too much" was in Old English (which relied heavily on double negatives and understatement).

As a noun in Old English,
"a quantity or number sufficient for the purpose." As an interjection, "that is enough," from c. 1600. Colloquial 'nough said is attested from 1839.

From <https://www.etymonline.com/word/enough#etymonlinev8703>
Godliness with contentment is great gain, a precept I was chewing on following a ritual holy day of gratitude to goodness for goodness sake in my cultural gut genug state of mind.
Sam Temple Jul 2014
battling demons
or suffering PTSD
with ADHD
and OCD
on TCH
looking for LSD –
need a little TLC
from the FDA
the EPA
just went MIA
and the UN
blames the FBI
while the CIA
and the NSA
seek the PLO –
brb
LOL, IDK
the shizzle is cray cray
*****’s be trippin
er’ry day
like Ross say
“don’t **** wit me” –
the USA
in betrothed to the NRA
and OSHA
just gave me a passing score
at the same time as the AMA
failed my blood
stylistically, this is MLA
and functionally it’s more WWE
TNT
CNN
t’n’a --
Jennifer DeLong Apr 2021
My head hurts
It's gonna explode
Why you ask
If I only knew
I'd share with you
For you see
It's to many things
it could be
It could be the stress
It could be the headache
It could be my overthinking
So could you please stand back
I wish to not explode
with anybody to close
The mess it will make
So please don't stand
to close
my head
Is ex..plo..ding ...
© Jennifer L DeLong 🦏
4/26/2021
Nomkhumbulwa Aug 2018
This is the question they ask me,
And one which I struggle to answer;
For it is not something I gave much thought,
And I really dont know how to answer.

It plagues me every day,
For you are still - ALL of you..."gone";
Why did I ever go back?
Had I been away for too long?

Perhaps I was being selfish,
Wanting to go back and see my Nan,
Wanting to go back to my roots,
To be on the ship while I still can.

To go back to where I felt I belonged,
I had waited ten years to go back;
And I still dont regret my return,
I dont see it as a reason for "attack".

I thought I had a family,
But it is quite clear that I do not;
For I struggle to find any answers
For this place that time forgot.

So it was a big mistake
To once again return,
To feel the soil under my feet,
For which I had so long yearned.

To climb High Knoll,
Looking out to sea;
Beyond the rugged terrain
lies nothing but sea, sea and more sea.

To climb the peaks,
Through the flax and the ferns;
Everything so green,
Being circled by the terns.

The wild windy bends,
On the road to Blue Hill;
The cloud almost consuming me -
and then everything so still.

The woods of Plantation,
And Rosemary Plain;
The sweet smell of fresh pine
Brings me back again and again.

The narrow streets of Jamestown,
Where cars and people compete;
Can take such a long time to walk,
Talking for hours with everyone you meet.

Swimming in the sea at Rupert's
Became my great escape;
With lovely friends we'd cook and swim
From early until late.

Being churned by the rough South Atlantic
Is like being in a washing machine;
When the huge waves come crashing upon you,
All you can do is hold your breath and hope...its better not to scream!

The water is warm but not gentle,
The swell can sweep you away;
As the waves pound rocks at your body,
You might be tempted to pray.

We swam and ate plo,
We swam and ate cake;
Fish freshly caught
Then from fire and onto plate.

Nana's house has not changed much,
The old geysir still in place;
The bead curtains, the photos,
of just about every single face.

Cockroaches escape hastily,
And the mozzies might come in,
Yet the peace and tranquility of this place
...with its "acoustics" of tin...

For the tin roof has a lot to offer
Especially for a musician;
The flute can be heard from afar,
Penetrating the silence within.

The rain drops make music too,
As they fall upon this roof of tin;
Every other sound may well be drowned out
And the lights sometimes go dim.

But to look from Nana's house,
To the peaks, the Gumwoods, the Fort;
Across to Francis Plain, the School,
And the sea in the distance of course.

Flagstaff sits prominently,
The sun setting on its flanks;
All can be seen from this house,
Built on these precarious banks.

I said goodbye to my nana
I did not know she was going to die;
She was staying in the nursing home,
I visited each time I passed by.

The house then felt more empty,
Even though she had to move out;
Suddenly it became so empty -
Everyone now has moved out.

It was also a place of torture,
And I am not proud at all of my mark;
I left this house with a darkness,
From which it will never depart.

I left the Island with darkness,
As it came time for me to depart;
The people, community shattered,
I still love it with all my heart.

I then felt I could help others,
After learning from those I could confide;
Since my once close knit family
Had pushed me to the side.

We thought we could bring justice,
For many victims of this fate;
But then as we drew so close..
...all of a sudden - it was too late.

Now we are cursed even more,
For our actions have caused such shame;
Yet he was the one who abused us -
He was the one to blame.

So I say goodbye as thats all I can do,
Tears flowing as I write this;
For I know with most certainty...
that I shall never return...and how I miss...

I miss you St Helena,
I tried to help you too;
But as closed minded as you are,
I am just more sad - there is nothing I can do.

Without the support of anyone,
Due to "fear of speaking out",
My own voice falls on deaf ears,
Even when I shout.

Now I must live with this damage,
And shame, and blame, and guilt;
Sometimes I still know not what is true,
Because as women - of course, its "our fault".

You are drifting away St Helena,
Our people - they have but gone;
I miss you, our jewel of the ocean,
Thinking back to the days when I was "still one".

I was still one of you till  last year,
How so much can change in that time;
But now our bond is forever broken,
Its broken...because of this crime.  

....and yes....it was a crime.
A new poem...not really thought out.  Just thoughts that came out (!).
TreadingWater Nov 2015
wrapped on your lap;
eyes-caught\sharing- breaths
squeeze press.heels.to.your.back
one thumb pressed to my hip
while/your/fingERs/slide/inside

...nails/break/skin...
moUths locked in a kiss;...
my hand pulls your hair//
~fingers~TangLed~
the other,...
holding on-foR-dear-life.
digging//in

ribs-to-chest
~pressing~into~yoU~
^^breaThing^^labored^^
­puLLing-you-in...
and...in
...and
in (sidE//deepeR)

Biting yo(my)ur lip
pUsh-me-to-the-bed
mouth, taking, over, where
   fing//ers//be//gan
puLl.your.teeth.closer
~so~lost~in~the~moment ~
pulsing cosmic tendRils
of explosive t.a.n.g.e.r.i.n.e.
throughout all of my
...being.

anD i never need another
thing;... again
except.thIs.moment.
~as~you~reveal~
...my
cOmplete...
sur//reN//der.
Ryan O'Leary Apr 2022
Before Tafara, the dyslexic
uncle of Malsi died, he is
reputed to have given her
a letter with instructions on
how to negotiate with the
squatters by quid PLO quo
rather the Ham-as which
apparently is not Kosher.
Dru Aug 2022
The Palestinian boy looks over yonder in pain and simmering anger
Over the hills a soldier watches his every move
While protecting a land grabber, a "returning owner"
Where does his deliverance come from
PLO ? UN ? HAMAS ? ARAB NATIONS
They can care less
What happened to freedom he ponders
He lost his childhood friend to a ******'s bullet
Like Abel's blood was spilled by his kin
Ishmael's progeny have stained the ground with their blood
Wailing goes on unceasing
The value of a Life has never been so little
Dispensable, easily done away with
But Jannah awaits and Unto his hands, my spirit I commit
The boy mutters silently as he makes his way to another funeral.
Sun Drop Nov 2019
You - were - just - a - man
You - had - just - one - heart
You - moved - con - ti - nents
You - ripped - them - a - part

Hang - ing - by - a - thread
Hang - ing - from - the - sky
Hang - ing - on - too - long
Hold - your - head - up - high

Di - plo - mat - ic - games
Au - to - mat - ic - change
Temp - or - ar - y - state
Temp - or - ar - y - fame

Un - der - stand - my - words
Up - hold - my - doc - trine
Fight - a - gainst - the - tide
Burn - down - eve - ry - thing.
1111111
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2023
on the edge of etch: letters appear but disappear
without sound -
       tumultus origins of English, as a tongue,
later a people: a letter to the people -
outsourcing the orthodox passing of meaning
without hieroglyphs -
as the Polynesians did for almost six thousand
years when they set off without horses:
or rather with the horses of waves and the winds
across the great plateau of the Pacific ocean...

zahn schleifen liebe: tooth grinding love

       'ōlelo:                 word (language)

palapala:                       letter

          kani:                   sound

face:            maka

            ki'i:                         image

huikau: hybrid:         hiatus of haikus...

on the edge of an etch - apostrophes aplenty and
like reimagining Hawaiian as English
with two consonants: but'ter
            plo'tter - no, not plot'ter

per time: manawa: rather manava -
and Minerva: time spent executing an Olson typography
oh how apostrophes '
      fell to the earth of the linear winding of meaning
in sentences and became punctuation marks
of words in paragraphs rather than poetic cascades
of line: anew...

       J          'ot         down on the edge:
              Ed-ward googled his own name,
some Edward, ed-gear: but that's the eDGe
   i.e. by sound dictation: shion... dicta-shion
   Ej
                        jacket ej

     as with etch:             the visible T yet not really
uttered, sort of bypassed, and heart drowning in
clearly: English is prone to dyslexic fancies
because clearly some letters submerge...

   four tao's of the thai tau:

         the ouroborus no longer eating itself...

                                    T
                                 T † T
                                    T

or perhaps to ask Andrew and the Edinburgh Greeks:

                                 T. T
                                   X
                                T.   T

i can say much more about Edinburgh than Dublin,
safe to say: concerning these two cities
of the former a bad case of trainspotting
and low tides of culture -
   while Dublin, markedly not on the maps
of meaning of the one map that is the Union Jack(et)
since... the Irish did not fare well
with flags associated to cross-bearing marches
across the desert...

               that is i on the guillotine that's ι -
i hardly think it was a common courtesy of the romans
to go all out spectacular for an added head
recliner upon reaching Golgotha:

     how † was actually a T - because that year
it was even cold in Jerusalem so extra firewood was
needed...
and once the deed was done you think that
they didn't use the crosses for fuel in the garrison?
i can just imagine the incense of blood soaked wood
enraging the nostrils of the centurions...

truly, as i were there: in ghost...
      
   ah... only yesterday i picked up a revised hunger
for *******:
hence the zahnschleifenliebe...
   because i have already buckled on loving her
by grinding my front teeth to the point
of chipping one of them...

teeth like butter-softness
   niho niho: no plural? how about
tooth is niho and teeth are nihi?
   so much for a people talking but not writing...
can you imagine: is the nouns became bankrupt
i.e. if someone forgot the name
of a name, so that the word mea - thing was conjured?

what's a waapa?          a boat? not a wa'apa?

oh 'a'ohe mea -              yesthing for nothing
that's ae'              a'ole        no yes no no yes yes no
oh nothing, nothing...

        'olu'olu 'a'ohe mea: sweet nothing -
for a something: kekahi mea...

tribunal of pirates and vagabond burping barbarians:
yes, no word for wig...
kāpiki - cabbage - kapusta in ****** -
who helped conjure up an anti-etymology
for the Hawaiians?      'ōlelo as distinct from
kanaka - a language but not the people...

   kai kanaka - sea people...

'ōmato               (potato)
                  'ūala         (tomato)        

potato toe: manamana wāwae 'ūala
although it is not an assurance to conjure a translation
in that order: and not toe potato...
which would imply: french fries, no?
chips...

            mahina: that is moon and machinery
maszyna - to imply the tides were settled in the minds
and the moon was the machine behind
the phenomenon?
i clearly must be looking at something akin
to cross pollination, etymologically speaking...

you take a word from greek and fuse it with
latin then sprinkle some german or dutch
onto it and you arrive at English...
   not always... greek for orthodoxy still intact
with words like etymology, lexicon and:
well obviously little differences from the original
but most still intact...

talofa! foliga fiafia!
that would be me, being dragged out of darkness
of bad dreams falling out of bed talking
to someone in my sleep...
don't ask me how or for that matter why:

                          is                                      is

two ises ensure that there isn't an isn't...
             or at least that's how it might feel for
a Japanese samu samu rai rai
    visiting these islands...
comparatively an Englishman in Lithuania...
or Latvia...
                      moderately compared cultural differences...
    how will
i ever return to those islands and that Lā

                 to the place where a syllable has meaning
or rather a noun status...
ther-                  thermometer...
one moment less: per tier of integer           mother's
ether...

                             Fern...   ꟻ labours with Theta at
taught thought fabulously... by speaking first...
then listening, then observing, finally scribbling
sound-encoding to reach meaning (:expansive)

because i had to watch ******* yesterday
  because pleasing myself using pictures of you is
like trying to scratch an itch that soon becomes
something either artistic or philosophical...
artistically philosophical: an aesthetic...
that's the meaning of aesthetics:  
                  
i perceive AIS -          eyes
    thes-pain                   thespian
                                              the theta i see...
a letter that became a cheese that became...
surely from the Medieval ages onwards
   it was well established that gold was not really worth
what it was supposedly worth...
since the end of the wooden wheel...
    rubber... rubber and salt... to preserve the meats
to give us culinary ambitions...
                        rubber, salt, morphine, love

and money: to get out of each other's way...
i like money as a concept and as a practicality...
to get out of each other's way...
     and yet to somehow make this life bearable...
money: as means of getting out of each other's way...

ah but still, love... that challenging aspect of life,
for a wish to not write about it,
yet still, unbearably writing about it,
covertly, like so.
Filomena Jan 31
o tut de lun u zgiqbu
je dza sua *** kai zgilen tak te zon
i qdu qe xek nau tepzi tek o ***
je zuk bau *** nau zal po sli de ple
i sli bau *** xai daltep. i nefu lo sinpok
je plo qe txitup le za xak de zok.
i lan lo xilpok sondal xle de papkin gu
ke xel de lit pe sin je dzo le kai papkit
fi no vol fai dan pe xil. i nak lo lupko
pe qippli kai ben je sku le zgi fi zetfu
peu tu lot pe lia gelúp. i xek ne lutnik
sku de qak xik je xnukek le kai xta
i lutfu peu zanxo je pindal qe xne peu luttak
je sik le po zan do ple de notlen
vou nau zal do ple de pel. i lan lo vipnik
je xle le *** sai xel de txixo bon
i kul lia lot je bel lia xnu pe gul
i xel le sui kep ze skuxo bon qe sin
je slizuk le fi ti. i xen o liofu
e xalzen xle de nokfuk pap
i vit le so fo tul je xle le kin
je zni sai dal lia *** gexpá qe lal
za lia qla xal je lia takson dqi qe dal zoi
xen go zno e son pe sin je ***
go e pe zgitul kon. i nak to del
ke fin de skuxo xik qe xel de ske
i zno po sinpokfu je qdu do sua ke bon
i sak xto i sak lot i sak ska i sak zat
This is a Xextan translation of the "All the world's a stage" speech, from Shakespeare's "As You Like It"
Brie Williams Feb 2020
Whirling around
Buzzing
The sound
Of the interstate
Muffles out the train
Pouring through my bathroom vent
The roar
The
Ex
Plo
Sion
The time for work sound
The I never would've thought it was you
It's always you
And when I think of you
You appear
And I really do want you
Because you want me

— The End —