Ezekiel 47:21
“So you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. 22 “You shall divide it by lot for an inheritance among yourselves and among the aliens who stay in your midst, who bring forth sons in your midst. And they shall be to you as the native-born among the sons of Israel; they shall be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. 23 “And in the tribe with which the alien stays, there you shall give him his inheritance,” declares the Lord GOD.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Taken From Freegaza.org
An Open Letter to President Obama
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Wednesday, 03 June 2009 17:59 Written by Free Gaza Movement
03 June 2009
Dear President Obama,
Tomorrow you travel to Egypt to give one of the most important speeches of your presidency. With the words you deliver you have said that you want to “reset” U.S. relations with the Muslim world and create a fundamental change for the better. We sincerely wish you well. But you have also said that “part of being a good friend is being honest.” Let’s be honest.
Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonization of Palestinian land and the United States’ unquestioned financial, military and political support for Israel is at the heart of the negative perceptions and bitter anger that many Arabs and Muslims have of the United States. Tomorrow, we hope to hear from you a commitment to aligning U.S. policy in the Middle East with U.N. Resolutions and international law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives everyone the right to freely enter and exit one’s own country. You will exercise this right when you arrive in Egypt tomorrow and then return to the United States. This is a right that Palestinians--particularly those trapped in Gaza--are routinely denied.
* Over 200 Palestinian medical patients in Gaza, many critically ill, are unable to seek adequate treatment because Israeli authorities regularly deny Palestinian patients the right to travel abroad to receive the medical treatment that is not available in Gaza; at the same time import of many medicines and medical equipment into Gaza is prevented by Israel.
* Over 700 Palestinian students in Gaza, many with scholarships, are unable to attend their universities abroad because Israel regularly denies them this right.
* Thousands of Palestinians abroad are unable to visit their families because Israel will not allow them to re-enter their own country.
When you arrive in Egypt you will travel to your accommodations in a car maintained with spare parts banned to Palestinians, powered by gasoline denied to the people of Gaza. You will use electric lights that do not often work in Gaza, because Israel blocks the fuel needed to run Gaza’s electrical grid. You may enjoy a cup of coffee or tea during your visit - commodities Israel will not allow into Gaza.
The truth is that Israel lets in less than 20% of the ordinary supplies needed in Gaza, and allows no reconstruction materials whatsoever to enter. As a consequence over 95% of all industries have collapsed, creating massive unemployment and poverty. The purpose of the Israeli blockade is to punish and break an entire people. Collective punishment is strictly prohibited under international law, yet it remains Israel’s primary policy in regards to the Palestinian people.
On June 25th, the Free Gaza Movement sets sail on our eighth voyage to challenge the brutal Israeli blockade of Gaza. Though we have been threatened and our ships rammed by the Israeli navy, we will not be deterred. We sail in the spirit of the Freedom Riders who, in the year you were born, risked their lives so that African-Americans could travel freely in the United States. We sail in the spirit of international cooperation that helped create the United Nations, in the spirit of the international civil resistance that overcame Apartheid.
President Obama, you have based your political career on what you call the “audacity of hope” - the faith that each of us, individually and collectively, can change things for the better. But faith without action is dead. We too believe in hope, but from our experience we know that hope alone will not change the world. Like you, we know that the price and promise of our mutual humanity demands that each of us treat one another with dignity and respect, and that all of us strive to insure that our sisters and brothers around the world are free to make of their lives what they will, and pursue their full measure of happiness.
Mister President, you led the fight in the U.S. Senate to insure that aid was actually delivered to people after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. A man-made disaster continues to devastate the people of Gaza; due to Israel’s ongoing hermetic closure of the Gaza Strip over 80% of the population there require food assistance just in order to survive. We hope your speech tomorrow in Egypt is successful but, at a minimum, you must use your privilege to demand and secure open access to Gaza for all international humanitarian, reconstruction, and developmental supplies. Words matter, but words are not enough.
We in the Free Gaza Movement will sail to Gaza again and again and again, in vigorous unarmed resistance, until the Israeli blockade is forever shattered and the Palestinian people have free access to the rest of the world.
Please recognize that the fact that we even have to ask (let alone risk our lives) to be allowed to provide food to the hungry, medicine to the sick, and shelter to the homeless is in itself an obscenity. We look forward to hearing from you an uncompromising commitment for the immediate end of the criminal siege of Gaza, as well as an assurance that respect for the human rights, dignity and equality of the Palestinian people will be at the core of your administration’s policy toward the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Sincerely Yours,
The Free Gaza Movement Board of Directors
Huwaida Arraf, JD
Greta Berlin
Eliza Ernshire
Derek Graham
Fathi Jaouadi
Ramzi Kysia
E-mail Print PDF
News
Wednesday, 03 June 2009 17:59 Written by Free Gaza Movement
03 June 2009
Dear President Obama,
Tomorrow you travel to Egypt to give one of the most important speeches of your presidency. With the words you deliver you have said that you want to “reset” U.S. relations with the Muslim world and create a fundamental change for the better. We sincerely wish you well. But you have also said that “part of being a good friend is being honest.” Let’s be honest.
Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonization of Palestinian land and the United States’ unquestioned financial, military and political support for Israel is at the heart of the negative perceptions and bitter anger that many Arabs and Muslims have of the United States. Tomorrow, we hope to hear from you a commitment to aligning U.S. policy in the Middle East with U.N. Resolutions and international law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives everyone the right to freely enter and exit one’s own country. You will exercise this right when you arrive in Egypt tomorrow and then return to the United States. This is a right that Palestinians--particularly those trapped in Gaza--are routinely denied.
* Over 200 Palestinian medical patients in Gaza, many critically ill, are unable to seek adequate treatment because Israeli authorities regularly deny Palestinian patients the right to travel abroad to receive the medical treatment that is not available in Gaza; at the same time import of many medicines and medical equipment into Gaza is prevented by Israel.
* Over 700 Palestinian students in Gaza, many with scholarships, are unable to attend their universities abroad because Israel regularly denies them this right.
* Thousands of Palestinians abroad are unable to visit their families because Israel will not allow them to re-enter their own country.
When you arrive in Egypt you will travel to your accommodations in a car maintained with spare parts banned to Palestinians, powered by gasoline denied to the people of Gaza. You will use electric lights that do not often work in Gaza, because Israel blocks the fuel needed to run Gaza’s electrical grid. You may enjoy a cup of coffee or tea during your visit - commodities Israel will not allow into Gaza.
The truth is that Israel lets in less than 20% of the ordinary supplies needed in Gaza, and allows no reconstruction materials whatsoever to enter. As a consequence over 95% of all industries have collapsed, creating massive unemployment and poverty. The purpose of the Israeli blockade is to punish and break an entire people. Collective punishment is strictly prohibited under international law, yet it remains Israel’s primary policy in regards to the Palestinian people.
On June 25th, the Free Gaza Movement sets sail on our eighth voyage to challenge the brutal Israeli blockade of Gaza. Though we have been threatened and our ships rammed by the Israeli navy, we will not be deterred. We sail in the spirit of the Freedom Riders who, in the year you were born, risked their lives so that African-Americans could travel freely in the United States. We sail in the spirit of international cooperation that helped create the United Nations, in the spirit of the international civil resistance that overcame Apartheid.
President Obama, you have based your political career on what you call the “audacity of hope” - the faith that each of us, individually and collectively, can change things for the better. But faith without action is dead. We too believe in hope, but from our experience we know that hope alone will not change the world. Like you, we know that the price and promise of our mutual humanity demands that each of us treat one another with dignity and respect, and that all of us strive to insure that our sisters and brothers around the world are free to make of their lives what they will, and pursue their full measure of happiness.
Mister President, you led the fight in the U.S. Senate to insure that aid was actually delivered to people after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. A man-made disaster continues to devastate the people of Gaza; due to Israel’s ongoing hermetic closure of the Gaza Strip over 80% of the population there require food assistance just in order to survive. We hope your speech tomorrow in Egypt is successful but, at a minimum, you must use your privilege to demand and secure open access to Gaza for all international humanitarian, reconstruction, and developmental supplies. Words matter, but words are not enough.
We in the Free Gaza Movement will sail to Gaza again and again and again, in vigorous unarmed resistance, until the Israeli blockade is forever shattered and the Palestinian people have free access to the rest of the world.
Please recognize that the fact that we even have to ask (let alone risk our lives) to be allowed to provide food to the hungry, medicine to the sick, and shelter to the homeless is in itself an obscenity. We look forward to hearing from you an uncompromising commitment for the immediate end of the criminal siege of Gaza, as well as an assurance that respect for the human rights, dignity and equality of the Palestinian people will be at the core of your administration’s policy toward the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Sincerely Yours,
The Free Gaza Movement Board of Directors
Huwaida Arraf, JD
Greta Berlin
Eliza Ernshire
Derek Graham
Fathi Jaouadi
Ramzi Kysia
Monday, June 1, 2009
Thank You, Jesus Manifesto and Samuel Clemens.
"It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
[pause]
“Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said."
"It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
[pause]
“Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said."
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
It is not eloquent or easy to read. There is nothing about it that should be easy to digest, that is exactly why it should be read. In memory of both the oppressed and the oppressor... we have to believe that there is liberation and renewal for both. Christ, we ask for amazement, energy, and redemption for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Jean Stewart
El Sobrante, CA
©2008
"I wrote this poem partly in response to the Israeli policy of home demolition by bulldozer.
Palestinian families whose homes are targeted for destruction are notified by loudspeaker.
Sometimes they’re given barely half an hour to carry out their belongings and vacate their
homes. Many elderly and disabled Palestinians have been buried in the rubble of their homes
because they could not, or would not, leave.
I also wrote the poem in response to the many incidents in which pregnant Palestinian women
have attempted to make it to hospital, only to be stopped at checkpoint by Israeli soldiers who
refuse to let them pass, forcing them to either turn around and drive home or give birth at
checkpoint. In either case, these births take place under circumstances of extreme stress and
danger, without medical assistance, with sometimes disastrous consequences.
Both of these scenarios—women giving birth “in extremis” and Palestinian families made
homeless when their houses are demolished—have become commonplace in Palestine. In my
mind I’ve tended to view them as two separate—though obviously related—narratives, but
recently it occurred to me that somewhere in Gaza or Jenin or elsewhere in Palestine, the two
horrific scenarios are bound to converge, if they have not already."
THE CHOICE
“I ask you youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself, and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of your country but to its character." -- George W. Bush
***
Jean Stewart
El Sobrante, CA
©2008
"I wrote this poem partly in response to the Israeli policy of home demolition by bulldozer.
Palestinian families whose homes are targeted for destruction are notified by loudspeaker.
Sometimes they’re given barely half an hour to carry out their belongings and vacate their
homes. Many elderly and disabled Palestinians have been buried in the rubble of their homes
because they could not, or would not, leave.
I also wrote the poem in response to the many incidents in which pregnant Palestinian women
have attempted to make it to hospital, only to be stopped at checkpoint by Israeli soldiers who
refuse to let them pass, forcing them to either turn around and drive home or give birth at
checkpoint. In either case, these births take place under circumstances of extreme stress and
danger, without medical assistance, with sometimes disastrous consequences.
Both of these scenarios—women giving birth “in extremis” and Palestinian families made
homeless when their houses are demolished—have become commonplace in Palestine. In my
mind I’ve tended to view them as two separate—though obviously related—narratives, but
recently it occurred to me that somewhere in Gaza or Jenin or elsewhere in Palestine, the two
horrific scenarios are bound to converge, if they have not already."
THE CHOICE
“I ask you youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself, and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of your country but to its character." -- George W. Bush
In Palestine the about-to-be
firstborn of a twenty two year old
woman roils and churns in amniotic
unease his journey having
hit a snag when checkpoint
soldiers deny his parents passage
thwarting all thought of
hospital birth.
They turn and drive home.
Not yet a citizen of
the human world he doesn’t
see how his mother’s sweat
wets the sheets glues brown hair to cheeks
nor how his father hovers: Love I’m here
Don’t cry Doesn’t hear what
his father now hears: the tanks.
If he were a born boy he’d see his father
turn on the television
2
loud slip from the room to race
outdoors arms aloft pleading
No stop my wife—
while she
grips the mattress, arching her back.
He’d see his mother lost
in labor oblivious to
loudspeaker
gunfire tanks
She wails stops wails
Her brown eyes fix
on the American who sits
at his desk amidst marvelous order—
just a few papers in one neat stack—squinting
back at her and speaking. The camera moves
outdoors to gaze at the White House
shimmering in sun. Presidential words
vibrate glinting like tossed coins.
Courage triumphs
Look Hassan! Such green green
grass!
Serve in a cause
And flowers! Hassan let’s plant—
In those moments just as
her body loses itself in a wild red
flowering of flesh
he the unseeing
the neverborn
he of the tiny
bulldozed bud of a heart
makes his choice
and will carry it
will carry it
will carry it on.
firstborn of a twenty two year old
woman roils and churns in amniotic
unease his journey having
hit a snag when checkpoint
soldiers deny his parents passage
thwarting all thought of
hospital birth.
They turn and drive home.
Not yet a citizen of
the human world he doesn’t
see how his mother’s sweat
wets the sheets glues brown hair to cheeks
nor how his father hovers: Love I’m here
Don’t cry Doesn’t hear what
his father now hears: the tanks.
If he were a born boy he’d see his father
turn on the television
2
loud slip from the room to race
outdoors arms aloft pleading
No stop my wife—
while she
grips the mattress, arching her back.
He’d see his mother lost
in labor oblivious to
loudspeaker
gunfire tanks
She wails stops wails
Her brown eyes fix
on the American who sits
at his desk amidst marvelous order—
just a few papers in one neat stack—squinting
back at her and speaking. The camera moves
outdoors to gaze at the White House
shimmering in sun. Presidential words
vibrate glinting like tossed coins.
Courage triumphs
Look Hassan! Such green green
grass!
Serve in a cause
And flowers! Hassan let’s plant—
In those moments just as
her body loses itself in a wild red
flowering of flesh
he the unseeing
the neverborn
he of the tiny
bulldozed bud of a heart
makes his choice
and will carry it
will carry it
will carry it on.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Nebraska
What is hope? Does need and want necessitate hope? Do the hopeless have the power to hope again? And those that are aware of the hopelessness that is brought by satiation, and yet still are too numb to hope, do they have a way to hope again? It feels impossible to pray. The words are too heavy to take flight. They sit at the end of my tongue with no proper mechanism to transport them out of my mouth. Hopelessness. I find a way to calm the gentle stirring inside my heart. I can read books on the Sabbath and about the prophetic imagination. I can talk to friends or quote poetry to suite a situation. I can write inexpressible thoughts in a pocket journal to alleviate the pain. I can wish upon new friendship to dull the pain of dying senses. I can run, but I can't hide, that to me at least, is the most obvious.
I WISH I COULD HEAR MYSELF, SCREAM.
And this will all end tomorrow, when I awake to find a new day waiting at my bed. It will begin again when I let time fall victim to spatial desires. I will doubt myself only to be the most prideful person I see that day, and will learn to stare myself through the deceitfulness of the mirror...
I do not live a horrible life. I live an overcrowded life with thoughts of revolution and domestication. I prostitute my soul for my ego and then loathe myself because of my inability to override the whims of my will. I think about what it means to build an altar and dig a well. I also think about how not moving is better than moving. Not addressing the unrest in my heart is better than undressing my heart. I think of cool sentences to switch around only so that people will look at me as someone who can manipulate words into clever phrases that fail to do justice to the issue of the heart. I write so I can reread this and pat my own back. The heaviness of desire is too much to bare. If only I could change right?
...if only I could be better... Oh, I might agree that God takes us as we are, and I tell myself that after I blame HIM for the way I am, only to feel guilty for my inability to simply believe.
And you know the times that you really do feel humbled and at peace, those days where the impossibility of change only makes you hope more...those days are so few and far between that the chasm seems to lengthen. An abyss has formed inside my heart - faith, hope, and love do not remember the quiet walks in the garden they once took together. Compassion and Justice remember only better times.
...Or so it all seems in my heart. Pessimism feels so adequate when you think of how to describe this. I don't know if I like that word. Maybe I like to leave it nameless so that when it comes again I can wallow in self-pity just enough that someone notices and pays me some warped compliment that I think will set me free.
I crucified you. I yelled it in the streets of my heart. I reached back through time and turned that palm branch into a veil to hide the gruesomeness of your crucifixion. I denied you three times. I ran to Ninevah. I condemned the adulterous women. I received new life at the well. and I died in order to gain you.
The pure fact that I exist causes me to remember why I hate you and love you at the same time. Why my hate is not really hate, but simply disguised confusion.
Can you cause me to see again? I think I have lost my way, Jesus, I am just a small child that winces when he sees the light - especially when that light causes him to let go of his fear of the darkness.
I WISH I COULD HEAR MYSELF, SCREAM.
And this will all end tomorrow, when I awake to find a new day waiting at my bed. It will begin again when I let time fall victim to spatial desires. I will doubt myself only to be the most prideful person I see that day, and will learn to stare myself through the deceitfulness of the mirror...
I do not live a horrible life. I live an overcrowded life with thoughts of revolution and domestication. I prostitute my soul for my ego and then loathe myself because of my inability to override the whims of my will. I think about what it means to build an altar and dig a well. I also think about how not moving is better than moving. Not addressing the unrest in my heart is better than undressing my heart. I think of cool sentences to switch around only so that people will look at me as someone who can manipulate words into clever phrases that fail to do justice to the issue of the heart. I write so I can reread this and pat my own back. The heaviness of desire is too much to bare. If only I could change right?
...if only I could be better... Oh, I might agree that God takes us as we are, and I tell myself that after I blame HIM for the way I am, only to feel guilty for my inability to simply believe.
And you know the times that you really do feel humbled and at peace, those days where the impossibility of change only makes you hope more...those days are so few and far between that the chasm seems to lengthen. An abyss has formed inside my heart - faith, hope, and love do not remember the quiet walks in the garden they once took together. Compassion and Justice remember only better times.
...Or so it all seems in my heart. Pessimism feels so adequate when you think of how to describe this. I don't know if I like that word. Maybe I like to leave it nameless so that when it comes again I can wallow in self-pity just enough that someone notices and pays me some warped compliment that I think will set me free.
I crucified you. I yelled it in the streets of my heart. I reached back through time and turned that palm branch into a veil to hide the gruesomeness of your crucifixion. I denied you three times. I ran to Ninevah. I condemned the adulterous women. I received new life at the well. and I died in order to gain you.
The pure fact that I exist causes me to remember why I hate you and love you at the same time. Why my hate is not really hate, but simply disguised confusion.
Can you cause me to see again? I think I have lost my way, Jesus, I am just a small child that winces when he sees the light - especially when that light causes him to let go of his fear of the darkness.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Frankie Welfare Boy Age Five
my thoughts linger like impossible
so improbable that i could carry the world
Atlas, you must have something I dont.
when the autumn leaves no longer sway
making room for the winter breeze
when people make profits the only way to live
we are reduced to producing machines
the radio plays in my ear,
I'm reminded of times that I wasnt there
when life plays before my eyes
I wish I were older in years.
I wish for joy to turn to tears.
...yeah
so improbable that i could carry the world
Atlas, you must have something I dont.
when the autumn leaves no longer sway
making room for the winter breeze
when people make profits the only way to live
we are reduced to producing machines
the radio plays in my ear,
I'm reminded of times that I wasnt there
when life plays before my eyes
I wish I were older in years.
I wish for joy to turn to tears.
...yeah
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