NO TREATS TO THE TRICKSTERS | SMILING THROUGH GRIEF | BLUES FOR GAZA | GAZA LAG

NO TREATS TO THE TRICKSTERS

I know
it’s Halloween
but the Gaza tragedy
is not
a masquerade
where costumes are worn
to trick
world opinion
into consent
for genocide

as every four minutes
Israel kills a child
in Gaza
complicit western diplomats
like the spoiled
entitled rich children
they are –
dress up
with the PR props
of scripted skits
to knock on our door
expecting
treats
and
the lethal poison
of military candy

one diplomat
dresses in a Chanel style
black and white suit
that could have been cut
in a Palestinian flag
and poses
for History
as she votes
against the world
for USA abetted war

the head Israeli diplomat
in the UN
stands up
to pin the Yellow Star
to his expensive suit
and whines
histrionically
“Nevermore”

why the need to dress up?
why the need to hijack the real victims’ symbols?
what do they have to cover up –
except the genocide
they are committing in the dark?

I prefer
the activists in the U.S. Senate
who needed
no theatrical garb
no pseudo stars
to simply paint their bare hands
red
and show them
to the planet

(c) Julia Wright. November 1, 2023. All Rights.

 

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SMILING THROUGH GRIEF

grief is in my laughter
Bob Mandel

when I was
a war illiterate child
at the seaside
my favorite pastime
was to dig deep holes
into the sand
with my plastic shovel

my war scarred parents
would smile
and tell me
if I dug
deep and long enough
I might reach
a mysterious land
called China

but dig as I might
China was a place
I never found

today
the genocide
of the people of Gaza
digs deep holes
in the ground of my memory
and
today
China posts online
maps of the world
where the state of Israel
is not to be found

and for all my grief
I remember to smile

(c) Julia Wright. November 2nd 2023. All Rights.

 

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BLUES FOR GAZA

fifty thousand
mothers-to-be
are trapped
in a bombed body of land
called Gaza

and in turn
these women’s bodies
are protectively trapping
innocent souls
inside of them

for how will they give birth ?

the UN has issued
do-it-yourself
birth kits
with little more
than a plastic sheet
and a pair of scissors

a mother-to-be
becomes
a soft targeted
human building
wrapped around
a child

(c) Julia Wright, November 2nd, 2023. All Rights.

 

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GAZA LAG

our U.S. prisoners
are attacked
with the lethal weapon
of sensory deprivation

meanwhile
the genocide
in Gaza
is assaulting
our free folks’ senses
to the point
that the real time death toll
over there
has become
a prison wall
to abolish
right here

everytime I see
a happy mother-to-be
walk in my protected street
I think of those sentenced
to the solitary confinement
of birthing alone

everytime I hear
the quiet hum
of a commercial flight
in my so pristine sky
I cannot help
scanning the horizon
for drones
or the too familiar barbed wire

everytime I see
an excited child
in a gaudy mall
shake a plastic ball
to see snow fall –
I cannot shake the thought
of flakes
of white phosphorus
burning

every morning
the taste of coffee
is scorched-
and it is not covid

there is now
such gravitas
in my sense of time
that I use
less and less words
to convey
the bare bones
of writing

there is an
expiry date
on Time
in Gaza

(c) Julia Wright. November 3rd 2023. All Rights.