No Yellow Brick Road in Gaza | Death of a Poet | Gaza – A Haunting | There Will Be Many Dawns

No Yellow Brick Road in Gaza

“(…) The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety
of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians (…)”.
L. Frank Baum
In the South Dakota Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer he was the editor of.
Published a week and a half before the slaughter at Wounded Knee.

when i was a child
i reveled
in the adventures
of Dorothy of the Land of Oz
unaware
that they had been written
by an American
born from old oil money,
L. Frank Baum

when i was a child
i dreamed
of dancing down the yellow brick road
and reaching the end of the rainbow
beyond

today
i realize
that the children of Gaza
robbed of the oil
discovered along their beach
would simply pick up
the fancy yellow bricks
and throw them
as far as their emaciated arms
can reach

today
i understand
that the curtain
that is swept aside
revealing the wizard of Oz
as a wizened hopeless failure of a man
is really
our unveiling
of Israel’s military spin
written with U.S. deep state
war profiteering ink

Emerald City
remains mythical –
it is Gaza City
that is magical
because it is real
and relentlessly alive

the land of Oz
is not to be –
but from the River to the Sea
Palestine will be free

(c) Julia Wright. December 12 2023. All Rights Reserved to the WCWSF – the Wounded Children Without Surviving Families – in Gaza and the West Bank. Thanks to Mark Taylor and Jennifer Black for their research.

 

---

 

Death of a Poet

“Where is our collective heart ?”
Alice Walker

For Ralph Poynter and Betty Davis whose hearts are endless

In memory of Refaat Alameer

like our heartbeat
like our breath
our guerilla poetry
cannot stop
or pause –
it is protracted
written daily
before each dawn
when our ink
filters the last shadows
of the night
into song

do you hear us?

guerilla poetry
writes the protracted
tale
of those we lost
but who survive
as ancestors
at our side

do we acknowledge them
enough ?

the blood of a poet
spilled in Gaza
gives rise worldwide
to a Poetic Intifada

will we join in time ?

in the midst
of the rubble
child poets are born
who will
in turn throw stones
but also words of Truth
so sharp so rock-hard
that genocide
will be humanity-targeted

are we protecting
these young souls
older than we are ?

(c) Julia Wright. December 17, 2023. All Rights Reserved to Ralph Poynter and Betty Davis.

 

---

 

Gaza – A Haunting

For the surviving family of murdered Palestinian poet, scholar and teacher,
Refaat Alameer
In tribute to his poem : “If I Must Die”…
For all the poets, writers, doctors and civic leaders tracked, tortured and killed by the IDF for resisting the genocide of their people
For all their families, students and followers
For all the children of Palestine who are losing their mentors

hunched and weary
a child
who just became an ancestor
in Gaza
paces
the concrete arteries
of the belly of the beast

throughout our blind cities
he carries
what seems like a corpse
perhaps his sibling
shrouded in a white cloth

have you seen him ?

stumbling
under the weight
of the strange bundle
he stops at each house,
each opulent venue,
unravels the sheet
and exposes
the broken bones of the words
of the killed Palestinian poets
who were his teachers

has he knocked at your door ?

he is asking
not for alms
or tears
but that a space
a place
be given
so the warm voices
of the living
might bring
the poems back to life

each time
there is silence
or a no vacancy sign

the child
whose body
still remains unfound
under the Gaza rubble
trudges on
in the shadow of the closed buildings
that scrape
a bomb-free sky –
he does not rest
till he reaches a park
where he lays his burden down
and the other joyful children
who still have a life
interrupt their games
to flock around
and give the ghost some water
and unwrapping the unwanted gift
they release
a galaxy of Palestinian kites
a Poetic Intifada
into the American sky
and together
the children play
and their mingled laughter
flies high
in my heart

(c) Julia Wright December 15 2023. Final Version. All Rights Reserved to fund readings by and for Palestinian poets and writers killed or in the crosshairs of the IDF. Please donate to : www.playgroundsforpalestine.org

 

---

 

There Will Be Many Dawns

For Ralph Poynter

one more dawn
is won over the night
as the last dark clouds
give way to light

a candle
of hope
I lit for you
throws vibrant shadows
on my wall
and they tell me
your breath is as strong
as the love of the Struggle
that keeps
reigniting
its wick

in Bethlehem
as the first obscene fireworks
mock our common ordeal
we know the only real fireworks
are
lit by your Revolutionary Spirit
every day of the year

Ralph,
there will be many
fiery dawns

(c) Julia Wright. December 21 2023. All Rights Reserved to Ralph Poynter and Betty Davis