PAY-TO-VIEW GENOCIDE

Poet recalls Schindler’s List as genocide continues in Gaza.

lest we forget
the film on Oskar Schindler’s list
was oscarized

lest we forget
this black and white film
was memorialized
by the sight
of a child dressed in red
fleeing the nazi executioners
and
this little girl remains immortalized

lest we forget
Oskar Schindler
on horseback
is seen in the film
gazing down
from a hill
at the camp below
where extermination is unfolding
in real screen time
and his attention
picks out the silhouette
of a terrified little girl
coloring her coat
with the red thread
of his compassion

a colored skein of fragile hope
in the maze of death

but
this genocide around
no hill nearby,
no Schindler allowed
on the spacious platform
specially built to observe the horror,
equipped
with the pay-to-view binoculars
we associate with Niagara Falls,
shaded with state of the art parasols
shielding the zionist tourists
against the sun
and dust of genocide,
a VIP terrace
offering the guarantee that
no smell of death
no sight too close
will mar
the vicarious comfort and enjoyment
of watching Gaza burn

and the only time
History repeats itself
and children are close enough
to be seen
is when a busload of them
arrives on the scene,
a joyful
expectant school outing,
to watch the horror
and listen to a tour operator
after which they will write up
their sanguine impressions
to get extra class credits –
and meanwhile
their cheeks all red in the fresh air
and their appetite all worked up …
ahh…
to the picnic tables…

COUNTER GENOCIDE-WISE

to Refaat Alareer who was targeted and assassinated by the IDF a year ago.
as Gaza unfolds
our language
goes through a sea change
counter genocide-wise

does the expression
in real time
really mean
what it used to mean
before?

does the term
i stand my ground
sound presumptuous
when all of us
here and in Palestine
are despoiled
of the ground we stand on?

does the notion
of silence
send us back
to Riverside Church
and Martin’s silence of betrayal?

how blood red
a bowl full
of the strawberries
you loved
will always seem …

how many tenses does
the old imperative
seize the time
have?

how many times
have we
let Time go
like a kite
wrested by the wind
out of our hands
reminding us
of those heinously ancestored
and a trove of tales
untold?

OUR ABOLITIONIST ADVENT CALENDAR

(…)
and what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born
W.B. Yeats
The Second Coming, 1919

Mumia Abu-Jamal composed an opera behind bars
called : The Vampire Nation

the slouching beast
W. B. Yeats
visualized
unleashed
is
heading towards
Bethlehem
closer each day

we still hold
in our hands
an upside down advent calendar
with windows aligned
to open
day by day –
windows of time
and action
to abolish
inexorably
the advance
of the Vampire Nation

there is joy
in giving daily
the glimpse
of a skyful of hope
beyond the windowlessness
of our dungeons

there is joy
every morning
in opening
shutter by shutter
the steel and concrete rooms
with no view
on the ancestral acres
of Liberation

there is joy
also
through those opened windows
in witnessing
the birth of a prisoner’s movement

MONARCHS, FIREFLIES AND C4

tell me,
are Monarchs –
those species-protected butterflies
here –
part of the casualties
in Gaza ?

reassure me,
just as
the fireflies
we used to delight
in catching
and are now
protected as well –
will the children of Gaza
receive the same
sheltered distinction ?

i dare you
to tell me it is not true
that starving Palestinian youths
found C4
left behind
by the Israeli Offensive Forces
and thinking it was real cheese
so much better
than bitter cheeseweed –
ate it ?

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

PAY-TO-VIEW GENOCIDE | COUNTER GENOCIDE-WISE | OUR ABOLITIONIST ADVENT CALENDAR | OUR ABOLITIONIST ADVENT CALENDAR

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright