Antigone goes to Gaza

Millions strike in Italy in support of Gaza.

“We will not piss on the blood of the martyrs”
Georges Abdallah

i am damn tired
tired of
all this splitting of hairs
all this to be-ing or not to be -ing –
is it a genocide or not a genocide –
that is still
two years later
the endless question
debated long into the plush carpet night
while the children of Palestine
are
massacred
one
per hour

i am fed up
with all these distracting debates
about how the pound of flesh
of war crime punishment
can be extracted
without exceeding
by a single ounce

have the soldiers of the IOF
ever stopped to consider
the nicety of ounces
when they deliberately maim
children
and
women
and
journalists
with
unstoppable hubris?

the time
is no longer
for scholarly mind capers
and
the written letter of the colonial law

the time
has come
for the martyrs’ Spirit –
the ancestral message
of the Flotilla’s figureheads –
to reach Gaza’s shore

JUST MAYBE

as fascism
digs its
rods and axe
and claws
into our minds and bodies
we are tempted to
overreact
and
overstretch our strength
into a radically stiff
unsustainably perfect leap
towards
instant liberation

we are tempted
by the very super-heroism
promoted by those
who would exclude us
from its laurels

nor are we the robots
or chatGPTs
of the Revolution

but maybe
it is enough
to be good enough

but maybe
it is already a win
to be
day and night
on the right side of humanity

but maybe
we have not learned
to pause a mindful minute
to take stock
of Love’s capacity

but maybe
it would take
forgiving ourselves
for our mistakes
when we are battle weary

but maybe
it would require
taking time out
to find and flower
each ancestor’s cemetery

but maybe
we should be proverbial enough
to turn our tongues
seven times
before we holler our secrets
on alien territory

but maybe
we should be reminded
that the unborn
have endowed us
with sacred accountability

then
just maybe
we will pace ourselves
to stay alive
long enough
to behold the new society
we toiled hard
to build
so creatively

just maybe …

AT NOONDAY AS IN THE NIGHT

“The sheer horror of Israel’s (fully US-backed) campaign of annihilation against Gaza continues, constitutes a “Heart of Darkness” akin to anything that novelist and navigator Joseph Conrad described being undertaken in colonial Congo “

Helena Cobban

“There is none so blind as he who will not see.”

The Bible

Israel is cutting off the internet
decreeing darkness
in Gaza

lest we see
the unseeable
Israel
is plunging
the end
of its terminal solution
into
the heart of darkness

but then
does not the film director
Nadav Lapid
tell us
that the disease of zionism
is
a selective blindness
to its own hubris

but then
do not those who refuse to see
their own blindness
cause the real seers
to be blind

Mumia
is going physically blind
in his sunless prison
paying the price
for his
far reaching
truth-telling
clarity of vision

MY BODY IS GAZA

my body
is Gaza

my nights
toss and turn me
as the oceans
push the Flotilla

my dreams
hum with the song
mocking
the tormenting buzz
of the drones

my day
is set
to
Palestine’s hour

my hope
is a clock
that won’t stop

my very hunger
is
self-aware

my food
is swallowed
on condition
there is something
if only a poem
i can daily share

my body
is
Gaza

THE ONLY UNITED NATIONS WORTHY OF THE NAME IS THE FLOTILLA

On Tuesday, as Common Dreams reported, the foreign ministers of 16 nations—Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Oman, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and Türkiye—warned against “any unlawful or violent act against the flotilla” and called on all parties “to respect international law and international humanitarian law.”

The ministers said that “any violation of international law and human rights of the participants in the flotilla, including attacks against the vessels in international waters or illegal detention, will lead to accountability.”

Common Dreams

the only United Nations
i would recognize
is the Flotilla
and its steadfast international fleet

the only law
i would respect
is the line in the water
drawn by citizens of forty-four nations
reunited
on board fifty civilian boats

the only Security Council
I recognize
are the sixteen nations
offering to guard
the Sumud fleet

the only Assembly General
worthy of the name
has deserted the hemicycle
and its carpeted floors
to set sail
for Gaza’s shores

THE WORLD IS ALIVE WITH THE SOUND ON GAZA

the world is alive
with the sound
of Gaza

the world is alive
not with the buzz of drones
but the songs
of the advancing Flotilla

the world is alive
with street on street
going to meet
the Fleet

the world is alive
with the red of the Flag –
a red flag
letting us know
the blood of the martyrs
and their sacrifice
was
in the name of Sumud

the world is alive
with the black of the Flag
the scorched earth
and ashes of rubble
fertilizing
ancestral mourning

the world is alive
with the white of the Flag
incandescent
with the light
of a bright new morning

the world is alive
with the green of the Flag –
stretches of unkilling fields
soon to be gardens
where patient olive trees
will tell
their ancient stories

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

Antigone goes to Gaza | Just maybe | At noonday as in the night | My body is Gaza | The only United Nations worthy of the name is the Flotilla | The world is alive with the sound of Gaza

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright