A Sea-Changed Sense of Time

the sea borne Flotilla
has sea-changed
my sense of Time

lying awake
in the darkness
i do not count sheep
but i mentally intercept
Israeli drones

when at last
sleep does come
i dream Assata
has become
foam
in the wake
of the Fleet

i join a pod
of dolphins
sleep swimming
around the boats

awake before dawn
i put as much time
as possible
between the night’s news
and me

i search for signs
to stitch
into the beginning
of the day

i remember the words
of a dockworker
in Genoa
as he says
his capacity to dream
is never blocked
by a horizon
as he looks out
to an infinity of sea

i see
so close in Gaza
the children
by their beloved sea
clapping
and
singing
and
carving
words of welcome
in their reclaimed sand

i see
the children
sea-changed
by Hope

Gaza is Cooking with Gas

To Maram Humaid

We pulled out the old stove, thick with grease and dust, and scrubbed it clean. When the first blue flame lit, we clapped and laughed, recording the moment on our phones like fireworks. Our first coffee brewed on a clean flame — rather than on firewood with black soot — felt miraculous. My father smiled over his cup.

“We’re reclaiming a small piece of dignity,” I thought.

Maram Humaid for Al Jazeera

at the drop of a hat
when things go my way
i use the expression
i’m cooking with gas –
my mother used to say it
and her mother before her
and the words are almost automatic
as is the fuel provided –
a fuel so plentiful
in occupied Gaza’s offshore

but not until today
do i measure
the sea-change in our
everyday language
the genocide in Gaza
has wrought

on the cusp of a volatile ceasefire
a young journalist
Maram Humaid
writes
about the rare delicious moment
of a first cup of coffee
brewed not on firewood
but
with a return of cooking gas
so miraculous that
her family and her
phone recorded
the fireworks of the blue flames –
they are the ones truly cooking with gas,
their inner fire
burns

In Gaza, Palestinians reclaim small moments of dignity amid the ceasefire

When Laughter Brings Light

To Tommy Marcus aka Quentin Quantino and
To Dr Dia Daoud
– who both sailed on the Global Sumud Flotilla and then returned …

anticipation
of disaster
has its own sort
of special laughter

Howard Nutt, one of Richard Wright’s
favorite poets.

it is the hour of the furnaces
of the high tech ovens
of mass murder via AI
of Gaza’s terminal solution camps
to complete the genocide –
but it is good to laugh

Already
Richard Wright
highly recommended Howard Nutt’s poems
about the second world war,
called
” Special Laughter ”

when my father went hungry
he regaled himself and others
with
his belly laughter tales

Already
Refaat Alareer
wrote a parody
of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”
where he suggests
the zionists in power
should eat the Palestinians
and offers recipes

and
for a hungry Refaat
the testimony of irony
remained
the most worthwhile food

Today
Quentin Quarantino and Dr Daoud
use sarcasm
to suggest other more intelligent narratives
for their captors to use
and
distil graveyard humor
as they ridicule
the pathological primal stupidity
of the contradictions
in their torturers’ inhumane cruelty

it is the hour of the furnaces
but this capacity for laughter
in the face of the night
brings healing light

Timecode Genocide

let’s not fear repetition

it appeared
to be punishment
when
in our school days
we learned lessons
by rote

it appeared
to be a brain washing technique
when
an alien voice
did not stop
drumming foreign prescriptions
into a too pliable brain

it appeared
to be the ploy of propaganda
when
the false narrative-builders
say the same old lie
over and over
again

but just as the Resistance
in Gaza
uses unexploded IOF ordnance,
we can weaponize
repetition
and
make it our own

the Resistance poets
that inspire us
have long
resorted to alliterations,
rhyme and chorus
to
teach us
that there is a creative Sisyphus
in each long-distance warrior

and
when our mind
defends itself
against the daily repeated shock
of the genocide,
we can rewind
and rewind
to the timecode of horror
until we delete the numbness
until it is impossible to un-remember
until it is written
not in stone
but in the repeat beat
of our hearts

(c) Julia Wright. October 25, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, to the GSF and to what remains of the family of Refaat Alareer, the poet and educator assassinated by the IOF

Domicide in the Children’s Eyes

forced to evacuate
his home in Gaza
the poet Mosab Abu Toha
remembers
his son Yazzan
who was 8 years old
at the time
asking him after departure:
” are our toys still alive?”

a little girl
asks her sister:
” can’t we just fold up
the house
and take it with us
to the South?”

covered in gray dust
and petrified by shock
the small slow statues
that are children
roam
coming to terms
with the loss of their home

this little girl
is crying as she watches
the rubble of what was once
her address
and expresses her distress :
“bring me the key
i want to keep it
as a memory of my lost house”

another homeless child
asks her father
to cut a rectangle in their tent
so that she can supply them
with live television

domicide
in the children’s eyes
kills brutally
with no warning or mourning
a beloved member
of the family
left behind
unshrouded
unburied

(c) Julia Wright. October 26, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, to the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee and to what remains of the family of Refaat Alareer

Many thanks to Mosab Abu Toha for the quote from his son, Yazzan – and to Nadera Mushtha for a quote from her little five year old sister in “Nothing to Return To” published by the Electronic Intifada on October 20th.

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

A Sea-Changed Sense of Time | Gaza is Cooking With Gas | When Laughter Brings Light | Timecode Genocide | Domicide in the Children’s Eyes

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright