Three Haiku for Gaza
[ Old Japanese style haiku are 3-line poems of either 17 syllables ( 5-7-5 ) or 11 syllables ( 3-5-3 ). These are the shortest known poems in the world ideally interconnecting a moment of nature with a time of the day and one of the senses. Classically haiku do not evoke ugliness or war. Japanese haiku scholars say that the ability to write a haiku is a sign of spiritual balance. Conversely i believe the effort to write a haiku helps achieve that balance in moments of darkness. ]
an orange
on a keffiyeh –
a red moon
in Gaza
gazing children fold
paper boats
prayer beads
in old gnarled fingers –
picked olives
(c) Julia Wright. October 27, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, to the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee and to what remains of Refaat Alareer’s family
The Rubble of Imperial Delusion
here
an impatient housewife
paints her nails
as she waits out the rain
to go shopping
in Gaza
an impatient mother
does not wait out the bombing
to go looking
for her buried child
in D.C.
Trump,
twiddling his thumbs
while the paper of his ceasefire
burns,
cannot wait
to bring in the same demolition machines
as those searching for Palestinian bodies
to pull down
the White House ballroom
because he obsessively needs
to show the world
a model showroom
for the golden Riviera hotels
he would build over the rubble
of his delusion
(c) Julia Wright. October 29, 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 the late poet and educator Refaat Alareer assassinated by the IOF
A Tale of Two Halloweens
“If Edgar Allan Poe had not existed, this horror would have invented him”
Richard Wright
In 2022 Amricans spent over 10 billion dollars in costumes, candy and other Halloween items.
on Halloween night
a happy-go-lucky costumed child
in a Western city
play acts
a scary gravedigger’s shift
tricking and treating
for candy
candy
and cake –
bucketfuls
of cake and candy
he can hardly
carry
as he gobbles up his loot
securely ensconced
between two houses
that will not fall
on Halloween night
a thinly clothed child
in Gaza
whose family
had nowhere to seek shelter
except
in a cemetery
is
famished
and empty-handed
as he counts the minutes
between the renewed bombing
shattering the ceasefire
and huddles between
two dug-up tombs
he need not play act:
he knows
the body snatchers,
the IOF soldiers,
are
for real
he does not have to invent
the ghouls
from one world
to another
the horror of Halloween
lies
in between
(c) Julia Wright. October 29, 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 the late Refaat Alareer assassinated by the IOF
No Man’s Land of Horror
” He then was raped up his rectum by IOF female soldiers, he was raped with a zucchini soaked in pork blood”
To all those who have been and still are tortured in Israel’s prisons, concentration camps and during extrajudicial acts of terrorism
liberal spin doctors
and even some in our midst
are trying
to trick us
into thinking
our words are failing
the horror of the genocide
they are creating
the illusion
we are to blame if
with feeble broken language
we cannot capture
the horror
but
we did not invent
their horror
and
is their horror
ours to capture
with a new glossary
of unspeakable terms?
is horror
the prize
we should have
our eyes on?
to guard our capacity to love,
should we not
stop
just before the line
between their horror
and us?
are the acts of torture and horror
committed by madness
and sadism
ours
to take such a deep dive into
that
sucked into their abyss
we would not
return?
(c) Julia Wright. October 31, 2025 Halloween weekend. All Rights Reserved to Susan Albuhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, to the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee and to what remains of the family of Refaat Alareer assassinated by the IOF.
Their Voices May Have No Echo But the Ancestors Hear Them
To the Palestinian Resistance
their voices
may have no echo
but the ancestors
hear them
they walk the ground
pulled from
under their feet
but proud and tall
they refuse to fall
they are hungry
but know where zaatar
the spice of the soul
is to be found
the discordant drones try
to kill them
but their spirited singing
drowns out
the screeching
their words
far from being invisible
are kites
flown so high
in the land of their sky
that they cannot be shot down
their eyes
can see beyond
all domes
all bars
all lines
they are not invisible –
the invisible ones
are those
who cannot see them
(c) Julia Wright. November 5, 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 the late poet and educator Refaat Alareer assassinated by the IOF
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