What has sea-changed in Palestine?
“Money, money, money …”
The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht , lyrics by Kurt Weill sung by Lotte Lenya
” L’argent ne fait pas le bonheur”
” Money does not bring about happiness”
Old western adage
the genocide
in Gaza
is slowly
eroding the meaning
of our Global North sayings –
the rock of western idiom
the air
throughout Gaza
is filled with the dust
of the rubble
so thick
that it is unbreathable
and yet
we still say
flippantly
don’t hold your breath
the offshore gas
in sovereign Palestinian waters
that does not reach
its owners
because of the Israeli siege
means
most of them
even after the so-called ceasefire
cook with firewood
and the saying
cooking with gas
can only
backfire
we teach our children
don’t count your chickens before they hatch
but in the West Bank
all surviving children can do
is count sheep
before their eyes are gouged
down to the poetic word
sea-change …
what has sea-changed in Palestine ?
not the repetition
of hollow peace deals
not the repetition
of sickening lies
manufactured
to dehumanize
not the repetition
of intense US bunker buster
bombing
and AI drones
surveilling
not the repetition
of the targeting, kidnapping and rape
of women, children
and babies
and freedom-fighters
but then
Sumud has not sea-changed either
Sumud …
Sumud speaks of
a Palestinian tradition
and practice,
of moment by moment
Resistance and Resilience
so ancient
so entrenched yet so elusive
and idiomatic
that it is lost in translation
in the West
where reality is measured
by
time is money
and
the money money money –
our money
that buys genocidal weapons
makes
the billionaires that rule us
even happier
(c) Julia Wright. November 9th 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 Refaat Alareer assassinated by the IOF
No words to say it
In international law there is a right to physical or bodily integrity
the genocide in Gaza
the genocides everywhere
have taught us
poets
the true meaning
of humility
the very words
we used to use
now escape us
eviscerated of
existential meaning
as they become traitors to
our deepest feeling
poetry
is no longer
a perfect
state of the art
a poem i wrote so long ago
yesterday
about the toxic dust
falling from the rubble
those returning home
have to inhale,
a poem that placed an ironic twist
on the saying
don’t hold your breath –
that poem today
is redundant
since i wrote it
i learned
that the Israelis
are using thermobaric nukes
on Gaza
causing
humans
to melt or evaporate
after
one single inhalation
where the thermobaric bombs fall
not breathing
has become
the only cure
one by one
the words to say the horror
evaporate
as well
(c) Julia Wright. November 12, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, to the GSF’s steering committee and to what remains of the family of the poet and educator Refaat Alareer assassinated by the IOF
When will happiness happen? – a poem on World Kindness Day
“C’est quand le bonheur ?”
Cali
it is World Kindness Day
and we are left
to wonder
if with ethnic cleansing
multiplying
throughout the planet
the word kindness
is not being
drastically cleansed
of its meaning
in Tel Aviv
Ben Gvir with all the kindness
in the zionist world
distributes candy
to thank the Knesset members who voted
in favor of the death penalty
for Palestinians
even though they are already being targeted
with a planned genocide
in Sudan
Abbu-Rabbu Ahmed
a medical lab technician
who barely escaped
the massacre of the last functioning hospital
in El Fashir
says :
there is no happiness
anymore
in France
we remember Cali singing
when will happiness happen ?
when will happiness happen ?
until Palestine is sovereign
and free
until Africa no longer bleeds
for Abu Dhabi
our collective happiness
will be conjugated
in a tense called
the future imperfect
when will happiness happen?
when will happiness happen?
(c) Julia Wright. November 13, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, to the steering committee of the Global Sumud Flotilla and to what remains of the familly of Refaar Alareer, poet and educator assassinated two years ago by the IOF
The lost land of language – a tribute to all Palestinian poets
to all the Palestinian poets past and present who are putting their lives on the line to reclaim the land of their language
you are
the vast landscape
of your stolen language
your language
is the inner land
genocide
needs to desecrate
and capture
your words
are
the iridescent foam
and perennial kites
left on the beach
when the tides of your time
have withdrawn
cut short
by the failed magicians
who cannot
transform your poetry
into their algorithms
your words
seeking the sacred ground
where they are protected
from cleansing
are seeds planted
in the gardens
that will spring
from the ashes
your words
written
not in stone
but
in the spiritual marrow
of ancestral bone
make sure
there will be
no oblivion
your songs
are
the legacy
the oppressors
would bury
in anonymity
just as assassinated poets
are denied
a cemetery
but
each poem
that sees the light of day
is a frail but steadfast tent
holding its own
on the unmoving sands
of yet another reclaimed
page
(c) Julia Wright. November 16, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, to the steering committee of the Global Sumud Flotilla and to what remains of the family of Refaat Alareer assassinated by the IOF
Letting my poems go
Last week, the publishing team of Fighting Words published a selection of my one-poem-a-day for Palestine poems under the title ” For the Baby Ancestors of Gaza and other Poems for Palestine”.
In the poem below, i try to describe what it feels like to let these poems go out in the world to learn the rough and tumble of autonomy.
my poems
unshackled
from the digital page
printed
on the paper that links them
to mother nature
are out there
taking their first
unsteady steps
my poems
are stumbling
and falling
and getting back up
again
and, yes,
they are walking
my poems
without my guiding hand
are lurching
still unsure
of the public eye’s terrain
far away from me
i cannot pick up
my poems
if they fall
or sing them a lullaby
if unread
they cry
out of sight
i cannot clear
their path
of word-mines
far away from me
without a backward glance
my poems for Gaza
now live a rough and tumble
sovereign life
of their own
(c) Julia Wright. November 21, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org, the steering committee of the Global Sumud Flotilla and to what remains of the family of Refaat Alareer, the poet and educator assassinated by the IOF.
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