ABIGAIL GEORGE
4 Struggle Songs for Palestine
Carrots
I eat a carrot
while a child
in Gaza eats air
A family breaks their fast
with a simple meal
of green grass
Another woman
smuggled
a cucumber
into the country
The rain knew me
Knew who I was
I was just a stranger
eating a carrot
But those human beings
were being
swallowed alive
by the way,
they didn’t choose
to fight
Melancholy begins
in the bones
as tiny waves
before it numbs
everything
Including the pain.
The pale king
I feel helpless
since you left this world
Another day
Another poet dies
in an airstrike
His book has made
it to America
There are public
readings of the book
All I can think of
is what he left behind
a granddaughter
the future
that he will never see
never live to see
never read or write
another poem
teach another class
I am afraid
that the story for Palestine
won’t change soon
In another life
no, in a dream life
dream world
because there is nothing
to eat
I start eating roses
The thorns
scratch the inside
of my mouth
Make me bleed
But I need to feel
something
Anything.
Occupation
Birdsong just outside my window
I’m waiting for inspiration
while women
in a tent city
lack privacy
while another hospital
is evacuated
while another child dies
while more children die
while an amputated limb
is bandaged
I am waiting to live
I am kept waiting
in a forest of pain
for a love that will
never return to me
tears fall down my cheeks
there’s an ocean between us
I don’t know why I am crying
Perhaps for the dead
Perhaps for all whose
heart has been injured
There are flowers
growing in the cemetery
perhaps my tears
water those flowers
growing where
Men
Women
Aunts
Uncles
Literature professors
Martyrs used to be
once
vital and alive.
Under a Palestinian sky filled with stars
In the photograph
Omar Abu Shaweesh’s face
looks peaceful
like this innocent-looking
book of matches
looks peaceful
before it blows up stuff
I am not this
hospital, this mental illness
This sun
This bipolar
Palestine
understands this
The economy of words
This salt
This wound
This sun
The woman has known
unspeakable terror
Harm has come to her family
that cannot be undone
She cannot forgive
Yet she must forgive
in order to survive
this endurance race
She cannot rub salve
into her wounds
The blood tastes like salt
Her tears are like seawater
They burn her eyes
Here is a small vibration
Getting louder and louder
I read the poetry of Aakriti Kuntal
far away from bombs
They tell me that I’m unstable
That I’m mentally unstable
They’ve called me names
Many names
They’ve put labels to my personas
my many faces
I think of the death squads
in the sky
The promulgation of air strikes
The aftermath
of a dead ambulance driver
His body
taken away to a hospital.