VONANI BILA

I

A rubble-strewn wasteland
stands lonely, 
high as a sad mountain.
These hills of waste are not 
an archaeological site,
nor ruins of ancient civilisation,
nor a result of an earthquake,
nor a volcanic ash,
they are rubble, built by a barbarous regime, 
its war mongering dogs
devour flesh with tank-and rifle fire
and bunker-buster bombs
turning swathes of Gaza into 
a ghost town.


II

Under this rubble,  
the land scarred by bombings and sieges,
dwell entombed bodies,
trapped by the steel and falling rocks,
maggots and botflies feed on rotting flesh 
and skeletonised bodies,
lovers hold each other tightly;
hug and kiss for the last time,
but the rubble shakes nonstop,  
a holy priest gets down on his knees, 
crouches and recites prayers incessantly,
hoping for pockets of air to find him alive 
before he is buried 
with his holy book.


III 

Under these hills of debris,
encircled by chain link and barricades,
“tunnel rats” burn alive
digging survivors out of the rubble and pits,
amputating the dead to free the gasping,
tunnel rats dig through rocks and boulders,
cut through rebar,
helmets strewn over there,
gloves and boots over there,
visibility vests this way,
coats that way,
rescue dogs in hiding,
surely, under this great darkness,
unexploded bombs and mines await detonation.
and the sonic boom will not leave 
anyone underground alive.  

IV

Under this windowless rubble
dwell busted skulls, bones
and broken bones;
smashed hearts
and shredded lungs.
Here, eyes are gorged,
and throats slit.
Here, bodies are charred
and liquefied human fat oozes. 
Slabs rest on chests and breasts,
screams are muffled.
starving babies with shouting sharp ribs weep 
against the hollows of dark shadows, 
concrete and steel ruins.
Here, dreams are shattered 
like a skull smashed apart by a sledgehammer.
Even the blind cave reptile
that has weathered all the war storms 
can see this horrendous genocide
launched against the unarmed 
by a nation bereft of a tomorrow,
carnivores deaf to pain,
these land-grabbing cannibals
and slaves of gluttony. 


V

Under rubble
a museum of bones shall stand erect,
reminding the world 
that Palestine is not gone,
it’s not a hollow dream,
nor wasteland,
but a ray of light
that shines through the dark
on our way back home
to freedom and peace
to justice and humanity. 

VI

Gaza, remember Dr Alaa al-Najjar,
her family was wiped out,
nine of her ten children doomed,
their father, her husband, Hamdi, bled to death,
the tenacious doctor was on her shift,
treating patients with torn ligaments 
and broken bones at al-Tahrin hospital,
missiles stroked at her home,
hubby lifted onto a stretcher,
Hamdi, was a medic, too,
a fire engulfed their house,
consuming every ounce of joy,
erasing memories etched in love,
smoke billowed up in the sky,
burnt bodies from the debris
wrapped in white sheets,
hours later, dead children arrived at the hospital,
they were Dr Najjar’s own children,
charred, bones screaming,
her breasts ache,
nipples sting like the burning 
ripples of a hot spring
dripping with milk to feed her infant daughter Sidra,
but Sidra is missing.
Ayna ibnati? 						(Where is my daughter?)
Snatched by the war crows?
Buried under rubble?
Alaa al-Najjar is a dedicated doctor,
armed with penicillin and stethoscope,
not a combatant.
Her children were nestlings 
waiting to be fed,
she hunkered down and warmed them. 
They were not combatants armed to the teeth 
with rifles and machetes.
Her husband is gone;  
he was not a combatant,
but a people’s doctor. 
Dogs of war are at work,
wailing nonstop,
breaking the will of the steadfast,
determined to raze Gaza to the ground,
littering streets with corpses,
the halitosis forcing birds, bees
and fish to migrate
to unknown lands, rivers and seas.   

VII

Gaza, dead birds rest on a broken 
concrete post surrounded by rubble,
they are the short-toed snake eagles
that feed on snakes and lizards;
it’s the long-legged buzzard
and the beautiful hoopoe.
Gaza, your birds face many struggles:
they fly over a pile of garbage,
feed on human carcasses,
they are bombed out
because cannibals no longer trust anything
that crawls, hops and jumps.

Outside the rubble,
dogs with glassy eyes and long tired jaws  
rummage through piles of trash; 
starving red kites feed on decomposing flesh,
canines once playful with raised tails and floppy ears,
lolling tongues and wiggly bodies,
bouncing and hoping  – 
are now covered in mange and parasites,
hips and ribs are broken guitar strings.
Dogs bite and chew their skins,
their owners are not there to remove the ticks, 
or take them to the vet
to soak them in medicated baths
and inject them with anti-biotics.
What will the dogs and chihuahuas eat
when the streets are littered with dead bodies
and the blinding halitosis?
Dogs fall on their knees,
mourning their departed owners
buried under rubble.

VIII

Outside the rubble,
families queue for bread and soup,
flock and run away from the noise of guns, 
carrying back-bending luggage 
with clothes they were wearing
while guns and cannons walk 
with them like shadows

They leave behind a hill of rubble
which was once a home
full of warmth and music,
food and laughter,
they leave behind the aromatic maftoul
they leave behind graves
of their beloved,
they leave behind vineyards
and olive trees.

They are going somewhere,
perhaps headed to Lebanon, Jordan, 
or Syria, Iraq or Yemen,
or Saudi Arabia, Egypt
or Chile, El Salvador, Brazil, Guatemala or Mexico
or Honduras, Qatar, Kuwait
or Germany, Canada, Japan 
or nowhere in particular.

They are going to camps of stress,
fenced with razor wire –
baits for hunger,
where answering nature’s call 
means stripping naked to be dissected
and laughed at by buzzing flies
in hazardous toilets. 

A limping, teary grey-haired elder fall on his knees,
pray for the heavily pregnant woman
whose skinny baby dangles on her exhausted back, 
a huge bundle of luggage weighs her head down,
soon the water will break, 
she will give birth to a “wanted terrorist”
under the wild olive tree,
mocked by the chattering birds
and grunting monkeys;
the hospital is under rubble,
nurses are dead –
entombed in the collapsed buildings.

The brooding elderly man turn around, 
tears welling up in his eyes:
“Wada’an
bye-bye Gaza,
will I ever see you again?
Or will the dogs
bomb me and my beloved dog
to smithereens?

Wada’an
bye-bye Gaza,
let hunger stay at bay
as I trudge through mountain slopes
resting under the oak tree,
drinking spring water
to converse with my ancestors.  

Dear God,
look what the hounds are doing?
opening fire 
in broad daylight,
shattering dreams of
foot-shuffling refugees,
because in their lexicon;
everyone in Gaza is Hamas,
a tsetse fly perched on scrotum, 
a target to be brought down
like a hippo.

Dear God,
your streets are a theatre of death,
apartheiders with unmitigated appetites 
for hatred and greed
cannot find peace, nor play golf,
until Gaza becomes ashes.”

IX

Under rubble,
spirits of the departed wail like a broken orchestra,
whipping the unloved invading leader with tears of fire,
pulling him this way and that way
to burn in a blaze,
shaving his head and beard
like a captured male witch at Phafuri,
the spirits of the departed drag him around the circle,
shouting and drumming: 
The Hague’s axe awaits your head,
you with a heart of fur,
come and dance naked, barefoot  
with black vultures, vipers, and pot-bellied hyenas, 
come, dance on burning coal,
come, dance on needles and nails,
you master of apartheid kak, 
come, dance on blades and daggers, 
come, dance over the dead bodies, 
pee in their orifices,
hahahaha! hahahaha!
come, occupy the land and rule over graves,
come, rule over bones and skulls,
come, come, and run away to the Red Sea
and join other dragons under water,
hahahaha! hahahaha!