nomadbuzz

[nomadbuzz]

RAGE 2

To the Settler Colony of "Israel"

Obscuring the truth won't change the truth.

I have seen a father carrying the severed limbs of his sons in plastic shopping bags. I have seen doctors give a press conference surrounded by the corpses of patients bombed and killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces. I have seen too many children with their limbs torn apart and burnt flesh. I have seen children collecting body parts of their relatives. I have heard the voice of Hind calling for help before her and the ambulance team on the way to rescue her being shot. I have seen men being blindfolded, paraded naked and terrorised. I have seen Palestinians being killed at close range in a hospital. I have seen Palestinians being killed in their beds in their homes. I have seen the rotten corpses of premature babies. I have seen the severed body of a young girl hanging from a wall, the lower half of her body shredded. I have seen babies and children starving to death. I have seen what flour coagulated with human blood looks like. I have seen a Palestinian hostage crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer, his body rendered into an incomprehensible mass of split flesh and pulped organs. I have seen too much, to ever unsee it.

#rage #anger #palestine #colonialism #settler colonialism

[nomadbuzz]

RAGE.

Stoicism won't save us.

I will not swallow my anger.

#rage #anger #palestine

[nomadbuzz]

"What the diasporic witness must remember: our claim to the land is non-negotiable. It requires no permission. It requires no mediation. I don’t need that claim sanctioned by anyone. That is where my grandparents lived. Their grandparents. Their grandparents. You can destroy all the libraries and archives and villages in the world, you can make return impossible, you can rename a city, you can blow up a university, refashion a history book, and it still won’t change that fact."

#diaspora #oppressed #marginalised #hala alyan

[nomadbuzz]

I am from there. I am from here. / I am not there and I am not here.  - Mahmoud Darwish

#mahmoud darwish #diaspora #witness #istashid

[nomadbuzz]

#decolonise

[nomadbuzz]

Travel Tickets

by Samih Al-Qasim

The day I’m killed,

my killer, rifling through my pockets, 

will find travel tickets:

One to peace,

one to the fields and the rain,

and one 

to the conscience of humankind.

Dear killer of mine, I beg you:

Do not stay and waste them.

Take them, use them.

I beg you to travel.

translated by A.Z. Foreman Samih al-Qasim is regarded as one of the pillars of contemporary Arabic poetry and one of the most prominent poets of the Palestinian resistance.

#free palestine

[nomadbuzz]

Decolonisation

Decolonising the mind also means getting rid of any illusion that western centric empires of capital and their agents are interested in upholding international law and human rights especially when they don't serve them. These laws are just things to keep vassal states in check, as the empires bomb the shit out of them.

#decolonise

[nomadbuzz]

Sobbing Without Sound

by Mosab Abu Toha

I wish I could wake up and find the electricity on all day long.

I wish I could hear the birds sing again, no shooting and no buzzing drones.

I wish my desk would call me to hold my pen and write again,

or at least plow through a novel, revisit a poem, or read a play.

All around me are nothing

but silent walls

and people sobbing

without sound. Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian from the Gaza Strip. His debut book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear won the Palestine Book Award and an American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize.

#palestine

[nomadbuzz]

Children

by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat A child's hand sticks out of the rubble  and sends me counting  my three children's limbs,  their digits, examining their teeth  and eyebrows.

The silenced voices in Yarmouk  turn the volume up on my radio, TV,  and drown the songs on my laptop.  I pinch my kids in their love handles:  let there be crying,  let there be noise.

And the hungry hearts  at Qalandia Checkpoint open my mouth  I crave salt for my emotional eating  to feed weeping  eyes everywhere. Translated by Fady Joudah

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat is a Palestinian novelist and poet who lives in Jerusalem. She has published two poetry collections, numerous children’s stories, and three novels. She is the director of the Palestine Writing Workshop.

Fady Joudah has received various awards for his poetry and translations. His latest poetry collection, Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance, is from Milkweed Editions (2018). He lives in Houston, Texas.

#palestine

[nomadbuzz]

"Observer who cares for the land and who destroys it." - Refaat Alareer

#refaat alareer

[nomadbuzz]

#free palestine #poetry

[nomadbuzz]

#free palestine #palestine

[nomadbuzz]

#cole arthur riley #black liturgies

[nomadbuzz]

#bell hooks #spiritual #individualism #self improvement

[nomadbuzz]

If My Words

by Rafeef Ziadah If my words can stop this If they can stand in the way Of a bomb, a drone or a single bullet If my words can stop this

If they could stand in the way Of a bomb, a drone or a single bullet I would lay them at the feet of every child in Razda And offer them like prayer

I would recite them over and over and over Like the Holy Names of God I would write them endlessly Until all language breaks Like daylight

As we count our dead They ask me for balance They still ask me for balance He used to balance his son on his knees and sing And now, he's lost his legs and his son

How can I balance your silence Against all the sound of artillery in Razda? How can I balance your silence Against neighborhoods wiped out into smoke? How can I balance between David and Goliath? You tell me

Sorry, I know we're not meant to make this comparisons They make some uncomfortable So let me just say We are holding our ground Don't you worry about us We are holding our ground

If my words can stop this I would scream back this Gasoline Taste in my throat for four weeks now I would write my spine disfigured Like maps of Palestine and stand tall At the top of my lungs scream Make them stop, make them stop Please, someone, make them stop

They're just children playing Is the beach forbidden? Is there any place safe left under your sky Made of iron? Don't But we are standing our ground We are standing our ground

If my words could stop this I would argue circles around Every Israeli spokesperson Tell them, let's be clear Your smooth accents can't make killing children justified Let's be clear, we are not collateral Don't you dare call us collateral

Let's be clear Your polished talking points stick Inside skin near bone like shrapnel I shake my head to shake them off Your word linger meaningless But we are still standing here We are holding our ground

If my words could stop this I would hold them up, like fists pounding Like hearts pounding in shelters They asked us to evacuate, then they bombed us And he pressed her little head into his chest She's alive, she's alive, I swear, she's still alive They had to pry her little body out of his hands And if I could I would offer me his daughter

If I could, I would offer him all the Words of the world to take away the pain But the sky is raining heavy steel everywhere

This is no time for poetry There's no space for bodies in hospitals anymore No water, there's no electricity In this darkness I wish my words could transform to light To protection

I also wish for quiet I wish for some quiet from those who battle to Get to the microphones, and perform their rituals All you're clambering to get on stage is to speak Your rage, spare us, get out of the limelight

And Let Razda speak, let Rafah speak, let Janim speak Let Jerusalem speak, let Shatila speak Let Darius in speak Let everybody on the streets of Razda speak For a self today

I will not warn my death in 140 characters for your Twitter My dead are not your bloody Facebook status My dead will not be cluttered into an infographic to share today And then forget, we are still standing here We are holding our ground

If my words could stop this I would create a rhythm Louder than the speed to too familiar I would learn the lyrics to every freedom song And write it on every building still standing in Razda If my words could stop this

If they could stand in the way Of a bomb, a drone or a single bullet I would lay them at the feet of every child in Razda I would offer them like prayer Recite them over, and over, and over Like the Holy Names of God I would write them endlessly Until all language breaks

But words can't stop this So I offer you this silence and a poem And tell you are not to worry

We are holding our ground We are holding our ground We are holding our ground We are holding our ground.

Rafeef Ziadah is a Palestinian spoken word artist and human rights activist. This poem was written in 2014 during another mass killing of Palestinians. Here is Rafeef reciting it.

#palestine

[nomadbuzz]

"An oppressed people fighting for their liberation and resisting violence against them is NOT terrorism.

On the other hand, a state built on the foundational logic of apartheid, dispossession of a people, their massacre, and over seventy five years of unending violence cannot be described as anything but a terrorist state. The bare minimum is a cease-fire. But the struggle for freedom, dignity and liberation will continue."

[nomadbuzz]

If I must die, let it be a tale.

by Refaat Alareer

If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze- and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself - sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love If I must die let it bring hope let it be a tale.

Refaat Alareer poet and scholar from Gaza, killed by the IOF in December 2023.

#palestine