2236
7.44
13.ii.26
pretending
again
for godsbother
how flit
I saw a shadow fall
pretending again
to a shape
to a style of time
all that showy catastrophe
elsewhere just for now
blessed for my inheritance
pretending again
that we are eternity
world’s alright
the music plays on
we’re leaving this one
a reach of leaves
pretending a sky for my
reward
pretending we’ll never be
gone
2235
7.43
12.ii.26
pleasure
it is
when no line comes
no mantra to remember
nothing to paint
of a truth out there
nothing to pour out
blank mind
bold heart
test all four paws
look up!
laid paper, wove
all this, it turns out
preparation
I’m just embarking now
day’s up
and the brightest
is always beginning
you see me at the tiller
shielding eyes
wide wake across the page
2234
7.42
11.ii.26
Bougie
a president visits
the man who signed the missile
that fell on the building
that killed the children
he has come to bring solace
come to bring hope
he has come here
that we might unite
once could have been an
angel of peace
he can never perpetrate
he is of course the victim
and there was his father
before him
the man who tells the world
their children are his enemies
he is of course their victim
they are all his enemies
from the greatest to the
least
he is the victim of the children!
he signs the missile that
falls on their homes
of course it’s a targeted
strike
he’s here to comfort and
console
he’s here with us
for the innocent victims
victims of hate
there is no connection between
his missile
and the innocent deaths here
he comes to console
he is here to bring comfort
and solace
he’s not here to divide
Labour values!
he might have been Prime
Minister once
but hate was stronger than
he is
he is the man who signed the
missile
oh he is a lion-come-lately
that’s what we expect
how can he be complicit in
genocide
when he is the victim of
genocide?
his enemies are terrorists,
extremists, jihadists
he has accused all of the
residents
of the open-air prison his
nation built
he has signed for it all
he has condemned the
survivors to dust
bones and dust
the eyeless, the limbless,
the homeless
he is the man who signed the missile
that fell on the hospital
that killed the doctors, the
children
he’s not here for apartheid
he’s here for democracy!
from one democracy to
another
that’s how he’s here
we welcome him
with open arms
we only make the bomb bay
doors
you can’t blame us
what are weapons to this?
what’s money to this?
they bulldoze our graveyard
too
it’s like we were never
there
but didn’t we all have a
part in the Bible?
some sort of walk-on role?
a slingshot, a haircut
a temple falls down
and here we are today
the world’s all upside down
he’s the man who signed the
missile
that fell on anyone at all
it was a precision strike
80,000 dead from this precision
30,000 precisely dead
children
precisely all of them my
enemy
show me where to sign
how many more maimed?
and still the trauma is all
his
he’s here to comfort and
console
believes that his enemies
just pretending
playing possum for now
his enemies only pretend to
exist
where is their name in the
book?
a blood libel
if you’ll disagree
he denies what he knows to
be true
he is the man who signs the
missile
fists of the police – they’re
nothing
they’re not his
the man who signed the
missile
he keeps his dignified calm
it is the calm of centuries
spat on
it is the calm of murders
survived
none of the anger is his
he is an educated man
there are more groves to
bulldoze
the settlers – they are
forming their wagons in a great circle
the circle is ever expanding
is it on to Babylon tomorrow?
that’s what it says in the
book
taking their houses, their
villages, out
they are not really a people
we are
they are making it all up
they pretend nakba
they pretend to have lived
in this land
they have imagined that they
were here
have imagined themselves
they’re from nowhere
they were put up to this
and this is our land
given and chosen it says in the
book
the others are just names
names of the gone
names to pretend
what a comfort it is that
this man is here!
and the man who sent the
police to charge
to hem them in, provoke
to justify them later
who’d ban the author if he
could
he is a righteous man, he is
he is one of the righteous
and our Prime Minister
weepy again
one of the righteous
a victim too
of all who won’t see how
just his cause
his hybris
a victim of all who see
through him
to the corpse pile
to the hate that goes on
giving
he is trying to dial things
down
by bringing us
the man who
signed the missile
that fell on the children
maimed whom it did not kill
that took out the hospital
could have healed
because there was a tunnel
under
with murder in its heart
it’s true
he’s one of the best
he really is
he even once apologized
but that was for something
before his time
and there was a time he
could be an angel of peace
but now he signs the missile
this is all that he
remembers of the past
that he and his are victims
nothing makes sense anymore
if they would do what was
done to them
if they would commit the
same crime…
there’s an old dusty book
tells the man
that all this was given
and more to come
and all this is forever
then we come to
the pointy end of the
missile
when I think of the people
he purports to lead
the ages of persecution
survived
the exiles, the pogroms
the pitchforks and fire
when I think of the moral
compass of the past
of what so many have learned
there
when I think of humanity’s
greatest thoughts
the music that’s moved me,
discoveries. inventions
compassion, a mitzvah for
peace
when I look at this man
who he’s become
what his country’s become
how a brand can be trashed
how he was invited and why
how hate makes hate
how death brings death
I’m sorry for your loss
