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Poems From Palestine

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Untitled Poems III & IV
August 16, 2022
III. People are asses. I hang bells from their necks so they can sing to me while I recline on a rock. People are fools. I’ll hang them up in the wardrobe like winter clothes. May’s barley is about to ripen. Each stalk has lined up its seeds in orderly fashion so ...

Two Poems
August 02, 2022
I. I caught a glimpse of you as I ran. I had no time to stop and kiss your hand. The world was chasing me down like I was a thief and it was impossible for me to stop. If I had stopped I’d have been killed. But I caught a glimpse of you: your hand a stem of narcissus in a ...

Exam
July 05, 2022
My mother’s lessons are too late.After all we’ve lived through—the years she countsin precise concurrence with the Nakbaand the ones I count while I bite my tongue—she insists on lecturing me, word by word, all at once.She shows no consideration for my chronic ...

Memory
June 21, 2022
All is disordered in my usurped Bedouin memory.The young man who was electrocuted as he watered his fieldwas a potential groom for several little girls.His pores were potential lanterns in the dark after that charge of light.In all possibilities, memory betrays me.Was he a ...

Mahmoud
May 31, 2022
Mahmoud could have been our son.I’d have objected to the nameand, for family reasons, you’d have insisted on it.We could have bought him a crib with a blue quiltand hung spinning musical animalsto coax him to sleep,could have stayed up all night for his first ...

Daydream
May 17, 2022
I’ll write about a joy that invades Jenin from six directions,about children running while holding balloons in Am’ari Camp, about a fullness that quiets breastfeeding babies all night in Askar, about a little sea we can stroll up and down in Tulkarem,about eyes that stare ...

Popular and Known to No One
April 26, 2022
With ravenous eyesI devoured what others thought I was nourishing.This is how I overindulged,with glances thatare never returned.A few days ago the little one cried.She lifted her head to the sky,tears fell from her eyes,a sob filled her throat.In silence I watched,ignoring ...

Crucifixes of Beit Sahour
April 12, 2022
The serenity I knowresides in my bones.I learned this through the most submissive actions.In the hand that greets,the foot that stands,and the shoulder that carries.Tell it like a storyor an anecdoteor a tragedy,it doesn’t matter.The story maker never becomes a strangerand ...

When He Reaches His Solitude in Full
November 02, 2021
He closes the door, turns off the lightsexcept the hallway’s which leads to the fenceand lets him peek at the bougainvillea and the branches of the sweet apple he planted last winter.  Inside his room one candleby the window will do. A smokey candle and its ...

My Enemies Defeated Me / For Nothing
October 26, 2021
My enemies defeated me, led me downhill,executed my horse, and made me watch.My enemies defeated me, sold my mats, rugs,and colored rosaries at the bazaarto merchants and traders in shadows.In the dark my friends betrayed me.My children saw the hyena laugh outside our window.At ...