Tag: current events

Somewhere in the distance,
The sound of thunder
Shakes the ground
Banishing the snakes
Under what could soon be
Israel’s newest neighborhood.

Last week,
Hamas took 200 hostages.
It still has them.
They killed 1400 Israelis.
In response,
The Israelis have killed
2750 Palestinians
As of yesterday.

There’s always tomorrow.
Except for the children of Gaza.
What does their tomorrow look like?
Terror breeds terror.

MSNBC has three Muslim anchors:
Their greatest experts on this ongoing conflict
They’ve taken all three off the air.

A Florida Congressman, Brian Mast
Turned up on the house floor
Wearing an IDF uniform.

Maybe that’s him giving cover
To Rashida Tlaib’s Palestinian flag
Which stands outside her office door.

I saw a cockroach
In an editorial cartoon
With a Palestinian face;
A big brown boot
Hovered above it
With the letters
“IDF”
Emblazoned across it.

Truth is the first casualty.

But here is something true:
Israel operates an open-air prison
With over 2 million inmates
–Half of them children–
Which it is now bombing
Again, an action
An Israeli security expert has called
“Mowing the grass.”

This is the exact
Opposite sentiment
Of Whitman’s use
Of this same metaphor.

Grass as life.

Outside my window
A fog is hanging thickly
Above my home’s
Beautiful lawn.

We have been
Letting it become
A meadow.
I have been letting
The grass become long,
Luxurious, and uncontrolled.

There are snakes out there.
I’ve seen them.

Snakes strike when cornered.
Shall we destroy snakes?

But the snakes in my meadow
Are not my enemies.
They do what snakes do.
Catch insects.
Sun themselves.
Make holes in my yard.

But if I had rattlesnakes,
Or cottonmouths,
Or cobras in my yard,
I would only want to rid myself
Of that which is venomous.
Not the bunnies.
Not even the skunks.

But in the fenced-in yard
Called Gaza,
White phosphorus rains down
On the innocent,
And the tractors that will
Mow that lawn
Idle at the ready.

Again:
For the children of Gaza
What will tomorrow look like?