BABY MARTYR
I'm six and seven and up to eleven, then I'm an adult
In an Israeli court
My hands tied in the back of my back
He comes to me with a punch and a sack.
He covers my head with a hood of Zionist stench
Though my belly is tough, it will not flinch.
The noise is loud and pierces my brain.
My pathetic shirt hangs proud with a fresh blood stain.
My poor mother is worried sick, I'm sure.
She burried my brother before me. She will endure.
And my dad too, depression got him in the end
With no home, no land, no olive trees to tend.
I'm in here for days on end
Or is it months or even years, I no longer comprehend.
The noise is too loud
And I can feel the shroud.
He beats me again today
Then its another's turn to play.
I'm broken now, but I'll not confess.
I'll leave my body, let them clean up the mess.
A few more thoughts before I go
I am human. This you must know.
You'd never know it `cause I'm tough as rocks I throw.
I had hoped to grow a mustache so fine.
Maybe marry Muna. I'd be hers and she'd be mine.
Maybe be a father....my children Free in Palestine.
WE THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE
We the people of Palestine, torn from our lands and living in exile;
Under curfew and surrounded by barbed wire inside a country that
demeans and humiliates us; Holding on to property deeds while caged
in squalid fetid refugee camps.
We the people of Palestine,
dispossessed,
defenseless,
devastated and
violated;
Evicted from our homes by force to make room for another people.
We the peoplle of Palestine, united in one humiliated voice
Say to the people of the World
"lay your eyes upon us and DO NOT TURN AWAY."
Look at our tortured and dehydrated children.
Hear our muted men and women who languish in Israeli prisons without
charge or trial.
If you touch the earth that is Palestine, you will feel its fright in
the tremors of Israeli bulldozers
Razing our villages and demolishing our homes.
You will feel the sad cries of our uprooted olive trees with which we
share an ancient kinship.
We the people of Palestine crave the taste of human dignity where
references to us in zoological terms by state officials is not
tolerated.
We dream of freedom that chimes from the hilltops to the beat of our
debkas,
Where men, women and children move freely throughout the land.
We yearn to watch our children be children
And know, as much as any parent can know,
That they will never have to witness their parents or siblings being
beaten by soldiers.
We the people of Palestine want to return to our homes.
We want liberty and life.
We want peace that falls within the boundaries of international law
One written in terms of human rights and liberty
And one fulfilled in the context of justice.
We the people of Palestine remain despite the unspeakable.
We will continue to call for our rights
We will not disappear, but only grow.
For you see,
Our cause is a righteous one
From which WE will NEVER turn away.
