Threnody is a poem about the conflict in Gaza and the poet’s own experience of it through the conduit of media, particularly social media.
“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it” – Martin Luther King
[Dublin, October 9, 2023]
I’ve nothing to say
Is this the Holy land?
Land of Jesus?
Land of Cain?
I sense the spirit of Israel
I feel her pain
On the feast day of Abraham
Festival goers, music lovers,
At Supernova music festival,
In the prime of youth,
Apocalypse unfurled,
Now, the search for truth
Still unnamed,
Bodies maimed.
Two-hundred-and-sixty-souls
In the throes,
Of violence
The world is silent
Netanyahu says
“We have to go”
Into Gaza
How long must the blood flow?
For a strip of earth at Golan?
I sense the spirit of Israel
In her moment of wrath
A toxic insignia that reverberates,
You can feel the hate
As Jordan Peterson recalls the swastika
President Biden is sending ships
Revenge is on his lips
Because America always hits
Eleven U.S citizens its said
Blown to shreds
Anderson Cooper’s mourning the dead
I am watching CNN from my bed
The terror in my head
The sky blood-red
People in fear
Rivers of tears
The end is near
Yet many calling for the end-
Of vengeful Zion
Clare Daly, Brid Smith even Gerry Adams,
Meanwhile,
Ireland, Denmark, Luxemburg, Spain
Block the EU’s plans to suspend Palestinian aid
And from Re’im Kibbutz—
the site of extermination
Can God unite this broken nation?
Amidst destabilisation
The trouble humankind is facing
Geopolitical turmoil
A war for a stretch of soil
Is there no end to all this hate?
What is the future upon which we wait?
I sense the spirit of Israel,
Equivocal apparitions—
in the festival fields,
I can’t help but imagine
Electric Picnic
The musical overture,
With seconds left to live
Bones, blood, and dirt
Lives stripped of all worth
Nothing seems to fit
Simply blown to bits
Left for ashes
Rolling Stone Magazine
Are bracing for all out war
Saying ‘there is no place to go’
Detritus of cities
The refugees will flow
Already,
Ukraine, NATO
Have formed a block
Alongside Israel
Is this a ticking clock?
To the end?
No longer can we pretend
With all the division upon
which we contend
Blame the world-trade
Blame BRICS
In any case
We are in a fix
I sense the ghosts of Israel,
Mutilated flesh—
Unholy Sacrament —
Annihilatory furnace of—
Saturian retribution
Calamity, amidst the confusion
Will Iran, Russia and the
Middle-East unite?
Who will win this fight?
Address the threats?
When this war is over
There’ll be nothing left
But sticks and stones
Alongside human bones
The murderous pillage,
Nefarious, coagulating tillage,
War, myopic
A terrorist thirst for blood?
Hate shall bring no good
Khadar Adnan died in vain
And Rabbi Kahane
Killed in shame
Do we not remember
The 1972 Olympic games?
Then, as now, Israel
tried to hold the flame
Is it just the same?
Or have things changed?
Hospitals are about to collapse
Israel is cutting food and electricity due to Hamas
The system has snapped
Amidst ‘information war’?
Through a fog of lies
No one hearing children cry
Beneath the rubble
Can words—
Ripple through darkness—
Can they yield some light?
As testament to peaceful resistance?
Amidst this turn to night?
I sense the ghosts of Israel,
Bodies, hideously shed,
Loathing semblance—
Fume-soaked cloud,
Beneath blackened sky-
Bodies-steeped by— pain,
Last refrain,
No time to wave goodbye
Mothers, fathers, children
All have been slain
Israel could respond with
Illegal GBU-72s
If the 2021 American trade-deal
goes through
Now it seems it will
More will die
More will be killed
More blood will spill
Because currency must
Have its way
Because neocolonial imperialism
Is order of the day
Looks like we are heading one way
Seam the antimony,
The lion sleeps no more,
Let us try end this
And all human war
Yahweh, liberator
We pray together,
To seek to remember
The last song at Re’im Kibbutz
Amen
The last song at Re’im Kibbutz
Amen
The last song at Re’im Kibbutz
Amen
I’ve nothing to say
