The Switch Strikes

        The boy calls for his mama in Hebrew
The father calls for his daughter in Arabic
        Tears streak a chubby face and the switch strikes
Fingernails scrape against the ceiling fragments, floor remnants
        His head bobbles on a tiny neck--body hasn’t caught up yet
All of her future, all of her now, within walls of was
        “Call for your mama Jew lover!” And the switch strikes
Then he uncovers them: tiny toes, a little foot
        And the switch strikes

                A wail of incomprehension

        The boy calls for his mama
The father calls for his daughter
                And the switch strikes

        This is my boy, my very own boy,
        I see his hands reach for his mama
This is my daughter, my very own daughter,
I see her baby foot in the rubble

O Canaan
Canaan!
O Canaanites

Jew or Gentile, Arab or Hebrew, Israeli or Palestinian
Can you not see?
You kill my babies
Can you not see that they are all my babies?
They are all my little ones
Let them come to me

Let me take them up into my arms and take their tears
Let me envelop their tiny hands in my palms
Let me comfort them

O Canaan are you not steeped in enough blood already?
Do your stones not cry out at the blood there?
The blood of your brothers
The blood of Abraham’s sons
The blood of my little ones

But who will stop? The starters or the finishers? Or last time’s starters or finishers?
Or those who started before?
Back past all the hateful deeds of terrorists
                                                    tyrants
                                            colonists
                                        caliphs
                                   caesars
                        and madmen

to Joshua clearing the promised land of the first Canaanites

                    Finishing that aliyah

                    At the end of a spear

A jihad before that word was spoken in this land
A jihad in a land that continues to scream in the voice of its children that

                                       NO WAR IS HOLY

But still,
The Jew is killed
The Arab is killed
The aliyah continues
What aliyah is there still?
The struggle (the true jihad) up from the pit of hatred
The Aliyah to a new (renewed) promised land

Let it be the one where my little ones are free
Let it be the one where I hold them in my arms

            If not Israel
            If not Palestine
            Be a New Canaan

Be a new people of six-pointed star and crescent
Be a new people of green, blue, and white
Be a new people of olive branch and dove

Or draw your lines starting in Gehinnom
and let the little ones be burned in the mouth of Moloch
while you blame your brothers

and the switch strikes.

April 2020 Haiku

I.
Surprised by spring's joy
The buds unfold in new light
Sleep gives way to life

II.
Read spring's wisdom here
Late or cold, the shoots come up
Pushing life through loam

III.
The season of death
Surprises us by ending
We are April's fools

The Locusts Progress

As the locusts progress,

The tsunami takes in its fatal breath,

The first rumours of the quake surface

And air raid sirens pierce silent skies

We say they will not destroy our fields.

It will not drown my streets.

It will not shake my house.

It will not strike me

or my neighbour.

But when the locusts do not stop,

The wave does not halt upon our shores,

The shaking starts without hint of conclusion

And missiles fall as rain

              On the just and the unjust

We learn what it takes to know each other

Friend or foe, sister or brother;

We are all neighbours here

As the locusts progress.

             

What sickness must we endure?

What violence of nature or man?

What calamity must befall

To finally know that,

When it is all over,

We will all be there

Side by side

 Picking fallen seeds

From ravaged fields.

The Prologue's End

The coulee calls one down the ridge

And the sunrise fills it up with gold

The mule deer watch and wait

And the new valley’s edge beckons

What waits for me upon the other side?

Here in these brutalist walls

Enmeshed in fluorescent light

I build upon myself and wait

With minds united and diverse

I slag through texts and pages

The digital blue-glow lights the way

And acrimonious groups parse opaque instructions

Filling the valley with fog

Here at the prologue’s culmination

I emerge from the fog-thick vale

And see three more ahead

And beyond

The glowing plain

This is, after all, just the prologue

Play and Interplay

A touch of bottled light reflected

Across the eyes

A dance of undulating waved

Into the ears

A breath of crisp air

with the clean decay of leaves

The play and interplay of what goes in

And what bubbles to come out

Let it out

Don’t fear

Lest it be bad

Let it be bad

Or at least, let it be not good

Not yet

Still frothing, growing, changing

Let it out

Let it breathe

Let it leave and become

Let the play and interplay not end

With the black hole of your eyes

The vacuum of your ears

Let it free

Let it back out

Teach me your play

And interplay

Where the blue glow ends
 And the slick dark begins

Where the lean and hunch
Becomes the cower and drowse

Where the time slips
And comes off the axel
And rolls away
And we watch it go

Though it travels as fast as we walk

Meet us there
And save us from it.

The Entropy of The Human Soul - Part I

Part I. The Dénouement

Beginnings are so gurgling, giggling new
And I’ve had one or two
But when the time comes to end
I find that it, I cannot do

And what will it take
To find my heart and mind awake
To make more (time) than I spend
And bring this entropy to brake?

Directionless I fear
I will not find my “Here!”
That special place to wend
And weave my way to in my end

I wander in my state
While my mind and soul stagnate
My heart a supernova
Yet this red dwarf hesitates

Endings are so flickering, whimpering slow
I have a lot to show
But nothing new to add
to fight the creeping veil of woe