Saturday, April 24, 2010

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arno!do garcía

Your colonialism did this to me

Your skin did this to me
Your 99.9% dropless blood
Your redlining
Your redneck
Your monotone monolingual Christianity
Your tone-deaf tongue
Your flat-ass flat world
did this to me.

*

Notes for my Palestine war

Anwar Balousha
mourns his five daughters
killed by an Israeli Apache [sic]
helicopter that fired mssiles
at a mosque in Jabaliya
Anwar's house was destroyed
by the blasts
Four of his children escaped
Samar, six years old
Dina, seven years old
Jawaker, eight years ofld
Abram, 14
Tahnir, 17
were all crushed to death
where they slept
Five missiles
one for each daughter
Five daughters
one for each missile
five centuries
five Malinches
in the refugee camps
in the migrant camps
Israeli drones in the dark night
looking for their targets
using infrared television cameras
found the five sleeping beauties
five dreaming peace or love
or family or fast asleep resting
getting ready for the next day
But how do you get reay
for the next day of bombardments
of atrocities of F-16 jet fighter pilots
who destroy mosques,
homes, school, universities,
markets, killing and maiming
Palestinians?

Even the ruins are Palestinian.

*

Gaza,
all the missiles
all the bayonets
all the tanks
all the soldiers
all the armies
are hunting you
All they can do is give us time
to prepare for our turn at war
at the fountains of blood
where Israel is quenching
Palestine is rubble under the bombardments
crushed children crushed women
crushed men
who will continue resiting
as dust as ruins as slogans as martyrs
at our marches
as the ultimate dream of freedom
that can only be crushed
by an ignorant enemy

Nowhere to run or hide
what kind of satellite is needed
to hunt down a people
the tables are turned
Israel is driving Palestine
into the sea
and Palestine will become
the largest country in the world
Palestine Palestinian ocean
and you will have to be beg, ask permission on the knees of your ancestors and soul
for at least 500 years
to cross
to bathe
to swim
in our liquid nation
to enter into the realm of our catastrophic borders
the U.S. submarines will snk
the gunboats, the warships
the corporate petroleum pirates the nukes
will be grounded
Israel buries Palestin
and the Palestinians
grow roots an underground
seed that flowers
without dynamite strapped
to her waist
that furrows under and causes the occupation to cave in to sink
in the aquifers of our loud tender mouths
Israel makes Palestinians mourn, twists and maims
their bodies, blasts apart
children and measly armed men,
Israel believes he is winning
76% of the Israelies support the war
they lie, hate cannot be
measured by wars.

*

Oscar Gaza

Broken windows
over a man shot in the back
over a man unarmed
laying face down
with four cops on top of him
shot in the back
a case of a mistaken bullet?
But what color was this Gazan in East Oakland?
who breaks windows, burns cars
who shoots us in the back
who is guilty
who is free
where is Gaza
where is Oakland
where is your sea our ocean our country of open arms and caresses?

Note: these are poems 23 and 24 for April Poetry Month. I was unable to post the 23rd poem on April 23 because I was busy working with communities responding to the rising apartheid and Jim Crow segregation in Arizona, after AZ Governor Janet Brewer signed into law SB1070, which makes racial profiling and discrimination legal. SB1070 give police the power to question anyone they suspect of being undocumented and to investigate private and public agencies, employers if they are serving or hiring undocumented people. Take four actions for justice in Arizona and to denounce SB1070 here.]

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