arno!do garcía

April 6.

[another excerpt from guerra poemas

from La revolución emplumada]

Anwar Balousha mourns

his five daughters

killed by an Israeli flying an Apache [sic]

helicopter who fired missiles

at a mosque in Jabiliya

Anwar's house was destroyed

by the blasts

Four of his children escaped.

Not

Samar, six years old

Dina, seven years old

Jawaher, eight years old

Akrav, 14

Tahrir, 17

all crushed to death

where they slept

Five missiles

one for each daughter

Five daughters

one for each missile

Five girls

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

the Israeli found the five sleeping beauties

five dreaming peace or love

or family or just asleep resting

getting ready for the next day

But how do you get ready

for the next day of bombardments

atrocities. F-16 jet bomber pilots

destroying mosques,

homes, schools, universities,

markets, killing and maiming

Palestinians?

Palestine becomes modern ruins

*

My daily to-do list

1. Build a new country: only humans & the natural world allowed

2. Create, speak a new language, call her: human

3. Be loved & love

4. Accept tenderness

in all her shapes,

forms & powers

5. Organize a

guerrilla, a little war,

of poetry

6. Visit my family,

my neighbors, adopt them.

7. Eradicate sadness, suffering,

abandonment, all inhumane forms of being human.

8. Draw a map of

the desired world,

superimpose the new world over

the known world.

Now throw away the map

of the one that's easier

to live and struggle in.

9. Tag your dreams on walls,

make graffiti in your bed

10. Celebrate, honor your ancestors-to-be

Build altars to them before they die

not after they've been shot, killed, disappeared

and never knew they were living gods

11. Surprise myself,

be happy with my worldly life, dream again and again.