Skip to main content

The Prisoners

(click to enlarge)

1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine (and World War II and Palestine)
End of the British Mandate 1945–1948
1948 Palestine war
Clash in Egypt Over Gaza Aid Effort 2009

O! How happy the prisoners in their own land seemed before this! All smiling at the chance of relief and food and breath, feet firmly planted on a shrinking plot to the west of the Jordan River.

The prisoners have no rights, no government, no land or love. No history to hold, no child to mourn, no passion, no art. Hostage to giant machines, to guns, to tumbling shells and terror, prison guards, tanks, and the rising wall, yet they do have rights and governance and land and love and history and child and passion and art- truth.

O! How happy the prisoners of their own land seemed before this! Facing the Mediterranean, the great watery span between home and the press of hate, the Jordan and Dead Sea behind, vultures awaiting their anointing like bone-filled ovens. Soil dried in the blood and upon the exodus of footprints, their insistent freedom marching hard upon the heels, screeching a national lullaby that will never be cleansed of history but that falls upon ears that have long been numb to truth.


© 2010 by mark prime


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

........•SHRIEKING MACHINE•........                  •HEAD-LINES•                           •RIP•     ---(“Russian missiles blast Ukrainian military academy and hospital, killing more than 50, officials say”)---    There are no more lessons to learn here, no more beds to hold the human wounded, just missile’s shrieking their grotesque ode, The Death of Humankind! RIP, children of God…    ---(“Hundreds attend Mercer Island vigil, march for murdered Israeli hostages”)---    Dear mourners, this is the brutal vacuum of a genocidal, terror-filled, indiscriminate war-machine made of fear and we are all hostages to its deafening roar! RIP, children of God…    ---(“10-year-old allegedly confesses to fatally shooting 82-year-old man and his daughter”)---    I must confess, this is part of war’s shrieking, children lost with a we...
Post a Comment
read the poem

FAULT METER

FAULT METER    When you get a question wrong you will hear three loud beeps followed by an even louder ticking of a clock.    (Like tick-tick-tick-tick-tick?)    You are half right.    (Like tock-tock-tock-tock-tock?)    You got two halves of it.    (Then I give up!)    You do?    (It ain’t out of weakness, it’s my adhdad.) I understand.    (You understand what?)    That it’s not out of any weakness on your part.    (Weakness, on my part in what?)    Never mind, it’s definitely adhdad.     •    We float, we fly, we soar! We find our wings in each other. We find friends, cousins of the one seed of existence. An existence which never began, but always was, that loves us enough to provide life’s needs, our own, the same. A collection of living peacekeepers upon the surface of the most heavenly example known to them. • © 2017 Mark Richard Prime
Post a Comment
read the poem

Per Plex Ed

            PER+PLEX-ED When you haven’t heard the truth in so long, when you do, it rings a most familiar s ong. That’s the human song, the truth rolling out exactly when it should.      (If a truth is told and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound only to the one that spoke it?)    Yes, but our ears aren’t strong enough to hear it.     [a perplexed silence] © 2017 Mark Richard Prime
Post a Comment
read the poem