CONFESSION ZERO (The Weaver's Song)

Two Palestinians have been deported to the Gaza Strip from Israel, raising fears that more expulsions could follow under a controversial new Israeli military order.
After nine years in Israeli jail, Ahmad Sabah, a 40-year-old Palestinian, was sent to Gaza, instead of being released to the West Bank where his family was waiting for him.
Israelis sent him to Gaza because he had a Palestinian ID issued there.
His family said that Sabah, who was arrested in 2001 for "security offences" against Israel, has no connection to Gaza and he has refused to leave the border crossing in protest at his treatment. "It is my right to return to my wife and family," he said.

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
__Thomas Paine

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.
__Simone Weil

The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
__Henry Louis Mencken


If this cruel thing bleeds unrestrained; the wicked hydra grown again in the dry air as children weep under rolling metal, am I, the silent and free, not the oppressor?

The unspoken sin is mine to bear, my wordless thoughts fetch nothing, prayers, unheard like the child’s howl.

Like those who are suffering will throw their hands skyward in search of agonies release, I imagine my empathy to be enough.

Yet what do I imagine for myself if I but yield within my frozen flesh?

The unspoken sin is mine to bear, my wordless thoughts fetch nothing, prayers, unheard like the child’s howl.

Silence moves like one drop of rain in the sea and prayer, even less, when fear is king.

To move now, to raise my voice is not surrender, not cowardice, but an ocean of rain…

Go now. Take yourselves from here. Your skin is of no use. Never return to this; your wedding of agony.

They were unaided in their howling cradle as beasts of misery called out to them while most solemn things crept by the gate, past the dreary eyed sentinels. And these foul things spoke to them, “You’ve suffered enough” they droned. “It is best that you die” they cried. “Your use is stale and you smell of vengeance”. They were wise to the game; the sport of shackled wretchedness. They would never come back, this they knew in their hearts.

Go now. Take yourselves from here. Your skin is of no use. Never return to this; your wedding with agony.

She approached them smiling, “Come with me now. Leave everything and move your feet.” “But we are chained to the floor” they begged. “You’ve no use for chains now. Come. Walk with me.” They followed her out, through the walls, past the guards who smiled knowingly, they floated beyond their smiles, beyond the gaping wound.

When we know, we know. When we hold our arms out and our weary hands feel the sky, when we smile back at anguish and sense its death slipped from our waist, and our hearts ascend, we know. Why isn't it any comfort to recognize this, to know this before the howl of loss?

Go now. Take yourselves from here. Your skin is of no use. Never return to this; your wedding with agony.


Gitmo
Torture and the Law

After it all falls,
falls away,
after it all falls,
falls away,
I will greet you.
The green ground is wet again in the St. Francis Forest,
it is weeping for what’s taken place,
and the deer look sad, like old bullfrogs
sunk in the swamps puffing their throats.
I will meet you by the cabin,
by the moss-green cellar door with the rusty handle
and we will hold one another and the bullfrogs
will bellow their melancholy.

The world’s gone mad, my dear,
and no one seems to care.
We’re happiest breathing air the color of smoke
and swilling fury like a rabid dog tethered down.
But something’s changed, the gait of man,
teeth show more than before,
as if we’re grinning beneath our howls,
happiest when our foul fists crack against innocent flesh.
Something’s changed my dear, something awful.
In our quest for compassion, our search for ourselves,
we’ve come to greet the moon like beasts
and we’ve come to crave this ill-used madness
like addicts of failure, sightless hunters of ruin.

After it all falls,
falls away.
After it all falls,
falls away,
and all this hate and foul-toothed cruelty fails,
I will greet you. Meet you there
to hold hands
at the moss-green cellar door with the rusty handle.
And together we will bellow to the bullfrog’s melancholy.
And we will fall together, limbs touching wet fingers.
I will hold you close, my love, nearer than before
and I’ll be affectionate when I brush your golden hair.
Don’t be afraid!
I will greet you!
I will show you the beautiful things!
The deer will no longer look sad, the world
shall no more it’s howling, the air will smile
and no one will seem to care!

If we lie next to one another, do you think we’ll forget the world? If our fingers hunt like tongues, do you think we’ll stumble upon silence?

The dream begins the same; I’m older. My mind and body, slower. The dream ends the same; you lying next to me, fingers wagging.

If we rest next to one another, do you think we’ll fail to notice war? If our tongues search like fingers, do you think we’ll assemble peace?

Naked, both shining with grief, we sense the other’s bones like a sniper, spin new selves with each innocent, (child, dream, mother, hope, father) slain.

Tonight we’ll unwind nightmares, our imaginings, dreams, will begin the same; mind and body slower, wagging, tongues speaking the drama from slumber.


Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

It has shamefully landed here and we stand between collecting the shattered parts of an immaculate truth shackled in devout steel. Can you see? Has your belief blinded you?

Beneath the wailing and gnashing of your minds lie millions of rotting corpses, the heavy shroud of illusion, distended bellies of starvation, pools of savagely beaten women with despicable and pious vengeance, a scorched and failing planet, an immense corruption of flesh, insidious indoctrination of souls and the greed of god-fouled power!

Look! See what this means?

Stepping heavily now is this beast of conceit whose footprints seem familiar to us, we know them, we recognize their depraved pace, whose breath we imagine so sweet, arms outstretched and beckoning, and whose word brings us to fomenting murder, even a reckless and eyeless beast knows when it’s dying, and we stand between collecting the shattered parts of an immaculate truth shackled in devout steel.

Medvedev vows to destroy bombers
The people sway at his words, pretending heaven tumbles into this; his unforgiving plot that will soon come back to greet their heavy hearts.

Multiple Israeli strikes hit Gaza
The children were dressed for the parade, yet they knew not what awaited their joy, what unknown would greet them on their path, things that had the power to dull their hearts.

Army: Gays Still Can Be Dismissed If They Speak Up
This rule that breathes gives no answer; in the firmness of the warrior our exposed intolerance stirs our blind procession, our dwindling freedom.

Feds argue against releasing 8 members of Michigan militia
The standing mercenary with the noise in his throat like the gurgle of death bubbling up with the blood of tyrants.

How dependent is the U.S. on foreign oil?
The church bells chime, the rainfall falls, the mountains mount, but the smell of addiction does not fade; empires, without exception, do.

The water waits on us as we lay upon the sand. Waiting, waiting for our bodies to become one. You say, "I do not know how to swim” and I say, “I will teach you”. But that is a lie, it is the water that will instruct us both. We walk into the water until it laps at our stomachs; it surrounds us... our fingers, toes, breasts, tongues, lips; our naked bodies held by the ocean’s soothing caress. The water doesn’t think of our fear. It holds us. It sways our bodies. The water cannot sense our doubts, our joy, it only senses we're there waiting within it; another tiny thing suspended in its grip. My hands under your back are like small hover crafts balancing you in the water that holds our smiles. Our lips and tongues meet in a tender and watery dance.

The ocean doesn’t know we’re smiling, doesn’t sense our urgent breath, it is without conscience, yet exhaling with us. It could easily wash us away if it knew our thoughts;
the evil outside of this moment, instead it holds us there like a pirate ship, a vessel that met its fate long ago frozen beneath this massive thing lapping our nakedness, the thing that brings us to sway. You plead, "Don't let me go!", and I say, "I've got you. I'll never let go." But this is another lie. If the ocean wanted, it could take you from me, swallow us both, that we congregate with pirates.

My tongue now glides over your prone body as your hands begin to reach down. Your nipples, without conscience, greet my lips, your hands, reaching for me, do battle with the sea.


© 2010 by mark prime