Letters – a poem

Background 

“A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” – Josef Stalin 

It was when I was walking down the train tracks that ran right through Auschwitz concentration camp that the realization came. It was a November evening, with the fog pressing thick on all sides and a cold that cut through to the bone. We were all carrying candles in memory of those who died in the camp; Jews, communists, political dissidents, Russian prisoners of war, homosexuals, gypsies, Slavs and any other group of people.

The little lights hovered in front and behind me as many of us were walking our own pace. The wooden towers still stood, the barbed wire fences still stood, and I wondered how many victims were plodding along the platform that was still standing by the tracks. I wondered who was deciding every individual’s fate; either worked to death or straight to the gas chambers.

And then it hit me. The person who decided their fate was a human being. Every guard, every builder, every politician, every single person that was involved in this horror, in the horror of the holocaust, was a human being. A person.  That the power of ideas and convictions can affect us so is chilling enough. If these people had never been indoctrinated and brainwashed, than what could they have been instead of just simply being instruments of a genocide?

And so I dedicate this poem to all the soldiers of war. No, I do not consider them “heroes”, and especially not those at the concentration camps. I consider them people like any other, caught in the tides of fate and so I look at them with pity, and not with awe. And this poem is not referring to any particular war, although it was inspired by the trench warfare of the first world war.

Letters 

It is with a grieving heart
That I write this letter
May my hands never fall apart
For they are in earnest prayer

Only God can save me
From the coming disaster
Ordered to attack the enemy
Charging trenches and rafters

Swords and muskets at the ready
No hope to survive
Fighting for King and Country
And ready to die…

…Except I am not
O’ Lord have mercy!
Spare my children your wroth
And bestow upon them your safety

As for my beautiful wife
Show her kindness
For she was the bearer of life
In this darkness

From the life carried in her womb
And the one she carries in her heart
From cradle to tomb
Beneath the never ending stars

O’ Lord of all
It is quaint
I did not ask to be born
With these restraints

Deeper than mortal wounds
Is our greed
That we stumble through life
Forever in need
No matter our wealth
…All must bleed

And so,
Over I go into the throes of war
From the comfort of home
Amidst blood and gore
Over I go, over I go
Into the throes of war

The warmth of the embrace
From my children
Shall be replaced
By the blood from wounds bleeding

Tonight I shall not sleep
Besides the warmth of my wife
I shall be buried deep
In the mud, in the earth…devoid of life

To my loving wife, from her loving husband – Soldier no. 288756

 

 

Behind the metal mask

Background 

This poem was inspired by the videogame Dishonored and also by the philosophy of Nietzsche. A man who did not believe in mediocrity, but in heroism. Who dreamt of the ancient civilizations in all of their conquering glory; not hiding behind false reasons for war in the form of the Gods they worshipped. They conquered because they could, and because they were powerful. It was something that enchanted him…

Behind the metal mask 

The first thing I feel
As I wake from sleep
Is cold so unreal
Cutting strong and deep

And the first thing I see
Are wet and mud covered streets
Hundreds of feet pass me by
I keep my head low
Not daring to stare up into the sky…

Where grey concrete flows
Into the grey clouds
The only colours are the banners hanging proud
My head still down, I outstretch a shaking hand
From their sympathy there is not much to be had

Yet the first thing to touch my palms
Was not the reassuring weight of alms
But the light touch of a snowflake
That shall bring the deathly cold
In it’s wake

O’ world so cold, so harsh, so bleak
The only warmth given to me, are those tears upon my cheeks
And the fire in my belly that smoulders with hunger
A pain too big to leave room for anger

From the mists of the river, did a stranger come
To kneel by my side
Hands upon my shoulder
As thick as animal hides

His voice but a whisper, echoing from beneath a mask
Of twisted metal, a monstrous cast

“Beggar of the streets
You have heard them proclaim;
Virtuous are the meek,
And blessed are the weak
Those words are lies
Words designed to chain up your mind
Glory in wars and in taking what is yours
Yet here you are,
A slave beneath all.”

Once more did he come
And whispered in my ear
On that day
Anger was replaced by fear

Once more did he come
And knelt by my side
On that day, my strength returned
And I stood with pride

Once more did he come
With hand on my shoulder
And on that day, I swore an oath
And became a soldier
The terror in the night
A fearsome blight
Upon law and order…

Motherhood – In honour of International Women’s Day

Background

I think that for international women’s day, this poem would be very suitable. I wrote this in honour of my own mother, Amal Hayatli, a long time ago. And what was important about her past is that it showed me that there is no reason for losing hope. When I was younger, I was infected with Orientalism. I believed that we, the Arab people, had no hope for peace or creating any sort of just equality simply because of who were were, and I thought we were chaotic, barbaric and just different.

 

But my mother and all of her friends (and comrades) of her days as a refugee in Lebanon has destroyed these stereotypes with a single stroke. She was part of a respected women’s union, as well as a supporter of Fatah. She and her friends ensured that women would be at least respected, even if they faced difficulties. She believed in education and never shied way from reading the likes of Lenin and Marx.

 

One of her best friends is an Arab Christian by birth. Someone of a totally different faith. While the media would have you believe that for some reason we won’t get along, they practically grew up together, and quite possibly saved each other’s lives. Together and with many others, they witnessed the horrors of the Lebanese civil war from 1975, and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 as the civil war was still dragging along. We still see her to this day when we visit Palestine, and she still is one of the most lively people I have met, her name is Shadia Helou.

 

Motherhood

 

Environments mould you with invisible hands

So what did they do in refugee camps?

Your stories are like windows to a different world

Where the brave die young and the wise die old

A place that is colourful yet poverty stricken

Squashed together by concrete buildings

There were reasons to be happy, but more for sorrow

And if that wasn’t enough there were wars to follow

 

 

Environments mould you with a single breath

So what did they do when they puff out death?

Every now and then I sit by your side

As you fire off names of those who died

Quicker than bombs, bullets and flares in the sky

Late night incursions and panicking cries

You even saw people being ripped to shreds

One moment living, another moment dead

You told me when you had a fear of planes

When your group was bombed in your active days

Yet you pulled through; worked and survived

And without this I wouldn’t be alive

 

Environments mould you with a single swipe

So what did they do when they struck you with life?

I know you were a teacher and a vigorous fighter

But I think you’re best as a caring mother

Baby to child, almost a fully grown man

And I am glad to be raised by your hands

I was not only moulded by your warm embrace

It’s also the blinding heat of the problems we face

 

A salute to you for fighting to be free

And another for giving birth to me

The People of Gol’em part 2 – a poem and a tale continued

Part 1 here.

The Being outstretched it’s hand from beyond it’s cage
Upon the turning of an age
For when the wheel turns, the nations of men shall burn
And Empires shall rise like the dawn of a new day

Those who established power rose higher and higher
And the lowest of the low sunk lower and lower
No mercy for the weak, no thoughts for the meek
They knew more of killing than helping each other
And the hand of the Being got closer and closer

It’s essence caressed the mortal plain
As fingers would trace the droplets of rain…upon the leaves of trees
And the simple shepherd who was travelling the mountains of Tau’rs teeth
Was brought to his knees
He was struck with awe when the Voice bellowed and his name was called
“O’ Sirat know that this life is as the sand that you hold
Slipping between your fingers till you become empty and cold
Hereafter you shall join me in the void
Go to your people and tell them to end their ways
For their worship of power will bring them nothing but the end of their days”

With his back to the dusty plains
Sirat descended the peak upon his bare feet
‘Till he arrived to the beauty of Ha’ut’s vale

The city stood upon the hill embraced by magnificent walls
Where the slums spilled over it into a terrible sprawl

He walked through, this shepherd in rags
Among the beggars, diseased and ageing hags
The sheep trailed behind, pristine white as the purest snow
Among the dirt, and against the flow
When they gazed upon him, he said
“To the king I go! To the king I go!”

Passed the iron doors, the city’s jaws
Into the depths of the beast’s giant maw

He walked through, the shepherd in rags
Among the merchants, craftsmen and artisans
The sheep trailed behind, pristine white as the purest snow
Among  stone and wood, and against the flow
When they gazed upon him, he said
“To the king I go! To the king I go!”

Past the silver gates, the city’s praise
Into the depths of the richest estates

He walked through, the shepherd in rags
Among the nobles who clutched their laden purses and bags
The sheep trailed behind, pristine white as the purest snow
Among the silk and gold, and against the flow
When they gazed upon him, he said
“To the King I go! To the King I go!”
Only they laughed and mocked him, until of a sudden…
They turned into stone

Past the estates, through the golden gates
Into the magnificent King’s place

He walked through, the shepherd in rags
And the guards raised their spears, shouting “stay back!”
But he simply said “to the King I go”
A deathly wind gripped them, and  the blood started to flow
From the eyes, ears, mouth and nose
‘Till they collapsed into lifeless forms
Everyone else turned and fled with haste upon seeing their fate
But the wind gripped them too and it was too late
Sweeping the palace, no remorse or mercy
‘Till the grounds were left cold and empty

Save for the King, only he was spared
And he strode down the steps outside, not worried or scared
His face betrayed nothing but a festering anger
And he drew his black bejewelled dagger
Saying “in the name of my blade you shall rue the day
Of committing these crimes”
And he lunged forward with a fearsome battle cry
The Being again, holding the king in place
Voice booming “clearly I have not shaken your faith”
His eyes wide, his tongue frozen, his mouth agape
More vulnerable than a suckling babe
“Sirat, take the blade from king Horon’s hand
And release his blood so that it may crawl upon the land
And quench the thirst of the earth
For his death shall bring a new birth”

Sirat did as he was bid
Cutting his throat with an intricate slit as if it where a piece of art
And he turned around with an anxious beating heart, for he felt the presence behind
Kneeling down were all the poor women and men
The craftsmen and artisans were never to be seen again
The remaining knelt still, sprawled like the slums in which they live
And from this day forth, they were known as the people of Gol’em…reborn
And they named their city the Blood of Horon

Front page glance – Israel Hayom

Romney to the rescue, spoken like a leader of a superpower, Islamic terror PULSING through Europe…it is all so dramatic and scary right? But here is a new one…Maybe Israel should learn from Erdogan…the Turkish prime minister. Wait, is he referring to Erdogan’s swift military response to the Syrian Army shelling?

Yes he is, and once again I face palmed myself. As Dan Margalit so elegantly writes, he admires Erdogan for saying how precious “Turkish blood” is and how Netanyahu should respond in a similar way”. Because you know…the problem is not that civilians are being killed, but that ISRAELI or TURKISH civilians are being killed.

But hey, let us say for argument’s sake that Netanyahu decides to shell Gaza in the same way that Turkey did Syria. Firstly, being the most densely populated region in the world combined with the fact that the rocket launching squads are smaller and more mobile than artillery or mortar squads…it is going to be useless and a waste of human life. But it is okay, because we are talking about Palestinians.

A friend of mine, Harry Fear, did a report on how Israel deals with terrorists and resistance fighters. They do so by employing their own terror as you can see in that report. They watched one member of a resistance committee all day, and decided to blow him up when he had his brother and only son with him. That sure gave a message to their mother…

But no. While Israel constantly flies drones overhead, breaks the sound barrier above people’s homes with their fighter jets, carries out naval and land blockades, carries out incursions and bulldozes arable land, kills farmers who try to reach said land and slowly strangles the life out of Gaza…they should expect roses from them. A rising suicide rate reveals that everything is perfectly normal!

Israel. Please stop being so delusional. Last time I met one of your enlightened and civilized citizens he had no idea about the settlements and how the government panders to the settler movements.

Poem from “Mind Machine”

So I recently got a story published on fiction on the web. An online website that features short stories and is run by just one man. It is a good place to get your work some exposure.

A part of my story featured a poem, and I think that if I write more short stories I will intigrate poems in the feature. Anyway, here it is:

‘You did not choose to be born
Or even to be conceived
The idea of destiny and glory
Is more brutal than they would have you believe
At the mercy of history
From the tongue that you speak
To your smallest behaviours
And the manners of your speech
Faith has failed to flourish
And doubt was always fed
And here is what you came to learn
When you lay upon your bed
For some it’s the opposite
And for others, exactly the same
But you are all united
By the rules of life’s little game
The Ocean of Life shall hold you
While currents shall push you around

Never will you know stillness
Until upon death, where you shall find your ground.’

Comments watch – ‘Turning Bedouin village into Jewish settlement is racist’ – Ynet news

A Bedouin village in the Negev desert, Southern Israel, is to be removed with a Jewish settlement built in it’s place.

The Bedouin village of Um-al-Hiran has been applying for building permits so that their village, or as some would call it a hamlet, can be deemed legal, but their requests have been ignored or rejected thus far. Instead, the government has decided to build what the article terms a “Jewish settlement” called Hiran in it’s place.

Now, the term “Jewish settlement” can be a bit misleading, since if it is located without the 1967 borders and in Israel proper then it shouldn’t really be called that. Nevertheless, the Bedouin residents are going to be evicted from the area entirely. Here are a couple of quotes from the residents:

“Salim Abu Al-Kian, 53, told Ynet. ‘We are ready to reach a settlement on the matter. We’re willing to get permits for homes that have yet to receive them. Unfortunately, the state does not want to help us. They want to expel us from our land. We have no value to them,’ he said”

“‘We wouldn’t mind living alongside Jews. I wouldn’t object to us being neighbors,’ said Salim Abu Al-Kian.
“You can’t just take an Arab and put a Jew in his place. This is racism. This is the Nakba of 2012,’ he added.“

The Bedouin village of Um Al Hiran – Credit goes to Ynet news

To call this a Nakba, referring to the Palestinian catastrophe in 1948, is a pretty bold statement considering how some Israelis have reacted to any mention of it’s event.

Now someone called “Zionist Forever” on the site commented:

“This village was built illegally on state owned land ( not Bedouin land ) and they are complaining the state cannot force them to move and redevelop the area.”

Which is probably true. But here is the kicker guys. The Israel Land Agency (or ILA) has a governing board that decides the policies. 12 of the 22 members are elected governors. While 10 of the members are from the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the same organization that was founded in 1901 to buy land from Ottoman landlords and evict all the Arabs. To this day they have made it clear that they will only serve Jews, and no other type of Israeli, because of the nature of their organization…and these people decide the policy of land ownership. So is it a surprise that application after application for building permits by the Bedouins was refused? Nope.

But there is another comment of note as well. A man who named himself “Jack Bauer” simply commented:

“Send them all back to the Sinai”

A democracy is only as good as the people who inhabit it folks. And if you have been following the work of Israeli journalist David Sheen you would know about the recent xenophobia, especially against African blacks, that has gone through Israel. It was to the point that an Israeli MK said that Israel was a country for the “white man”. So never mind the Mizrachi or Ethiopian Jews!

These attitudes still freely prevail, but of course it is also essential to keep in mind that Israeli social movements such as the J14 are the polar opposite to this sort of rhetoric. One can only hope that as the generations pass, then there will be change. But I don’t think things will change within one generation…especially in Israel.

Book review – The Magician’s Guild by Trudi Canavan

I saw the Magicians Guild in a charity shop for £2 and so I thought, why not? The story is part of a trilogy titled The Black Magician. 

Summary

In the city of Imardin, located in the Kingdom of Kyralia lies the high-brow Magician’s Guild. The King employs them in an annual “cleansing” of the city called the purge, whereby the poor and downtrodden, perceived as nothing but criminals and thieves, are either killed or driven out of the city.

Cover via Amazon

Among the struggling families is Sonea, a young girl who lives with her uncle and aunt. But just as they scrape themselves out of the slums, Sonea runs into an old gang…a daring gang who plan an attack on the city guard and the magicians. Now of course, they do this every year, and as always the magicians effortlessly create a magical shield to protect themselves from the thrown rocks and rotten vegetables. Among all of this, Sonea is encouraged by her best friend, Cery, to take part. And so, she grabs a rock, and glancing at the magicians she transfers all of her hate into the thing in her hand and throws it…

And it penetrates the shield, knocking one of the magicians unconscious. She runs away, and continues to run for months as the magicians try to track her down. Some don’t like her because she is one of the slum dwellers, others see potential, but all know that if she is not caught and trained then her power will consume her and the city around her…

Review

My first impressions were that it was an “okay” story. After reading books such as the Game of Thrones I am used to the grit of a dark world, and I had the impression that this world would probably be very “tame”. But I was kind of wrong. There are assassins, brothels, professional thieves and dubious royal Houses (although they aren’t spoken about too much detail in this book). Besides that, other Kingdoms besides Kyralia, as well as a history are all mentioned which provides a good level of depth and complexity to this book.

Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised as I carried on reading. The groups of people and their prejudices is very realistic, and that is very important when it comes to the lower classes and their view of the Magician’s Guild as an elitist and merciless society. Or how the Thieves, as a group, fear the Magician’s Guild. But these prejudices are slowly and surely knocked down. It is a genuinely good example of how we can overcome our prejudices. I know it sounds absurd that we take this from a fictional world with fictional people, but the principle of spending time among “the other”, and seeing a human face is very much there.

I am hoping that the powerful Houses and the King of Kyralia are explored more in the following books. However, I tend not to read sequels which is a weakness that I hope to overcome! Don’t get me wrong, the book really does make you want to know what happens next, and if you feel like going into a different world of adventure then read it now. It flowed well, and was easy to read.

The people of Gol’em – a poem and a tale

This is a purely fictional story, taking inspiration from Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and a whole lot of other things! It is a tale in the form of a poem, and I hope to continue it with many more parts to come…

 

The People of Gol’em

In the time before time lived a being
Nothing but existing; suspended in the void
Not seeing, not feeling, it wasn’t created
Nor shall it be destroyed

In it’s timeless state it stirred, it’s mind unfurled
Behold, Order and Chaos spilled forth!
Floating in the aether; no shape or form

Until they clashed, and a half of the void was torn apart
In its place a million, million stars
Celestial bodies, twisting and burning with flame
Bound on the battlefield of this mortal plain

The war between Order and Chaos raged
And from this eternal struggle, the Earth was made
Blood spilled from their strife
And mixed creating life
On the surface of this trivial grain

Beasts burst from the Earth as trees
The rains gave birth to the creatures of the seas
The winds that drifted by awakened the creatures of the sky

Order gave life, Chaos gave death
And they intertwined to create a cycle
As rhythmic as your breath

From within the dust formed hundreds of lifeless husks
Fashioned by mysterious hands
They were struck with the breath of life
Behold, the creation of woman and man!

This humanity rose, and a Voice said unto them
“From this day forth, you shall be known as the people of Gol’em
Order has birthed you, Chaos shall take you
And from your seeds shall rise the nations of men
You shall wander the Earth evermore
And you shall have the power to love, and to wage war
You shall be of different shapes and colours
And that is a blessing, for like the fruits of the trees
You shall invoke a vibrant word
But mark my words
Even with this wisdom and warning
You will sacrifice your health and chase all the wealth
Alas, it is of no use where I await you in the void”

Scatter they did, and their numbers did grow
Generations would come and go
Until the blood started to flow as they split into their tribes and clans
They were no longer the people of Gol’em
Behold this rabble of woman and man!

Time passed in a torrent as mighty nations were forged
Yet for Order, Chaos and their eternal fight
They dwindled out of sight
As sparks among the clashing of swords

The being of the void watched his children, and his children’s children
In the ocean of time, it glimpsed humanity’s end
As well as it’s beginning…

Journey to Jenin – A poem I preformed

The hills rolled by like waves frozen in time
Dear Palestine
I sigh at the mention of your name, for it is the enigma of my mind
Many a civilization rose and fell
And it is just ourselves and ruins that have been left behind

And the powers still rise to this very day
This time, it is the settlements that eat your hills away
I see them now, high walls and red roof tops
Followed by gates, checkpoints and signs that tell me to “stop”
The message is clear, I’m no longer welcome here
These places house fanatics, and I’m not talking Al-Qaeda
But American Jews, dreaming of Judea and Samaria
Living in the Biblical era
They walk around with their Uzis and M-16s
Shouting in Hebrew, “mauvit l’Aravim!”
“Death to the Arabs” – that’s what it means

I stop my thought to find that we approach Jenin
A city green with life, of stone and mortar like any other
Only it is known as “the capital of suicide bombers”
Just another corner of history
Which makes the holy land the unholy to me
We are horrified by their ability to take innocent lives
But I think of how they lost the will to live
And gained the will to die
Desperate men who lost sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers
And then got preyed on by shady vultures
Saying “if you die for our cause, your family will never go without bread”
The choice becomes theirs, to watch their families starve
Or to embrace death
“Never mind” the bullets, bombs and bulldozers they faced
What they had was by no means an ignorant hate

And within a house in Jenin I saw a portrait
A son and a mother, both shot dead by an Israeli sniper
And I say in my head “O’ Palestine, you drink too much blood and not enough water”
Four year old child or fully armed soldier
You drink it all the same
Arab, Jew or the blood of any other
And I saw graves where this blood bore fruit
On the walls a sombre question, “what did we do?”
It was in Jenin’s refugee camp, I remember now
Of how the homes were once bulldozed into the ground

I dwelled a while before we continued our journey
To a friend’s newly built home, with beautiful scenery
At the balcony, I stared North into the distance
For just beyond that hill over there lay Tiberius
The Sun set in the East and rose in the West countless times
Until I was back to that fateful day
In 1948 when my family was driven away
My grandfather had just finished a home by the lake of Galilee
And I know that it is a place I may never see
I pictured all of them going to Lebanon and Syria
Among the mass expulsion, war and hysteria

To some, a war of independence, to us a catastrophe
Pride makes enemies
When it concerns race or nationality
That powers that be intervene, and interests meet
The boot stamps down on the neck of the weak
I’m tempted to simply say “such is the way”
Yet I persist in repeating “not today, not today”

And the enigma remains, Palestine, why can’t I let it go?
Why is it that people lust for you so?
And a gentle breeze took me back to the present
My journey, just for now, had ended