A Tear for Palestine
by Safi Abdi

..

My day is filled

With unnatural chants
And bare handshakes.

My soil is cramped
With stripped bones
And naked trees.

My horizons darkened
By clipped wings
And bowed heads.

My ears are deaf
From the incessant
Laments of swindled
Mothers and angry
Babies
Made homeless
By bulldozers
Mowing the Land.

My head is heavy
From the buzz of
Pitiless predators
Spitting smog and fire
On my makeshift homes:
For guts to spill
For blood to clog
For my land to shrink
For shelters to collapse
For common sense to die
For life to fade.

I am in the company
Of arrested spirits;
I am bursting
With arid tears
And barricaded wishes.

My life is made up
Of injurious tales
And hurled insults.

I am fed up with these
Hurried funerals
And walking alone
In the company of
Rushed Angels.


(c) Safi Abdi...2003