Gaza: In The Hangman’s Rope

By Imam Zaid Shakir

They see no death, no blood, no pain;
too blinded by an ancient claim.
So take the land, destroy the man,
And bomb the babe in mothers’ hands,
Uproot the olive, kill the dove,
to Hell with charity and love.
When those twain die, so too does hope,
a victim of the hangman’s rope.
And who is there to fear the Reaper
when no one is his brother’s keeper.

Our tribe we must ourselves protect
with murder, which we must perfect.
So goes that atavistic claim,
To justify the bombs that maim,
to justify the phosphorous shells,
the fire of this worldly hell.
A worldly hell the Gazans know,
that testing ground, that weapons show.
But from that ground the will persists.
From pools of blood rise clench’d fists.
And then those fists hurl sticks and stones,
that smash the walls of stolen homes.

From mounds of rubble come the words,
of futile cries to just be heard.
Heard through the death, the blood, the pain;
that others have a valid claim.
And through the fog of war it’s clear,
no one alive would care to hear.
So kill them all so be their fate,
their claim is ours, but theirs can wait.
So take the land, destroy the man,
and bomb the babe in mothers’ hands,
Uproot the olive, kill the dove,
to Hell with charity and love.
When those twain die, so too does hope,
it’s Gaza in the hangman’s rope.