If I must die, you must live to tell my story —Refaat Alareer
Lisa Suhair Majaj: Shroud of Light
Another beautiful poet lost to the genocide and vengeance, Free Gaza, Free Palestine 🇰🇼
Category: poetry
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Lisa Suhair Majaj: Shroud of Light
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MISSION INCOMPLETE/ WHERE NOW to FIND YOUR PEACE? #poetry by jay
In the land of the holy and the hearts of the mad
the day has come to assess the damage and stop
pretending/ this experiment has not failed—
born in desperation/ burned by condemnation
alas’ it cracks/ feel the burn/ return your humanity
to the unborn/ to the dead children/ your madness stole
theirs/ unchained and fit on vengeance.
You convulse in disbelief at the reality/ feel your humanity leach
into the void that could have been your soul/ wretch at the release
of the crumbling walls/ wailing/ pulling at your hair—
a pit is left gaping / to conjure a heart/ sinister in mission
forgo the thought/ march in lockstep/ to face the calamity—
mission incomplete/ head spinning/ facade cracking
where now
to find your peace?© Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo by Jakob Rubner on Unsplash
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20,0000 + DEAD/ CEASEFIRE NOW #poetry by Jay
Peace will not come until they are home. The heart will not settle until they are returned. The maggots will not rest until the dead stop roaming,satisfied and at peace, home in their own land, home in their own hearts, home in their own confiscated beds. The exiled will not rest! …read full poem here
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NEVER CEASE TO SPEAK/ UGLY TRUTH #poetry by jay
Hear truth. See truth. Speak truth Why is it that it’s taboo to speak truth
when the truth is ugly and vile?
Especially when you address the truth
of the dead- the people that have died
those that have left behind,
the affronts, the hurt, the stink,
your open wounds left to fester,
I find it indigestible, hard to swallow
the lump in my throat is
a rock, a pebble, a stone,
a pit falls from the rotten fruit
renders me a blind, deaf, muted
forgotten denial,
un-levied bank of a corrupted
fantastical life, you smile
strange, sinister, frozen
without a gasp, or a breath.
It’s unfathomable
the grace we give to the dead
those who’ve left before you
and left for you, the pain of their lashings,
as if the living were not worth living-
when it was their brutal marks, the outright
slashing of the heart, the attempted murder
of your soul, that has left you dangling here,
as if you were inanimate, without hurt
As is the day we change
As is the day we breathe
As is the air of release
The oxygen so sweet, so sweet
the outcome is in our favor,
unleash the silence, speak loud to truth
and back down never,
to vile compliance.
Never cease to speak truth to silence.
©Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo Credit- Pixabay
This poem was first written in response to some personal attacks I was experiencing, today this is again relevant, but on a much larger scale. #ceasefirenow
– Keep the humanity alive. Never lose the ability to see the people in the face of the atrocities. And, never cease to speak truth to the in-humanity.
Free Gaza! Stop the bleeding 🩸
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CENSORSHIP #poetry by jay
POETRY OF RESISTANCE IN
OCCUPIED PALESTINETRANSLATED BY
SULAFA HIJJAWI
Published by the Ministry of Culture Baghdad- Iraq
1968
This is a revised and edited version- 2009Today, first a poem by Fadwa Tuqan, selected from the historical document POETRY OF RESISTANCE IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE, followed by a poem that I wrote back in the early 2000’s, in response to censorship which again, is rearing its ugly head stronger than ever today–
EVER ALIVE
by FADWA TUQAN,
My beloved home land
No matter how long the millstone
Of pain and agony churns you
In the wilderness of tyranny,
They will never be able
To pluck your eyes
Or kill your hopes and dreams
Or crucify your will to rise
Or steel the smiles of our children
Or destroy and burn,
Because out from our deep sorrows,
Out from the freshness of our spilled blood
Out from the quiverings of life and death
Life will be reborn in you again………
ODE TO CENSORSHIP
©Jay Mora-Shihadeh
why should i
shut up
what i
believe is
wrong
i don’t want to
hurt you
but i must be
strong
in justice
not cower at
injustice
my pride
is in what’s
correct
i believe
the u.s.a.
is corrupt
breathing, living off
someone else’s
air, land and stolen
contraband
this united states
government
has created
many enemies
with their
thuggish
foreign policies
how long do
you believe
uncle sam
will understand
they are justified
in their
right to
concretize
their warring
plan
to conquer
every piece
of land
upon
this
earth
so grand
bleeding
wringing out
the souls
of cultures
ancient and
cosmopolitan
this land
this u.s. land
land stolen
not so long ago
the genocide
of native
american
man
woman
child
so blood thirsty
for the gold
too bold
in their arrogance
striking young, striking old
in defiance
of a peoples’
generosities
taking advantage
of their reciprocity
how long before
the end
of a system
built off these
atrocities
this war
this massacre
this seizing of land
will cause nothing
more than
a devastating plan
of self-destruction
and
a ‘quick flash in the pan’
of a people
too greedy
too backward
too
in-humanitarian
I see justice
on the horizon
beating a path
of victory
from years of
oppression
lighting the way
for democratic
expression
lost in the
onslaught of
criminal
repression
of culture’s
so vast
it’s beyond
comprehension
of
beautiful worlds
years ahead
of this time, this place
ahead of this race
to capture control
and bottle
the magic that
inhales and exhales with
unwavering grace
a peoples’ so strong
so rightful in place.Photo by Wallace Chuck from Pexels
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New Report Details Damage to Arts & Culture Across Gaza Strip
DECEMBER 7, 2023 — A November 7 report from the NGO “Heritage for Peace” estimated that more than 100 heritage sites had been destroyed in Gaza since…
New Report Details Damage to Arts & Culture Across Gaza Strip -
CEDE #poetry by jay
short-handled-hoe / black-socked/ little man
digging dirt for fig trees
you stand
like a bull / suntanned / cursing the news
back-breaking
bloodshot
fingering toward the moon
you you / leave now
i’m growing meat
on these stone pits
and figs
peach juices run
down his dirty lips
sound-off / jibber- jabber
nonsense spit
like tobacco
chewed
go pick the koosa
and the mint
drive the kids
‘round the corner
square the lot
swerve up / down
the street
write cursive-curses
in Arabic on the concrete
Carvel-cones / vanilla bean
sticky / messy / sugary treats
back seat thrashing
cursing old man
foreign / distant / emptied old soul
never seems to know
that—
love conquers all
bad news
and tv shows.
© Jay Mora-ShihadehA brief memory…a poem about my Cede today in honor of all the Palestinian Cede’s/grandfather’s everywhere.
– Keep the humanity alive. Never lose the ability to see the people in the face of the atrocities.
Free Palestine!
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TO ALL THE TETAH’S #poetry by jay
Two poems today about my Tetah in honor of all Palestinian Tetah’s/grandmother’s – Keep the humanity alive. Never lose the ability to see the people in the face of the atrocities.
Tetah and Cede circa. 1937
TO ALL THE TETAH'S A Tetah is the pinnacle that reaches to the outskirts of the universe. An apex of love that is the highest order of being. When I see you in my dreams/ reaching toward me with open arms/ comforting me like the skin of my soft puppy playing against my heartbeat. This is chivalry/ this is King/ this is Queen of destiny. The beauty/ the colors/ a kaleidoscope/ a spectrum of lights fill the sky with spirit/ full-force and bright. I hold treasures in my heart/ my chest beats upon sheer memory. Warm fragile light recedes into the dark night/ palatable/ my tongue dancing with the delight in reaching toward the taste of this love. Your life—shadow/ distant yet burning. I struggle to materialize your spirit/ return it to me now! Angel eyes upon the ground/ your garden of loofah/ koosa/ eggplant/ hung heavy on vines like black-purple-gem-hearts/ full round and pressed to earth. Clinging from tree’s— the fig/ the peach and the herbs of life—your life/ entangled in my veins like weeds overgrown this is you. I recall vast lifetimes/ tracing a labyrinth to all the Tetah’s that have nurtured/ fed their grandchildren lovingly. A silent steady stream. A monumental mountain/ heavy on the landscape. This I see in a glimpse/ a sudden weighted gravity/ that pierces my heart/ as I sit in quiet memory of you my Tateh. Huge you were to my child eyes/ little you became as I grew with the grapevines. Small in frame/ yet huge in spirit/ you grew with each passing moment. Now—you are a giant in the Universe. I see the magnitude of you in the bright stars/ you in the heavens/ you loom large as the ink-black night and burn forever long as the day's light! All of this in a glimpse of you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ HERE I STAND ON TORRID LAND here i stand on torrid land my spirit wandering the dusty sand of fig trees, khubz and floured hands i stand just foot driven deep in earth’s crust sure-footed grip of rocks and mortar my soul ripped in two by grief’s torture small hands grasped lightly by the remembrance of her soft dough-baked grip of salt, of land ancient yet present her cherub eyes danced table-side love, she spoon-fed her clan with grape leaves and olives and not so dainty meat pastries prepared from the vines, toiled by cede’s hand his backyard bounty, his dreams -- their dreams of their homeland and my dreams of hot cement days and barefooted children pretending the dawali are stacks of cigars stuffed and rolled, stacked high on big plates the dawali grew higher creating bigger heaps of make-believe fun time with cousins longing for the smells of dusty left behind relics that bespeak of them, their belongings the hookah, the 8 track tapes, belting out loud arabic music the robe and keffiyeh my grandfather wore not so long ago in ramallah, the curious one that later became a halloween costume worn by my childhood friend and that old oriental rug beaten by history splayed across the living-room floor, adding an air of the exotic to their mundane colonial suburban sofa the lamb and garlic stained air, smelt early at daybreak always there, lingering about oiled-hot-pots full, brimming with tomato broth baths and grown ups lamenting the evening news, the war, the fight for the return of their land, usurped by foreign man those that had suffered atrocities of their own have turned ugly, heaping nails, spitting bulldozers claiming god has promised this to them easily they slipped between tongues english and arabic at once they were here/there simultaneously they had created a new language, one easily understood by us and me, absorbing all this with my round brown eyes unaware of my future task silently inhaling the smoke of my family’s lingering rage, the kind of rage that clings to the walls, to the curtains, to the furniture, to me to my stuffed pink panther the one i loved so much for its unique shape and color the color of bubble gum and pink lemonade -- but the rage! the rage had to be scrubbed off the walls, scrubbed off the furniture scrubbed off my clothes, scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed! and i inherited this task unknowingly. ©Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Free Palestine!
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Reblogged from Tracy Abell- Palestinian poetry, part 2
Running Orders By Lena Khalaf Tuffaha They call us now, before they drop the bombs. The phone rings and someone who knows my first name calls and …
Palestinian poetry, part 2 -
COFFEE but so much more…TOUBA!
Had to share this beautifully written poetic prose by my friend Giusy…Enjoy!
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THE OLIVE TREE #poetry by jay
To honor my Palestinian heritage and to all the people of Gaza and Palestinian people everywhere, a beautiful poem today by Tawfiq Zayyad- THE OLIVE TREE by, Tawfiq Zayyad Because I do not knit wool* Because I am always hunted And my house is always raided. Because I cannot own a piece of paper, I shall carve my memoirs On the home yard olive tree. I shall carve bitter reflections, Scenes of love and yearnings, For my stolen orange grove And the lost tombs of my dead. I shall carve all my strivings For the sake of remembrance For the time when I’ll drown them In the avalanche of triumph I shall carve the serial number Of every stolen piece of land The place of my village on the map And the blown up houses, And the uprooted trees And every bloom that was crushed And all the names of the experts in torture The names of the prisons….. I shall carve dedications To memories threading down to eternity To the blooded soil of Deir Yasin And Kufur Qassem. I shall carve the sun’s beckoning And the moon’s whisperings And what a skylark recalls At a love deserted well. For the sake of remembrance, I shall continue to carve All the chapters of my tragedy And all the stages of Al- Nakbah On the home yard olive tree!
originally posted on my blog April 5th, 2022, to celebrate Arab-American Heritage month.
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RAW WAR #poetry by jay
raw war bled for no reason on curdled tongues. taste, sour slice, blood moon, red sun, black dawn, never. night forever forgot to shed the days bitter dark cold. silver guns on young skin, hobbled knees, dreams wet humidity. sour taste left on right raw war powerless endless thoughtless, no mercy left, or right. © Jay Mora-Shihadeh
RAW WAR was first published in DOOR=Jar in Spring 2022.
https://www.doorisajarmagazine.net/about-us
Available in Paperback, Amazon
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BIRTHRIGHT #poetry by jay
Collective memory lives like a cesspool collecting waste history birthed into us a collectors grave- for our ancestors fought and even today, not asking for the sky to darken their days, the challenge remains across seas/ across plains birthed in a land of contradiction and dis-ease we claim our— birthright to land birthright to peace birthright to die in love- we do as we please our birthright to birth unfettered by greed. © Jay Mora-Shihadeh
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OH’ PALESTINE #poetry by jay
Oh’ Palestine a dreamer dreaming of freedom freedom to care about the birds the doves delivering baby breaths and milk to the one you love Oh’ Palestine, you elude the one who dreams a dream laced in honey and memory of roots once dug deep within the recesses of your rebellious son— a love of sweet honey died a death upon the blackening eclipse of the yellowed sun Oh’ Palestine a dreamer, I dream of freedom for you for your children to smell the sweet scent of jasmine and taste the cedar the thyme of history in tea cups and breathe the air of freedom in daylight all night long Oh’ Palestine a dreamer, the leaves swirl dreams in sugar spun tea at the bottom of your last sip and the fractured seam of your fortunes lost at sea— oh’ sweet freedom, a dream a dream, a dream!
© Jay Mora-Shihadeh- Poetry and Art
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FEIGNED #poetry by jay
You you, what’s your name
he mimics time and time again—
in his broken english
he feigns to not remember
who I am/ a loving playfulness
only a grandpa can play this game
I sheepishly grin at the expected greeting
left to repeating the childish laughing
and answer him
knowing it’s the only language we share
in that awkward greeting we bear/ down
Oceans deep and years between
the clan intact but the clinging to bloodlines stretched
thin bare needles and pins/ what gravity we stand on
keeps us there/ hopeful in history
the fig/ the vine and earth/ tilted toward our ancestry
they left behind—
the promise of hope soiled by decline in fractured family lines
the feigning of play and fullness of love waned and waxed then withered
to dust. Moon/ sun/ earth/ bore no existence to the fig/ to the grapes
and the garden abandoned all hope/ mortal destructions placed under
time constraints. Pots and tables full empty of their plates/ a dream/ a laugh
the play/ full belly debates/ feigned a reason to disintegrate.
© Jay Mora-Shihadeh -
A CENTURY PLUS 9 #poetry by jay
A CENTURY PLUS 9 Today is your Birthday you would be 109! A century plus 9 years not shabby for an old man— to recognize the history/ the ages/ the lines on faces like tiny cracks and fissures along the banks of years that have slants that wriggled sideways/ lines that mimic each other creating rhythms and music to celebrate today—you me tateh the sea bubbling up to greet family lost at your absence— but the cost of remembering slays the weight of it all. Wow! It’s been 5, 10, 15 plus one, since you're gone. © Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash
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The MOTHER of all TORTURE #poetry by jay
The MOTHER of all TORTURE Even the little moments/ full from yearning/ taste of regret lingering hold patterns of whiny self-importance. The sun cresting the hill on winter's day understands this more than humans care to. Mourning its final minutes/ its bulbous head hanging low/ purging/ raging like the sea/ its mouth dampened a bruise of purple-orange— a sucker punch from the night’s lurking shadow—the sun knows this is not defeat/ only reprieve. I too mourn/ with less beauty and grace/ my days are check-marked bright red/ night’s exhaustion tackles/ quickens the pace of my needs/ desires. The spilling of sand in hourglass grates my inner-ear/ speck by tiny speck/ echoes/ drum-like boulders/ crashing down cliffs. The mother of all torture/ is time wasting away/ on the bones of my existence. © Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo by Michael Niessl on Unsplash
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SURRENDER is SWEET #poetry by jay
I wave the white flag and breathe a sigh of relief when I realize detachment is gained— have I waited too long to feel the breeze of this flag, waving alone / white in the wind? Have the roads jagged turned in and lost their path, a wayward man’s sin? I recognize the absurdity to which this leads surrender is sweet I do believe Silence is master and in love I grasp her, willfully I surrender in glee Where escape once reigned over me I now saddle the horse and ride free, towards the silence I longed for and always hoped to see.
© Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo by mohammad majid on Unsplash
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LOVE SHATTERS EVIL #poetry by jay
The devil writes evil into my memory and locks me into a box for eternity. And, it’s memory that haunts me daily. I forge onward, fire burning steadily, hot-blue and ready to forget all about you. Legend of Satan begot the fragile mindset that God bestowed upon me, to fork his heart on tines thrown into battle. Love rings smoke circles around you, as I lift my hands to you.
Love shatters evil, and you white purity, save the memory born in babes and raised in fire. Water Lilies grow on seeded fertile soil, a breath, a breeze, on wind and seas, takes the evil to its knees. Lush-full-ripples of love and soft spoken words to ease and kindle gently, a rest, a reprieve, on these rivers that recede.© Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash
