Scoop Poem: Palestinian Watchtower
Palestinian Watchtower
Dedicated to the Memory of Edward Said
By Genevieve Cora Fraser
We, the observers
Grow numb as we watch
Flaming hatreds erupt
As cold eyes take
pleasure
In the Annihilator's claim
To a victor's
trophy
In settlement lands
Like sentries on horror duty
We survey the scorched earth
Homes desecrated by
tank shells
Sanctuaries bulldozed and ravaged
Relics
of prophets
Reviled and discarded
Left in heaps on
the ground
A moat built for Nablus
Not for security
but torment
A raw sewage passage
For Palestinians to
wade
Slipping through filth
While IDF laugh
obscenities
And shoot
Bullets fly free
In this
fascist existence
Flesh is for searing
Torture and
pain
Branded with shame
You've got no one to
blame
But your selves
They taunt
Hallucinatory
madness
This killing for gladness
Inflicting on
others
As others did to you
Might's superiority is
right
Is scheming and clever
Is greedy and
needy
Papered over with lies
Deir Yassin's dark
passage
Unbridled and savage
Presaged the entry
To
Purgatory's gate
Dachau in slow motion
Is Jenin is
Rafah is Gaza is
Auschwitz
A stepping stone
A
training ground
To asphyxiate the living
Breathing
Palestinian
brood
Check-pointed
They're shackled
Thwarted and
hungry
Thirsty in the Wasteland
Israel's created for
them
Palestine's pulse is taken daily
As steel and
cement bastions
Barricade and harbor jackals
Hunkered
down and attentive
For resistance is
justification
Just waiting to
act