Madonna of the Rubble
Forgetting is a vain refugee camp,
Madonna, for still these walls get
breached, amidst the daily, frenzied
barter of honed art for bread,
While slaking arid, thirsty hours with
bits of loving, or even in deep sleep's
opiate-laced salve; your shrill wail
ricochets on palisades of silence,
Wrecking dreams, when your arms
thrust out, ghost-like haunt heart's
corridors to pained remembrance
of your hearth bulldozed to jagged
Rubble, grating deep your ample
loins that Gaza noon of nightmare,
hooking deeper yet the piercing
scythes of questions as regards
Your fate and of your son's. Again,
the mind turns, tosses on this bed
of dusty shards and tear-anointed
debris as you once more scream
Your picture-perfect, front-page,
silent pain, yet made more potent
than all sounds heard down old
Palestine when wailing, wreathed
The wretched walls bedaubed with blood
of innocents, when wanton death and
mayhem, too, by Herod's mighty hand
decreed, made firm, held sway.
Copyright © Miguel Mendoza | Year Posted 2008
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