Through the front Mr. Jonah was swallowed.
In the sea monster’s belly he wallowed.
In the muck and the gas
unhygienic, alas,
was the back door expulsion that followed.
Fields that once were ripe with crops
Now play host to blackface and cheviot
Where the children ran and played
Among the bluebell and the thistle
Now screams the wind in bansidhe wail
Looking for those who once dwelt there.
This land was once our land
Where we lived and loved
Rings now with silence
In this our last dance.
In wooden vessels on the clyde
Like the silver darlings
They were packed side by side
Across the mighty sea
To lands of distant shore.
Homes in ruin lie ivy on the roof
Grass cropped short by a million mouths
Flies the eagle his gaze on land below
Looking for the people who danced to natures tune
Still grow the bluebells among
Pine and birks and stream.
Apm 4/1/14 1.25 am.
A black cloud
rains selectively
on the dispossessed,
a wretched lot.
My billowing abaya
now clings to me,
revealing my form.
Their glances lacerate.
The road stretches
to the horizon,
but has swallowed
my expectations.
Palestine, 1948
First published in Blue Minaret
the end of the bridge
my heart aches tears roll down cheeks
goodbye my country
A wish a woo it moves and glows your face
To red with cold it burns this wind and frost
As darkness drops upon the land
And with it bringing shadowed fright
You can close your eyes and think no more
It will tap you on your ears and nose
Don’t turn round and see its eyes
Like before your birth stay still and quiet
Swirl and slap the rotten bark snaps off
Naked twigs crack and drop like icicle missiles
The slush of trudge as feet dig deep
In search through desolate barren lands
Life outside the garden
Through the hand of man
Before my appointed time
I weep Psalm One thirty-nine
My rebuttal at the Gate
Yes, I am a life
Yes, I have a soul
Now I wiggle is Heaven's crib
God created my inmost being
When I was conceived in secret
I was skillfully wrought
In the lowest parts of the earth
All my days were written
For my substance was not hidden
God saw my unformed body
And covered me in my mother's womb
Fearfully and wonderfully
And my soul knows full well
Forcing from the garden is hell
My blood's cry reaches Heaven
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