Poems about Gaza

Reflecting on Gaza Anne Benjamin

I on a night sharp with winter ice burning skin — Israel swears revenge Hamas swears days of wrath

II before the bombing choked of necessities grim survival — women scrounge for money to buy vermin-riddled flour

III in houses close to the target windows shatter — a sixteen year old girl dies from cold and fright

IV phosphorus above empty streets arches — politicians promise vengeance will bring peace

V after the bombing they dispatch supplies medicine and food — a doctor waits beside children's corpses

VI morning comes red with haze and fire — swirling in the dust from Gaza and Israel children play together

Lament over Gaza Deborah Ruiz Wall

It crushes my heart to watch injured and lifeless children in Gaza — collateral damage or sheer madness? 'Land is life', my Indigenous mentors proclaimed, but I see its antithesis now when tortured eyes conjure bipolar images of stories retold over and over by diasporic tribes where past, present and future coalesce in a war of retribution so that in Palestine: land equals death.

Talk is not cheap, the war machine that silences the whispering from beyond our earthly dreams, will keep us all in chains — away from reaching the fullness of our humanity, away from our oneness with the sanctity of all life.