For the [now countless] Dead of Gaza

And the news tells me, now, / another 436 slaughtered / by the Zionist killing machine, / by the American shells and / the German bullets / and the laughter of a Von-der-Leyen / in their many bloodstained-bunkers

i thought my tears had all run dry.

i thought my weapons were now without fire.

i thought after so many dead and maimed

the killing might stop.

 

i went and dug a hole in the solitude

of an ailing spirit.

 

i went there and buried my head

in shame and grief and

the violence of my own colonised

heritage.

 

i went there to flee this age-old

murderous rage.

 

But the ghosts are never silent in this lost place.

 

They whisper endless lectures

on the rights of dying children and the rights

of women and the rights of old men

and the right of the sick to die peacefully

in their own hospital beds.

 

They whisper and shout, they sing and laugh

(despite their terrible ordeal)

they weep endlessly and then the day breaks

and the birds of Springtime here

bring me my sad-Equinox in a chorus of sunlight

and insanity.

 

And the news tells me, now,

another 436 slaughtered

by the Zionist killing machine,

by the American shells and

the German bullets

and the laughter of a Von-der-Leyen

in their many bloodstained-bunkers.

 

And all i could hear then was

this last line from

the last poem by the last poet

in the last refuge for us all

in the dark of an endless-dark-night

 

buenos noches, she said…

good night.

 

Good. Fucking. Night, Everybody.

 

séamas carraher

19-20, March 2025

 

Notes & References

 

Image

“We all wait to learn – where we will fall – Hiba Abu Nada”

From the Video by Arabic Literature Everywhere, May 2024 (“Fair-Use”)

 

References

Dr Aleida Guevara speaking at PSC AGM 2025

Palestine Solidarity Campaign, February 4, 2025

 

Hiba Abu Nada

“Hiba[a] Kamal Abu Nada (Arabic: هبة كمال أبو ندى, 24 June 1991 – 20 October 2023) Palestinian poet, novelist, nutritionist, women’s rights activist and Wikimedian…was killed in her home” (in the Manara neighborhood of Khan Yunis) “… in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike…”

Wikipedia – Hiba Abu Nada – Palestinian

 

This last poem, posted October 8, 2023 and read by Aleida Guevara:

 

“Gaza’s night is dark

apart from the glow of rockets,

silent apart from the sound of the bombs,

terrifying apart from the comfort of prayer,

black apart from the light of the martyrs.

 

Good night, Gaza.”

 

Poem-Communiqué

The Hub, October 2023

 

Video of  Hiba Abu Nada (Arabic) (day after her murder)

Twitter-X, October 21, 2023

 

Maxine Peake reads ‘I Grant You Refuge’ by Hiba Abu Nada

“She wrote this poem on Oct. 10th, 2023. She died a martyr, killed in her home in south Gaza by an Israeli raid on Oct. 20th, 2023.”

Listen-Watch – YouTube

 

Hiba Abu Nada (“We are alive until further notice – 7^th October, 2023 – 20 October 2023)

Video by Arabic Literature Everywhere, May 2024

 

Not Just Passing: In Honor of Heba Abu Nada (poem)

Mizna Online – December 2023

 

Notes

“another 436 slaughtered”

RTE News, 20 March, 2025

 

“In the past few days, another five UNRWA staff have been confirmed killed, bringing the death toll to 284. They were teachers, doctors and nurses: serving the most vulnerable.”

UNRWA Newsroom, 20 March, 2025

 

and the laughter of a Von-der-Leyen

“..and when the lies are shed, the politicians and their hypocrisy fall away and porcelain humanity collapses in on itself, Gaza will remain…” (Hiba Abu Nada)

Arabic Literature Everywhere, May, 2024

 

…..

 

Other Work…From “Talking Peace” (Global Rights)

seamascarraher.blogspot.com – Palestine

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