KATYUSHA – A “love” poem for Gaza

“Katy”, I said, (if that is your name) / “why do we make war and not love /any more?”/“Go ask the Generals. / Go ask the Politicians in their /well-dressed suit-and-lies./Go ask the Money and its Masters,/their insane industry of profit and pain.”

 

“You who fly on shrapnel and wings of birds”

(Mahmoud Darwish, Psalm Two)

 

1

Here is a girl keeps me awake

at night.

 

She slips silent to my bedroom

in the dark

when everyone

sleeps

 

when all our friends

have fled

 

she slides softly between the sheets

with a hand on my beating heart

“make war – not love”, she

whispers seductively

 

“our world has grown

much too much bitter

for anything else”.

 

2

i reach across her

taut tense body

as if to calm her passion,

not quite lust nor love

but with a heart that beats

for all we lost

all these years of war

 

3

 and the war waged on for years.

 

4

i stroke her soft wet dreams with

my own futile dreams of peace

 

not to excite

her anger nor her fear

but to calm the grief and heartbreak

 

of the women dead

and the children dead

the old people and the young,

those buried alive and

those forever burning

in their beds

 

as if it might be possible now

to calm such an outrage

here in our own wretched time

of prayer and plenty

 

our hands raised high: Hosanna!

 

5

 Nights like these are few

and far between.

 

No longer.

 

6

We sleep alone now.

 

We reach into our dreams

but our dreams have died

or fled or grown old

before their time.

 

Our dreams are nightmares

unfolding on the screen

 

one long endless

crucifixion.

 

7

Katyusha,

If i could only hold your hand

for a while

with nothing more to add.

 

8

“Katy”, I said, (if that is your name)

“why do we make war and not love

any more?”

 

“Go ask the Generals.

Go ask the Politicians in their

well-dressed suit-and-lies.

Go ask the Money and its Masters,

their insane industry of profit and pain.”

 

9

For now there are only

these children i see on my screen

and their blood-stained

blood-wretched, broken-hearted

mothers

 

who now must all take

this vow of celibacy

 

here

 

in the child-less

limb-less

embrace-less

burning space

of all

these

loveless

explosions.

 

séamas carraher

22 september – 22 october 2024

*****

NOTE

Katyusha is a diminutive of the Russian name Ekaterina or Yekaterina, the Russian form of Katherine or Catherine. It is also the name given by Soviet soldiers to the multiple rocket launcher developed by the Soviet Union during  WW2 and currently used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

 

Reference

“I know that you will not be able to watch the videos… to watch…the pictures… to hear them screaming while they are burning and no one can do anything for them… but the Israeli Army did this”

Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda describes the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital massacre

Middle East Eye – October 14, 2024

 

Israeli attack on Gaza hospital tent camp kills displaced Palestinians | Al Jazeera Newsfeed

Al Jazeera – October 14, 2024

 

“They burned people alive…these people are waking up, watching their bodies burning, turning into black and having their last breaths in front of the camera.”

Bisan Owda on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital massacre

Middle East Eye – October 14, 2024

 

Bisan Owda: Update From North Gaza (20 October)

“Nothing will do… nothing [because] Israel is not afraid of you telling them that – Israelies – you are terrorists… you are killers… you are stealing the lands and the homes [because] they are doing all of this… in front of the cameras…”

Update from Gaza – October 20, 2024

 

NOTES

“but to calm the grief and heartbreak / of the women dead / and the children dead”

“As of 15 October 2024, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza as reported by OCHA, at least 42,344 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in Gaza and 99,013 have been reported injured (between 7 October 2023 and 15 October 2024).” While “between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, 695 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, this includes 160 children according to UNICEF.”

UNRWA – Situation Report 144

 

“In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

The Lancet – July 10, 2024

 

“Hosanna”

“In Judaism it refers to a cry expressing an appeal for divine help. In Christianity it is used as a cry of praise.” (Wikipedia)

 

“You who fly on shrapnel and wings of birds”

Mahmoud Darwish

 

Psalm Two

 

Nowadays

I find myself dry

Like a tree in a book

And the wind, a passing matter.

To fight or not to fight?

That is not the question;

What’s important is for my throat to be strong.

To work or not to work?

That is not the question;

What’s important is for me to rest eight days a week

According to Palestinian Standard Time.

Show me the source of death:

Is it the dagger … or the lie?

To remember I have a lost roof

I must sit out in the nude

To remember my country’s pure air

I must inhale tubercular air

To remember the gazelle swimming in whiteness

I must be a prisoner of memories

To remember that my mountains are high

I must comb the storm from my brow

And to safeguard ownership of my distant sky

I must own not even my own skin.

 

Homeland reiterated in massacres and songs,

Why do I smuggle you from airport to airport

Like opium

Like invisible ink

Or a transmitter?

 

I want to draw your form,

You who are scattered in files and surprises

I want to draw your form,

You who fly on shrapnel and wings of birds

I want to draw your form

But the sky steals my hand

I want to draw your form,

You who are beleaguered between wind and dagger

I want to draw your form

To find my shape in you

Instead I’m accused of being abstract,

Of forging documents and photographs

You, who are beleaguered between dagger and wind.

 

Homeland recreated in songs and massacres,

How you change to a dream and steal suddenness

And leave me petrified.

Maybe you’re more beautiful as a dream

Maybe you’re more beautiful!

 

No name remains in Arab history

For me to borrow,

To climb with to your secret windows.

All the cover names are confiscated

In the air-conditioned recruitment offices

Will you accept my name-

My only cover name-

Mahmud Darwish?

As for my original name

It’s been stripped off my flesh

By the whips of the Police and the pine cones of Carmel

 

Homeland repeated in massacres and songs.

Show me the provenience of death

Is it the dagger

Or the lie?!

 

[Psalms – Mahmoud Darwish – First English Language

Edition © 1994 Copyright by Ben Bennani – Translator]

---

---