The Killing Silence
3.9.06
Dedicated to the Palestinian people.
Only a painter can lay bold on canvas
this fundamental suffering
in black and white
a blush of weeping blue
mother with child
home carved in half
parents lying dead
beneath debris and cement
country bombed back
to the last onslaught
(however many years before)
just yesterday re-built
now bombed again -
this Guernica
only a painter can deliver the invisible
Munch's unending silent scream
or catch in slashes of black
ancient olive groves
bulldozed back to final insult
the random scatter of cluster bombs
regurgitating mayhem
long after they cease to fall
relentless - this Guernica
how do mere words express
values inherent in the sober old books
of International Law
who can remain silent confronted with this
how do mere words tell of atrocities
of war crimes mounting
only to gather decades of dust
under lobby-group pressure
little more than criminal bullying -
this Guernica
and so it goes on and on Sabra and Shatilla
spotlit like vermin for quick easy kill
West Bank, Gaza, the concrete wedge
higher and tighter trapping all but sky
an airy prison fermenting death
human rights ignored
Geneva Conventions broken
collective punishment flaunted
slow motion genocide -
this Guernica
witness Lebanon bombed: bridges, airports,
roads, power, sewage, water
witness bombed: one red-cross ambulance - bull's eye
witness bombed: white-flag peace cars
witness bombed: schools, creches, hospitals
fleeing civilians carefully targeted
then the rub - salt in the wound
access denied, to the injured
the dying, and the dead
access denied to food and water
bombing 's not quite finished
we must all wait
for destruction to be complete -
this Guernica
only a painter can speak of slaughter
shock us into wakefulness
help us find courage enough
demand 'justice now' for a people
who live and die generation upon generation
denied justice - 60 years denied justice
only the tiniest of minds still wonder
why the resistance ?
why Hamas ?
why Hezbollah ?
but words are useless
spinning around this deaf blind world
struck dumb with lack, allowing -
this Guernica
if I were a painter I'd scratch in black
a charcoal charnel-house of ash
but how do you paint a world turned it's back
how do you paint a void
United Nations frozen by veto
how many complicit in this shameful injustice
so we all wait, gutless 'til the world's leader
of 'freedom & democracy' decides
'enough, might just be enough' -
this Guernica
as in New Orleans
too little, too slow, too late
words, impotent, unwanted
grind in circles, return to empty echo
as brothers on borders sit mute
no support for the besieged
(out of fear or expediency)
they just watch -
this Guernica
can paint on canvas
banish this perpetual war
this torpor of world inaction
while those who feel weep from afar
as a TV siege of terror unfolds
offending human sensibility -
this Guernica
then, heart warmed
as weary humanitarians return
clean up yet another human travesty
but even these peace workers
fall under bombs
as cease-fire's declared in 48 hours
bombing intensifies burgeons to blood-lust
lost in the brutal fury infant, child, adolescent,
the aged - no difference
completely 'off the leash' frenzied beasts
they rampage devastating fellow humans -
this Guernica
then reflections come
wondering why some can't feel
can't imagine the blind loathing
causing these bombs to fall
or to be - even built
sanctimoniously shipped out
gifted from the 'land of the free'
high tech bombs of every description
fast tracked, loaded, triggered
to deliver a cold oblivion -
this Guernica
yes, if paint can imagine...perhaps...
but how do you paint a people
(once persecuted beyond human imagination)
who've now become jailer, torturer
plunderer of their own gene pool
almost their next of kin
how can they sink –
to this Guernica
"Our lives begin to end,
the day we become silent
about things that matter"
Dr Martin Luther King
Recognition
( Zionism's 'Greater
never spoken of in Western media)
So Israel says
Palestinians must recognise
before ‘peace’ can be ‘considered’
some reading of the Talmud
(Jewish Book of Law)
would not go astray
and note carefully
how 'we'
all ‘others’
are called goyim
(except Jews)
are 'lowly cattle'
that is
most of the rest of the world
are all 'lowly cattle' -
such is the 'under-the-carpet'
never spoken of
perception of 'us'
'we' are 'apparently'
way beneath zionists
beneath those crazy-born-again-Jewish
extreme-right settlers
beneath the ultra-right
religious fundamentalists
who all believe
their holy book to the letter -
as many 'in power' do -
blinkered
indoctrinated
unseeing beyond their credos
almost too gentle a word for these cretins
sorry almost the feeling
for these misguided 'believers'
who can't see past
their own narrow bloodlines
their ancient scripts
setting out apartheid rules
supposedly
from the voice of some 'god'
Zionists insist on 'all the land back'
they call ‘Greater Israel’
have you ever looked at the map ?
Greater
all of
large parts of Syria, Jordan &
some rabid purists
even believe they are entitled to
Iraq, Saudi Arabia & Turkey
for many
'Greater Israel' reaches
quite simply
from the
meaning (literally)
not a scrap of land
to be returned
to the long suffering Palestinians
it's time recognition was insisted upon
from BOTH parties simultaneously
as absolute equals
'Greater Israel'
must have no part
in any agreement
it is long past time
equality of humanity
'lowly cattle' or goyim
must be banished
as mediaeval flat-earth thinking
belonging to the dark ages
Israel must recognise
right of return
her borders
her people
her dignity
Essential reading:
Loewenstein's 'My
http://www.safecom.org.au/israel-question-report.htm
Bring the Settlers Home
http://www.liberationgraphics.com/ppp/Bring_settlers.htm
