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Tag: #FreePalestine

News of the Week

A dictator falls
while IDF drones

continue to target
young children.

Closer to home,
the cold arrives late,

and a young mother I knew
ten years ago,

dies of TB
and caste.
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Genocide Ghazal

-Delhi, November 29, 2024

UN conventions aim to restrain all genocide–
but committees and courts have failed to tame this genocide.

Who targets hospitals, children and schools in Palestine?
The IDF’s AI is specially trained for genocide.

Long-ago kings displayed rebel heads in town squares;
now soldiers post reels; they entertain with genocide.

Endless photos of violence and death, says Joe Sacco,
…no human can process the horror and pain of genocide.

And how do our leaders show their support for Israel?
Permission Denied for protests that name this genocide.

American liberals dread Donald Trump; they forget
Biden provided the bombs that sustain this genocide.

Dust and smoke paint our evening sky gray in New Delhi;
at sunset in Gaza, the sky bears the stain of genocide.

I heard you wake shaking again before dawn, my love–
was it your past–or the faraway flames of genocide?

Look in the mirror, what do you see, Hamraaz?
I’ve failed, we’ve failed, we live with the shame of genocide.
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Dreaming of Rubble and Rivers and Seas`

-Kotla Mubarakpur, November, 2023

I won’t comment on the moon,  
or the way the chemist shops
were bathed in neon light–

forget the smoke and dust,
forget the swerving bikes–
you took my hand that night.

Today I woke at dawn,
choking back a sob,
you looked at me, worried.

I told you, I was fine
but did not tell you this:
I’d dreamt I’d been buried–

and yes, it’s true, I’m fine–
I can stand and breathe,
but also, I can see–

buried friends will haunt
all our dreams until 
Palestine is free.
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