SONNET FOR PALESTINE

1 Six million of us died back then you know,

On lists from lists to lists we were passed,

Efficiently dispatched with every blow,

Hoping the end would finally be cast.

In disbelief and sickness, the final day,

Heralded saviour in shame and tatters,

Completing Act One of this somber play,

Where only life, however wretched, matters.

Arabs saw and heard the despicable tales,

And opened their hearts and lands to them all,

Not believing that in their rending wails,

Existed a plot to retake the wall.

The peasant was moved the merchant alike,

And Israel grew from the ash of the Reich

2

The rabble of Arabs could never match,

A determination personified,

And quickly and surely the 'chosen' batch,

Deflowered the Palestinian bride.

The world still bled freely from years of war,

And people were scattered hither and yon,

And could not and would not have any more,

Ignoring the growing immigrant con.

Angered and outraged by what had occurred,

The Arabs alone sought justice in fact,

Honestly wanting their pleas to be heard,

In desperation they turned and attacked.

Fingers now point across the division,

All for a chance of Barak's affection.

3

But Barak's surrounded by rules set in stone,

Contradicting the words of The Founders,

His journey, for the most, endured alone,

And the peace process dithers and flounders.

So numb, are we now, to dismembered souls,

Splattered in transmitted saccharin spin,

That the limp and lifeless, dear little foal,

Is upstaged by salves and cream for your skin.

In our own lives we've seen time and again,

The commerce that never stops or relents,

That needs to be fed on hate and disdain,

Supped over cocktails for fifteen per cent.

While we are waiting for despots to die,

Remember the Empire still doesn't know why.

4

So, under the sand and under the fear,

Flutters a heart that compresses the oil,

Out of our sight to the Western frontier,

There, placed in a still and brought to the boil.

The essence so craved by addicts beyond,

To power the engine of politics,

Used to contain or entrap or respond

To the misguided ranting fanatics.

Poverty manages their choices today,

Where promise of life for those that they love,

Outweighs the loss of their own life per se,

And puts cash in hand as manna from above.

Our failings are raw and for all to see,

The Palestinians need simply to be.

Nader Shaheen, Bahrain.