some poems of the Oct 7, 2023 War
Thoughts on the war
In wartime
I like to wear
fancy underwear
something silky beneath
sweatpants and torn t shirt
to remind me
that I was once
someone who was loved
I gave away
all my proper nightgowns
to the refugee center –
piles of bras that will
support refugees
and remind them
that they once
had a home.
weeks after the massacre
1.
No one tells it yet
Not the whole story
How long would it take you
to speak of your child
wounded in the chest
but still breathing
when her arm
is sliced off?
Ah, how could you tell
since this was
the last sight you saw
before you were slaughtered.
No one tells it yet
how it was
with the pretty dancer
that a piece of her skull
was discovered
weeks later
after she was paraded
face down, naked
in a truck
through the streets
of Gaza
3.
When you find
a pair of spines
and only DNA reveals
a father and son
in a final embrace
incinerated
alive,
your mouth
cannot form
words
Somewhere in Gaza
there is a woman
who looks just like me
and has raised her son
to believe in his country.
What if she is the one
who read a poem
about that son
at a festival up north –
and smiled at me?
What if she is the one
her son just called
on his victim’s phone
to rejoice in his kill
of ten enemies?
Under Tel Aviv Skies
A sudden siren.
I run, shelter
in a stranger’s hallway
and immediately
we are comrades
without arms
crouching
on a broken staircase
holding hands
with nothing in common
but the shared thumping
of our hearts.
No sex in wartime,
I always say,
Even a bit of foreplay
brings on the rockets
that give it to us all at once..
Afterward,
everyone who can
makes babies
and give them names
in memorial.
A country united in purpose
but with divided minds.
We know we must destroy those
who are trying to destroy us,
but we do not want to become
the destroyers
And we need to learn
to hate the way
we are hated
https://www.firstofthemonth.org/author/karen-gut/
Under Tel Aviv Skies
A sudden siren.
I run, shelter
in a stranger’s hallway
and immediately
we are comrades
without arms
nothing in common
but the shared thumping
of our hearts
Somewhere in Gaza
Somewhere in Gaza
there is a woman
who looks just like me
and has raised her son
to believe in his country.
What if she is the one
who read a poem
about that son
at a festival up north –
and smiled at me?
What if she is the one
her son just called
on his victim’s phone
to rejoice in his kill
of ten enemies?
Day 20
We empty our cupboards for the soldiers called up.
Today we brought a kettle, shampoo, soaps, underwear,
coffee, and some other gear a whatsapp note says they need.
I kissed each item and asked it to bring comfort,
to ease the terrifying job they will have to perform,
before we packed all of it into a blue Ikea bag,
But I couldn’t stop thinking of people on the other side,
of what they must need and what I’d be happy to give.
“Remember,” Maya calls to ask, “that library we helped build
in Gaza five years ago? It must be cinders now.”
I’ve been winnowing books for weeks, throwing them all
Into a blue Ikea bag to bring to the students nearby.
Books! As if anyone can think of reading now – babies
here, there, sliced in pieces, bleeding, burnt alive.
Much of their remains could fit into an Ikea bag now
like the one we’re carrying to the high school auditorium
the school that is closed now, but I hope will soon begin
to study war no more. I picture the children
the soldiers shooting them to prevent their leaving,
sending them into harm’s way to protect the ‘militants’.
Just now I heard a terrified man interviewed in Arabic, telling
what he sees. “Are they shooting at you as well?”
“Aywa! Yes! Yes!” Silence. Is he safe?
Each verse of my poem is divided by rockets, shrill alarms
that rise and fall, giving us just enough time to stumble
down the two flights of stairs to take cover. I throw down
the book I can’t concentrate on anyway and run, taking
nothing except my love, my life. Who knows what
we will need when this is over, what we should have brought…
https://www.tikkun.org/yet-another-war/
Weeks After the Massacre
No one tells it yet
Not the whole story
How long would it take you
to speak of your child
wounded in the chest
but still breathing
when her arm
is sliced off?
Ah, how could you tell
since this was
the last sight you saw
before you were slaughtered.
No one tells it yet
how it was
with the pretty dancer
that a piece of her skull
was discovered
weeks later
after she was paraded
face down, naked
in a truck
through the streets
of Gaza
3.
When you find
a pair of spines
and only DNA reveals
a father and son
in a final embrace
incinerated
alive,
your mouth
cannot form
words
Some poems by Ronny Sommek
translated by Karen Alkalay-Gut
I Am the Severed Head You Do Not Know
My hair is more blond than the sand it rolls over
On my lips crowd words
sharp as the knife
that met my throat.
You who are mesmerized by my eyes,
put a chip on the wheel of fortune
that spins under the eyebrows.
Don’t ask my name and imagine my hands
hugging the body that was so beautiful
beneath my neck
and now cast upon the disgrace of the earth
as if it was no more than a banana peel.
The sun shone, the poet wrote,
and I am barely a model of darkness.
No more.
In the Clothing Donation Depot for Survivors. Expo, Tel Aviv
I sort bras and learn the difference
between the lacy padded one
and one that is soft-lined underwired cotton.
War is a time of shame
and I’m not Charles Bukowski, who surely would have
tried to identify from whom it was removed and on whom
it will be put on.
I just stuff a pile into a used carton
of chocolate bars
and then pass on to the next pile.