TEACHING GAZA A LESSON IN THREE EASY STEPS

First, the barrages
of bombs and missiles
to soften the enemy's resistance.
Tell me, how soft
is a child's body?
How resistant to searing metal
are boys and girls
laughing their way home
from school?
Show me
the enemy
baking bread
the moment before 
the missile's whine
knocks on the door.
How many tears does it take
to extinguish the flesh
that melts beneath
the phosphorus flare?

Second, the salvos
of lies and excuses.
This too-long battered body
brought it on herself.
All they understand
is the language of the fist.
They shot from the hospital;
we bombed the hospital.
How dare they defend
with their sheet metal rockets
this crowded cage 
of hunger and rubble.
Can't you see?
It's the victims here
who fly fly the F-16s,
who pilot the Apaches,
who rumble the Merkava tanks
through the Gaza ghetto,
who manage, somehow,
to kill one hundred of them
to the hapless victim's one.

Third, the silences.
Bombed to silence
anyone who gets in the way.
Voted to silence
the few brave feeble voices.
Screaming the sanctimonius
silence of indifference.
Silence the truthsayers.
Silence the testifiers.
Silence the sufferers.
Silence the self-defenders.
Silence the dead.
Silence the dead.
Silent... the dead.




© 2009 by Richard W. Todd

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