Israel is at war in Gaza - again. I fought there in the past. Here are two poems I wrote there.
By Michael Oren
Soldier Passing Woman with Veil
Her eyes say
as they say
many words:
fear, for one
pupils darting from duct to duct,
searching for escape,
and wonder
at a world where power blushes.
Black eyes
coarse as the cloth that frames them,
oil slicks on goat's milk
viscously spread.
You may be my king,
my lord,
but not for a moment
my master;
your eyes
green as plastic pastures
melt in the vehemence of mine.
Glistening wince,
crinkled brow,
coy in the manner of killers—
might this be innocence,
could it be lust?
Not at her flock,
or the slough of the camp,
but at me she stares
as the command car passes;
not peace nor desire,
but with hatred
coquettish and quick.
Your dead, sweet soldier,
her eyes said,
you're dead.
Rondo for Deir al-Balah
Shorn of sweat
my body beads with poetry,
foodless,
it feeds on words—
gunbutt
ratgut
flackjacket, gas,
the sun the so-called rock
with my name on it.
There's rubber in the air
and skin upon the sand
smacked with human juice
from Deir al-Balah.
Reports like plangent seas
and the radio on my back
cackles of mortality;
the straps cut deep
in the refugee camp,
bind the heart
and lash the lungs
to the spikes of Deir al-Balah;
my name on rocks
and emblazoned on tin
which clings to the breast
now shorn of sweat—
liquid letters,
blood type B
it's all the same
to the sand of Deir al-Balah,
it sucks the words,
the poetry and pus,
and the stares that seep from alleyways
like open sewers,
yet for a breath
becomes your skin
cool and resplendent
unblemished but for the prints
which stitch the dunes down to the sea
foaming with mortality
and bears me to other sands,
other names,
written in rocks.
A shriek, a shot,
the air ablaze with gas,
the radio a rat
with claws for straps
which cut the camp
and shred the skin
shorn of sweat and poetry.
Flee through the alleyway
from the stares that run
like open wounds
and the sun inscribed
with my name on it.
Goat dung,
bloated tongues;
your sand, your sea
seethes with mortality
in dear old
Deir al-Balah.
