Sometimes I have something in mind to write. At other times nothing in particular has come to me. Life is a moving current, languid, – then that sound ahead becomes a roaring white water. Just attend to the friction of movement, (there’s always friction) some topic will rise to the surface of consciousness about which to write. So far, that’s been the case.

I put aside Hisham Bustani’s book of poems, The Monotonous Chaos of Existence for a few days. No matter the pleasure of his sensuous language. The subject matter became “too much” psychologically to entertain, especially given the program to clear-cut our institutions of government, and the insistent fabulation by mouth-pieces of the Trump administration in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.

I recognize that the residents of Palestine, or the citizens of Ukraine cannot simply “lay aside” the condition in which they must live. Where could they go? For many the logistics of departing are simply insurmountable.

Better to die on one’s feet. Is not death inevitable in any case? Perhaps these are nothing other than an ignorant musings of an old white guy, safe within this Starbucks, fortunate beyond belief? My psyche is unshattered like a fractured knife blade, by war.

ETCHED IN RED

Israel is pounding Gaza.
Dozens of corpses lie strewn on the ground.
One of them mumbles something. When you approach,
you hear: ash-hadu anna a ilaha illa-lash…

Nearing final immolation, the corpse chants the death song:
blood/rain, blood/rain, blood/rain

***

His strides long, Death stalks the land.
He counts off, “One…twenty…three hundred…four thousand…five million…
six billion…” requisitioning each and every one of Earth’s inhabitants.
“You are all mine.”

Death smiles as his devoted children play
with some of his favorite toys: Apache helicopters; F-16s;
and boom goes another rocket.
On the screen, the plume of smoke billows up in the distance,
And indigo bodies lie scattered around the asphalt
Underneath—a hand here, a leg there, and over here, a jaw;
La-ilah-illa-laah…
I bear witness that there is no god but God.

The Monotonous Chaos Of Existence by Hisham Bustani, trans by Maia Tabet, an excerpt of the poem, Etched In Red.