I : Rafah
I saw a maybe drone piece of footage
In the one remaining liberal Israeli rag
And it was of people near Rafah,
Border crossing between Egypt and Gaza,
There must have been a few hundred thousand
Maybe even more packed there like matches
In a seemingly boundless roofless box
Pressed arm to arm shoulder to shoulder
An agonised pool of helpless human life
And – now what was it I said to myself?
What was it that I could repeat to the world?
I think it was the silence
The impossible silence that at times like these
Is the only conceivable form of speech
II : Sociopath
He speaks up often and prompt.
He is PM.
He is doomed to respond
to things that happen yet
right now he is silent
in an eternal silence
a wishful silence
a careful silence
a necessary silence
a helpful silence
as these terrible acts
are carried out
in his name
III
Some words can never be pronounced
Genocide is one of them
Such words heave sound
But bear no meaning
Because meaning is small,
Specific and spare
So there
before you is a space
like Space itself
where law breaks down
and sense lies down
silently to die
without knowing why
IV
Beneath us the earth
It is silent
It no speak
In its silence
Is its eloquence
In its form
It moves in itself
Like its own machine
Creating itself
It moves through space
In its silence
It bears us
On it we are borne
Once to it we spoke
Once to it we prayed
And our silent machine
Lay there on its back
And it blessed us
Who now prays?
Who now speaks
But the dollar bill?
We look to the sky
Without knowing why
As if here is a hell
We speak to the silence
As if it agreed with us
Contract signed
Beneath us the earth
Inside its silence
It surely will act
Beneath us the earth
Curling up in a ball
Of deadly silence