Gaza is under fire, its people are resisting with their bare flesh, and on the lines of fire its creators write their poems and tell their stories. Many of them have left, and those who remain continue to capture the embers of writing.
The martyred poets, those who remain in memory, and those who did not witness the massacre “such as Moin Bseiso and Hussein Barghouthi” – but they witnessed a chapter of its heroism in their lives – are presented in a special file in which the Journal of Palestine Studies recently recalled their creativity alongside the martyrs “Heba Abu Nada,” Rifaat Al-Arair, Maryam Hijazi, and Salim Al-Nafar. And others in poems and short stories. He recorded his creativity among them under fire from record, and he rose as a martyr whoever rose.
The file and the poems of the departed reveal the pain and hopes of endless war and genocide, and in it the poets scatter their creativity and existential questions about death that snatches loved ones and lurks in the living, as if they open a hatch in the wall of silence and wave to days to come after the Gaza night that does not resemble the people’s night, and they write for Gaza that deserves praise.
About disappointment
In his poem “You Started Counting Your Ribs,” the late poet Moin Bseiso (1928-1984) examines the Palestinian tragedy, and tours the cities of Palestine and his city of Gaza, which he left to join the ranks of the Palestinian revolution. He monitors the Arab betrayal of Palestine and counts the bullets as they pour into it.
Bullets come to you
From all the four winds
Bullets come to you
From all the windows that opened,
On all four winds
All four sides
Now you know them and know that the thread of Muawiyah
It is a noose on the palm of Muawiyah
Now you know them and you know
That school kids
Alone in
Birzeit
Alone in a forgotten village
All Arabs
He continues about Gaza and says:
Now you know that palm thorns
Something other than the grass of the earth
You know that Gaza
Other than the ghosts of cities
Now you know that’s a small window
From the dust of the earth, open to your face
Alone you will overlook the homeland
Now you know the knife has its chance
And her picture
The sacrifice has its opportunity and form
Now you know that silence
The thorns
It is the style of the Arabs
Galaxy spirit
The martyr poet Heba Abu Nada (1991-2023) tells in her poem The Spirit of the Galaxy of Seasons of Bombardment and the proud spirit in confronting it. She talks about children as death walks towards them while they sleep, and about the streets as they swim in the morning after every bombing, and from the poem:
I seek refuge with you and the children here
Sleeping
The chicks also slept in the embrace of a nest
They do not walk to dreams at night
Because death
Towards home
He walks
And the tears of mothers will become doves tomorrow
To follow them with it
In every coffin
I seek refuge in you from getting hurt
Or you die
The glory of our siege
And the belly of a whale
Our streets are bathed in every bombardment
And pray to mosques
And houses
When the bombing starts from the north
You will start from the south
By qunoot.
If I must die
As for the martyr Rifaat Al-Arair (1979-2023), an academic, critic, and poet who studied poetry and English literature for many years at the Islamic University of Gaza, he urges those after him to live on in his poem that he wrote in English, and which was translated by the Iraqi novelist Sinan Antun, in which he says:
If I must die
You must live
To tell my story
To sell my stuff
And buy a piece of cloth
And threads
(Let it be white with a long tail)
To see somewhere in Gaza
He stares at the sky
Waiting for his father, who suddenly left without saying goodbye to anyone
Not even his flesh
Or itself
He sees the kite you made
Flying high
He thinks for a moment that there is an angel
Brings back love
If I must die
Let my dead bring hope
Let it become a story
Females of the country
Regarding the females of the country, the martyr Maryam Hegazy (1995-2023) talks about the pain of women and says in her poem:
“The country’s females braid their stories towards television
The journalist stands with his camera, stealing the redness of her cheeks
Her voice whistled, saying, “I have a piece of candy.”
Who wants gum?
Our stories turn into candy for people to chew
They spit it out in the street when they’re done
This is how women’s stories are told
Between street sidewalks and alleys
“bedtime story”
A night that does not resemble the night of people
As for the poet Salim Al-Naffar, who was martyred on December 7, 2024, he writes about the Gaza night, which is not like the night of the people, and records his feelings under the bombing and waiting for the moment of death.
and say:
The night here does not resemble the night of the people
We are now sleepless
O masters of Arab sleep,
The fire here is from the soles of the earth to the head
Time passes hard
Injected with my blood
With the nectar of breath
I am riding a dream horse
And I search for daffodils in the myrtle field
The night here does not resemble the night of the people
In Gaza, you are not safe to play with time and feelings
strong earth tremors,
Richter would be broken if he attempted any measurement
A monster escaped from our era of civilization
It does not resemble any race
obsessed with murder,
It is as if the blood of children perpetuates the myths of the throne
In front of the church
In her poem in front of the church door, she says: Haya Abdul Rahman Abu Nasr
My heart turned yellow. How can a sick person’s illness become bliss?
Whoever tastes the bitterness of nostalgia, the rest of the universe will extend to him comfort and solace
The Shah died on the chessboard, and tears rolled down in clouds
It was a windy day, and the wind was forced to blow
My heart has no shadow after the lamentation of the deer…
I am overwhelmed by longing, and if I suppress the smile of friendliness, I have no way
No matter how I passed, birds followed me, and the bird’s voice was sad
And the wind, despite the crowding of feathers, is isolation…
The church mass proclaimed love in eternity
My heart, even if I suppress my longing
How can he make me feel good after the good musk?
A little about what Gaza will say about it
In his text, Khaled Jumaa wrote: “Gaza, rubbing her eyes with jasmine this morning, wearing earrings the color of the sea, and an Eid dress with tree trimmings and a velvet texture, is preparing to visit her children. She prepared sweets like every Eid. Tea, coffee, and orange juice are also on the table, and homemade bread is next to the dishes of labneh, oil, and olives.” What has not yet penetrated to the end: the fruit tray, the windows are open, the floor is sprayed with perfume and the walls are decorated with henna, Gaza is waiting, and no one has come.”
Lamentations
As for the poet Bisan Abdel Rahim, she mentions the blood of the martyr as it washes the roads and says:
They took your blood
They washed the road with it
Water to quench the thirst of expatriates
Amber perfumes our steps
He forgives our sins
Who sold your name, my friend?
We have lost our hands
They shook hands
Alone
I spray henna on the cusp of absence
I braid the locks of reproach
Your steps are still at the door
I am still combing the sand of the tents
I am full of death
The poet Othman Hussein conducts a dialogue with death that does not wait, and about him who is satisfied with death:
I am full of death,
Until I was filled with ruins and missing people,
Stories that are not suitable for bereaved grandchildren.
Oh death wait,
I need to swallow my saliva,
Or until the executioner finishes his work.
Oh death
O caller,
It doesn’t suit us.
We lull the war to sleep
As for Nima Hassan, she wrote, “This is how we lull the war to sleep while in it.”
I want to hear the school bell
I draw a line on the empty bread bag
I applaud loudly the morning whistle
Put the water in a sentence before it runs out
That’s what the teacher said
Repeat my homeland
The chanting in the tent is not heard
I have no books in my possession
I wanted to make a teapot
Before winter
Words stir the fire
where is my mom?
I became big
To search for it in the rubble
This is the first lesson.
Standing…sitting
Register, I am from Gaza
Then the scientist was dropped from the attendance register
About fireflies
Walid Al-Halis writes about the poet, as he is not accustomed to the absence of martyrs and the departed, and he says in his poem Fireflies
I can’t get used to their absence,
I changed the dust of my feet,
I lived in distant languages.
I brought down the frames of their beauty from the walls,
I tried..
But they don’t ask permission to enter.
They cross the iron of the sky without pain,
Looking at the emptiness of the wall,
They don’t say anything
Then, without saying hello, they leave
Their names are absent from the ceremony
Their faces are speechless
About the disappearance of magic
About medals
But they don’t disappear
I don’t remember, now, anything else.
I don’t open the door for Tariq.
I don’t sit with anyone, Samara.
Other than them
Yesterday I was here
Under the title Yesterday I Was Here, the poet Nisreen Suleiman examines the image of death and departure and of her home to which she returns and finds guards.
My death was released from my body and I was now an idea waiting to disappear.
Yesterday you were here, and if you had passed by my name and called, I would have told you that I will not be here.
But today, I am half dust, and there are stones on my heart
Those around me said this was my home.
When I tried to return, I found guards
And bells ringing in my head
And many prayers
And murmurs and prayers
I knew this was blurry
I wish I had written my elegy before yesterday,
I was loud in my call, and humble in my supplication prayer.
I left them, all those I loved,
I left them and they were the ones who preceded me in weeping and sobbing blood.
They are the ones who preceded me in orphanhood and groaning.
In their coffin is my coffin,
We all now carry the same inscription and tags
Gaza poem
Regarding Gaza, which deserves praise, Ahed Helles writes the poem Gaza, in which:
Gaza took its adornment from death and was decorated
Satellite TV shows a world complaining of boredom
How worthy of praise you are, Gaza
And your neck is hanging on a gallows
How forgotten you are
When the radio stations turn away from you
The sound of battle is silenced
Gaza is not alive
And Gaza does not die
But take a break from life
Between massacre and massacre
Because it is stubborn
And because she is loyal
He lives in her eyes
The whole world mourned
Gaza will remain
Bahia will return
Nada returns
It is Gaza
As for the poet Donia Al-Amal Ismail, she wrote
It is Gaza, from the tips of its fingers songs flow,
And tenderness blooms ashamed of the loneliness of the dirt.
It is Gaza, in its elderly border, a mercy
In the fence of her space is space,
And above her solitude there is life,
From her eyes my tears bleed,
I am cursed with the magic of temptations,
She is fascinated by a reckless day that does not come.
I see nothing but heedlessness fleeing from the recklessness of its awakening
Her: There is nothing like her
Nothing but madness.
Traitorous bags
Concerning the traitorous bags and the martyr sleeping on the dew grass, Haider Al-Ghazali wrote, saying:
The martyr sleeping on the grass wet with dew
He had a name
And a title
And an exciting laugh
His mother argued with his father
The day he was born
So they chose a name for him
It befits his stature, which is covered by the shroud
The sleeping martyr
On the grass wet with dew
written on his head
“unknown”
The war is in me and on my sides
We read in Jawad Al-Akkad’s poem:
The war is in me and on my sides
There is no street that leads to another street
And no supplication comes up…
I look at the destruction of myself and return
Or I won’t come back
I walk to my house
The road is long, the road is rubble
I enter the house looking for my little wars
I wipe the dust of my memory from my desk
And my balcony that preserved my dreams
At the time of the explosion, she started hugging the moon.
You do not know that the moon committed suicide in the eyes of a girl who was taken by war on the journey of immortality on the morning of her wedding.
Countless missiles
As for Yahya Ashour, he wrote about the countless missiles and said:
Whenever I try to count the missiles, I don’t count them!
The narrow meaning of salvation overwhelms me
Because I have not yet survived the first war I witnessed
And here I am, “surviving” the first war that I do not witness.
Every time I write about war
Write the same thing
With a little tweaking and tweaking
The body of war hardly hit the ground
At a funeral
In Musab Abu Toha’s poem we read:
In war, you need to change your clothes for every funeral you go to.
You don’t want people to say that you only have one outfit.
It happens that you change your clothes four times in an hour.
It all depends on the number of funerals in the area.
I happened to search for clothes under the rubble of my neighbors’ houses.
Clothes of friends my age. I apologized and said:
“Sorry, so-and-so, I probably bought this shirt or pants a few days ago
She didn’t wear any of it. But here I am wearing it at your funeral or your neighbor’s funeral.
We rose to life
Wadah Abu Jama wrote about ascending to life with a fitting death
While the Palestinian is seen smiling in front of the rubble of his house
Or handcuffed
At the moment of his arrest
The time he carries his son’s coffin at a funeral, only he knows
That death
He is the one who asks him to smile
To take a picture of him
Good
Peace be upon Gaza
The file concludes with a poem by the late Palestinian poet Hussein Barghouti (1954-2002)
“Peace to Gaza,
The camp’s poverty for bread,
But now he is rich in blood,
The camp’s poverty of land and bread,
But now he is ascending to heaven.
Peace be upon all the doves of Gaza,
Where luxury touches my heart,
And drink my water.
Silence is more precious than words
“In honor of those who remain.”
