Philadelphia Road

poem on the Gaza Strip

Philadelphia Road

Eyes of the innocent plaintively

Gazing on my gun and the slick, greasy

Rounds wrapped in it, sucking the souls up through its barrel.

Crunching rocks have dented my boots and my

Feet itch with perspiration, with mortars fired from

Enemy tanks across the border. Egypt lies

Glistening in the sun but the barrel of my

Gun makes me a wanted man guilty of no

Crime except of being born in the wrong time.

My brother's brains leak out of his skull as

His name fades into the deepening night sky, forgotten

Lost as though he never existed, never lived

Never born in the small house in Gaza.

Mercy is fickle and easily used as a knife to cut

Even when the person cutting has been injured like this

Themselves before. Isaac and Ishmael, Ishmael

Wandering in the desert, the reject, the spot on the sheet.

Blessed be thou but what about I?

Have you forgotten that one day we all
Have to die?