The dance of the naked
Abdulla Issa: Poem ‘The dance of the naked’
Naked , he wears a necktie
To hide his nakedness with the skins of the victims,
Preparing his speech
For the rites of his own funeral.
Afflicted with ruins and despair,
Beneath David’s sling,
I never began a war
So that it might end.
For two centuries
I have shored up a land
Promised to me alone
With a ram’s twin horns.
Brought to me as a ransom by the heaven’s folks
I shall no longer be a god to any soldier,
To see myself wandering the corridors of a miracle
That never comes.
No prophet will find peace
Planting myrtle in the shade of my grave;
No victor, fattened on my hatred-
Not even by a fingertip-
Will dare to stare into the eyes of the wretched,
the maimed,
Or those stripped of hope,
Of any hope at all, in life
Nor those useless who hate me.
Who guide my people to the brink of disaster.
Nothing resembles me but my kingdom
A woman with her dog
Fled twenty years ago from Crimea,
And settled in Hebron, cried it out-
Bring back to me the body of my son,
Tormented in the war of Ukraine,
And the life of my grandson,
Held hostage in the depths of Gaza’s tunnels!
You- who have driven my people
With the whips of sins.
Someone casts his voice into the space between them-
There is no place where we can feel safe
For our tomorrow except through our journeys,
No refuge sufficient to bury us in,
No riddles that could, after your death,
Be turned into miracles
Of your dwelling among the lives of the ancients.
And a child, who saw what he saw
In the corridors of Al- Shifa Hospital,
Cries out:
Look at him!
He is the one-
Naked,
Driven by the deeds of his hands
Those who stoned the prophets, naked.