By Jehan Bseiso Cemeteries in Palestinian Camps Short on Space The cemeteries are full - In Lebanon, Jordan, Syria We will soon bury Palestinians above ground. Nowhere to live and now, No quiet place to die, with dignity. Raise high the beams – carpenters, death architects. Soon, your walls will reach the sky. *** Gaza 2009 For Abu Ali Mahdi, who After 20 [...]
By Jehan Bseiso I Maktoob: It is written. Where? In a big book in the sky. II Tata, my grandmother, would only tell the story in staccato: “1948. Falasteen. Orange blossom fields. Salt. Blue Gaza waters. “ Tears in her long black lashes, “And when my father died, his horse wept in the funeral”. III [...]
By Jehan Bseiso No matter flag.No matter medicine.No matter civilian.No matter international community.No matter your international waters.No matter your sanctions, no matter your rhetoric and foreign policy.Only 62 years status quo, Everyday Nakba,Subsidized settlements,Even more walls-Matter.Children on the ICRC bus, visiting their Baba’s in your prisons- Matter.Food and medicine rotting at every border-MatterFrom the shadows, [...]
By Jehan Bseiso For Abu Ali Mahdi, whoAfter 20 years in Israeli prisonsDied of heartbreak in his own bed,In Beirut.For Du’aa, and Ala’a and Mohammed,Who spoke to the Al Jazeera reporters aboutMama dead and baba dead and no homeAnd no bread. Nobody to break the bread with.And nights so long you forget there ever was [...]
The Palestine Chronicle is pleased to feature the work of two poets, Samah Sabawai and Jehan Bseiso. Searching for Words By Samah Sabawi Gaza…I search desperatelyFor words… for definitionsTo tell the story of ammunitionsExploding in a child’s bodyI try to shout my indignationBut I am lost in vocabulary Drowned in phrases as old as meAnd [...]
