By Eugene Sigaloff

“I have been wronged!” This is my theme, and from

This theme I’ve woven the tapestry of my life,

I have been wronged, by all those faced around me,

I have been wronged, but they shall also feel that wrong.

What was my life before I found my lamp,

Before I found my guide, my pride, my Allah?

My life was pointless, I was told, my inner

Life a rebel’s emptiness, bereft of sense,

With pitiful screams resounding through ghostly chambers,

Dull rooms unfurnished, and formless thoughts that led

To formless deeds, the pettiness of petty crime,

A bit of pleasure now and then, a bit

Of lust requited now and then, but leading

Nowhere, the goal unknown or—unattainable,

Yes, kept out of reach by all those faces

Round me, those haughty faces looking down on me!

But who are all those creatures after all?

What have I and my new we to do

With them? What do their limbs, their eyes, their blood,

Their pain, their cries, their sorrow mean to me

And my new us? Have they not stifled us, reviled us,

Laughed at us, used us, choked us, bombed us, droned us,

Insulted us, tried to crush us out of existence?

Does not my Allah cry from heaven for retribution?

Oh yes, I hear Him well, I’ve been well taught;

I feel, I know that I’m as close to Him

As flesh can be, and soon my flesh will join

Him in eternity, when I have shown

My true devotion, for now my life has meaning;

I walk to death, but not alone, I hear

Already in my bright-lit brain the screams

Of flesh that’s torn asunder, and know it’s good

That wrong’s been righted and vengeance reigns; I rest my case.

– Eugene Sigaloff is a retired teacher of music theory at the conservatory of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. He contributed this poem to PalestineChronicle.com.