By Pande Manoylov

The Wrongdoers from Kofroana

To Abas Abdelkarim

You are all around and everywhere,
All over the white world
And in the red hellebore,
Expatriated.

Yours is the darkness,
The star glow,
The firefly lanterns,
The dream of Jaffa and Kofroana…

The day in Palestine
Is for the conquerors,
For the gluttonous eyes
In the oasis of death.

You are to “be blamed”, Palestinians!
And who is to blame for your pain,
Who is to blame for your grief,
For the blood that’s been shed, my friend?

*****

Offspring

Battering the wings
Among the palm leaves
To the oasis
In Gaza,
A bird
Was moaning
For the killed offspring. 

Wounded by a grenade,
The Bedouin,
Before handing his soul
To God,
But one thing whispered to the bird:
– Do not cry, sweetie,
Yours is also an offspring of Palestine!

*****

Lamentation

When I was a kid,
Walking
The alley
Of apple trees,
I was guiding
A black colt
With a white star on his forehead.

You are to call him Arab,
My grandpa used to tell me,
‘Cos I brought
His mother
All the way from the desserted pastures
Of  Palestine.

I brought her by boat
He used to say,
Just to bring her
As a goddess
Into the dessert
Of  Macedonia.

And when I asked him,
Where is that dessert,
He said
It lies in the destiny
Of those exiled
From the Fatherland!

He never spoke
Of the star on my
Arab’s forehead,
He just looked
At the Sun,
At the Moon…

(Translation in English: Nurten Sulejmani)

*****

Child from Palestina

Waving with its wings
in palm leaves
to oasis
in paradise Gaza
a bird
whipped
for the killed birth.

Wounded by a shell,
Bedouin
before he gives
his soul to God
the only thing whispered:
Do not cry,
It is a child from Palestina as well!

– Pande Manojlov is a poet, narrator, critic and journalist. He was born in May 02, 1948 in the village of Porodin, Bitola, Republic of Macedonia. Manojlov has written: “Flight in a dream over the Eiffel tower” (book of poetry in Macedonian and French, 1988), “Love and grief” (book of poetry, 2005), “Bitola, my love” (book of poetry, 2009) and many others. His poem “Palestine” (1982) garnered international attention and the translated Arabic version was published in many Arabic newspapers and magazines.