Issue 16, March 1998
Philip Hyams - Four Poems

I
Plastic flowers propped up,
Standing in brass cartridge casings
Of former anti-tank shells.

The war is over Mohammed.
Its paraplegic losers roll back
towards their homes,
Twisted limbs and cutout hearts,
Twisted limbs and broken bones.

Black-masked steel,
Who is the mightier power?
Arab eyes?
Jew noses?
Who bleeds the history books?
Who paints their own people
In black oils?
Is this field mined?
Will this tree grow?

II

"The car blew up over there."
He points at a charred stone wall.

"They came during the night in rubber dinghies."
She points towards a bullet-riddled villa.

My bones, your bones.
My brother, your son.
My son, your brother.
The war is over Ilan.
Your son is born into a world
Of blue ocean and sun and sea
And green orchards
And death
And death
And murder
And defense
And justice
And injustice
Your justice
Their suffering
Their justice
Your suffering
My justice.
 
III

Jericho Oh Jericho has no more walls.
Jericho dry Jericho has no more tears.
No more tears to shed.
No more Psalms to sing.
No more graves to rob.

The Lebanon Oh sweet cedar scent
Burns and hands reach out from
The rubble, bubble, rubble, bubble
Bubble barrel oil.
In the West all is best.
Their B-52s bring our nourishment
While the other's Kalatchinakovs
Feed our children's imaginations.

Abraham's sons duel.
They smile at one another and show
Their teeth.

The Holy Land is riddled enough.
Mohammed take my hand
Our wheelchairs need oiling.

My Arab brother
I now fast your Ramadan
Because it was I
Who fed that big gun
Which took your life
And your blood mixed with
Our earth

Your woman tore her hair
While mine clutched me to her
In the night
I was your life
My woman your wife

Your children chose darkness
To become our conscience
Our people commit fratricide
And our fathers sow the seeds
Of future Shivas

How do we cut that tie
When we terminate a life?
The palms wear rings
Rings for each war
Rings for each body
Each boy we lose becomes
Some sort of unlucky Issac
And Ishmael we are given
No choice
We have no voice
We are only actors in History's
Nightmare

My Arab brother
We who both know Abraham
Let us throw down our knives
In exchange for the plow's blade
The spilled blood from the past
Can only fertilize

We sit Shiva like cowardly Buddha's.
The room is bare…not even a picture.
But Oh! In the corner a machine-gun.
Sirens wail like succubi in the night.
We sit Shiva while bombs fall all around.
The children are below.
The war lasted only six days.
It took the old one eight to die.
We sit Shiva with tired souls.

Gaunt faces
	Gaunt faces
		Gaunt faces.

Black
	Grey
		White
Black
				Grey
					White.

Gaunt faces
	Gaunt faces
		Gaunt faces.

Tattooed
	Twisted
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