Antonio Gramsci would have aptly described our times, smug and blood-thirsty as the “time of monsters”. Unbelievably, it’s been 173 days of military onslaught that has brought calamity and massacres to the Gaza Strip. The suffering seems endless. Having seen the testimonies of so many children and youth, the murders, the detritus of bombardment, it’s so hard to understand why a permanent ceasefire seems as far away as it did before the International Court of Justice’s ruling. Testimony of journalists, artists and medical workers show that there appears to be targeting of those sectors. Meanwhile, without effective international responses, regionalization of conflict seems likely, in particular with the Occupation ‘s actions, even beyond Gaza. Again I share work of artists committed to the human rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people. And the work of those who stand on the side of justice and humanity.

“Palestinian“: new poem by the Palestinian poet Ibrahim Nasrallah (trans. Huda Fakhreddine), March 24, 2024.

I was silent and nothing came of it.

I spoke and nothing came of it.

I cursed, I apologized, and nothing came of it.

I was busy, I pretended to be busy…and nothing.

I sat, I walked, I ran.

I shivered and I warmed up. Nothing.

I was parched until I cracked. I drank until I drowned, and nothing came of it.

I crumbled like a fetus, like the father, the siblings, and the mother.

I was then gathered in a shroud made of old curtains,

and nothing came of it.

I stumbled more than I could stand but then I stood up,

and nothing came of it.

I prayed until, like a prophet, I became a verse in a holy book,

I rowed until I reached hell,

I beseeched and begged …and nothing.

I raged, I calmed, I remembered what was once distant,

and I forgot what was always close.

I befriended a monster, and I fought a monster.

I died young and sometimes survived.

In both times, I grew old from all that I had seen,

but nothing came of it.

I charged, I withdrew,

I fought the wind when it blew,

And reconciled with the waves when I rose and raged.

Among the horses my heart was a horse,

in the night my heart was a night,

and nothing came of it.

I ate, I hungered, I vomited, and nothing came of it.

I embraced my shadow, and I chastised it and then I chastised myself.

I greeted a woman lost in the streets.

I fought with a man and his smile nearby,

and with a bird that sang briefly in the garden,

and nothing came of it.

I closed all the windows in my house and opened them.

I wrote words on death when it is merciful,

death when it is futile,

death when it is hell,

death when it is the only way…at last,

death when it is gentle and light,

death when it is heavy and dark,

and nothing came of it.

I wrote about the river and the sea, about tomorrow and the sun,

and nothing came of it.

I wrote about oppression and depravity – purity too.

I slept without a bite of bread.

I dreamt without dreams.

I woke up not missing my hands or feet or reflection in the mirror

or the thing I call my soul.

I died and lived. I lit myself on fire. I put myself out with my own ashes,

and nothing came of it.

I am all these elements, O God: fire, earth, wind, and water.

Their fifth is a pain that blind songs can’t see, their sixth is this immense

loneliness, and their seventh, since my slaughter, is blood.

When I burned, I inhabited the letters of my free name like a butterfly:

P A L E S T I N E

When my roof was suddenly blown off into the sky and with it a wall, a window,

and the youngest of my children,

I gathered myself in the G and the A and the Z and the A.

I became GAZA.

A thousand warplanes circled and hit me. I collapsed and collapsed again,

and then rose in a scream. I called out, but nothing came of it.

Nothing came of it.

Nothing came of it.

I lost faith and believed, lost faith and believed again,

and lost faith and believed and…

nothing came of it,

nothing came of it.

And the filthy world asks me:

All this…what of it?

In Jerusalem

By Mahmoud Darwish

Translated By Fady Joudah

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,

I walk from one epoch to another without a memory

to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing

the history of the holy … ascending to heaven

and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love

and peace are holy and are coming to town.

I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How

do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?

Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?

I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see

no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.

All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly

then I become another. Transfigured. Words

sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger

mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t be safe.”

I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white

biblical rose. And my hands like two doves

on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.

I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,

transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?

I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I

think to myself: Alone, the prophet Muhammad

spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”

Then what? A woman soldier shouted:

Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?

I said: You killed me … and I forgot, like you, to die.

Mahmoud Darwish, “In Jerusalem” from The Butterfly’s Burden. 

Copyright © 2008 by Mahmoud Darwish, English translation by Fady Joudah.