Land Back Rivers flowingScreens overflowingwith deathA keyboard of rubbleTechnology’s offeringRetina-burned imagesSeared into our conscience Violence reveredDialogue destroyedLives snapped into piecesDeath’s drones and sirensThe soundtrack of these days This is the world we witnessAs we bow and breakBeneath the onslaughtBut return we doOver and over and over againTo the olive grove’s heart.
Category: Poetry
Poetry for the Peeps! Citizen Heart
Today is my father’s birthday. Since he was a poet, translator, lover of, and professor of comparative literatures, it is fitting that he should be born in World Poetry Month. The poems and visual arts today are a tribute to him (Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, 1938-2020)). The poems below would have engaged him and certainly been part…
World Poetry Day!
March 21st is a day which celebrates both the power of poetry and calls for the elimination of racism globally. Today’s post shares the words and pictures of poets and artists speaking to the need for justice and for poetry. As the great Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton said, “poetry, like bread, is for everyone.” Even…
Poetry for the Peeps! Gloria Fuertes
Gloria Fuertes, Spain, 1917- 1998 (English Translations, Kaushalya Bannerji, 2023) Gloria Fuertes, says Wikipedia, was a Spanish poet, author of children’s literature, and regular participant in children’s television shows. She was part of the post-war literary movement of postismo, and a member of the Generation of ’50. Her work focused on gender equality, pacifism, and environmentalism. HAGO VERSOS, SENORES! Hago versos señores, hago…
Rafah: A Dirge for Democracy
I was and was not Surprised To see and hear of the torment of Rafah. I have watched the screens light up White and orange as phosphorus and fire. I have seen the 75 years and 128 days of pulverized buildings, Broken bodies, parts of bodies, dead children, Broken healers, silenced storytellers, massacred mothers. Hind,…
Art and Poetry Speaking to Our Hearts!
We are in the 129th day of genocide and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Israeli state with military, economic and moral backing by the U.S. , Germany, U.K. and Canada to name a few. Nicaragua has joined South Africa in a plea for ceasefire through the ICJ. People around the world continue to walk…
Poetry for the Peeps! Witnessing Genocide
Today’s blog continues to look at the atrocities being committed in Gaza and to join the world plea for a ceasefire now. There is no end to this inhumanity of pulverizing a people in real time and with the massive citizen and press presence on social media platforms, allowing us if we choose, to follow the absolute tragedy…
Return to the Same Moon
We enter the new year full of desires for a new and different world, a truly human world that honours our interconnectedness and “right relations” as Indigenous teachings put it. In this world, genocide would not exist because the power and powerlessness engendered by relations of exploitation, oppression, empire-building would not be the filters through which all…
Poetry for the Peeps! A Year to Remember
2023 has turned out to be a year to remember for all the wrong reasons. It has exposed the heartlessness at the centre of settler colonialism and empire. The inhumanity of the world’s leaders, the logic of capitalism and the global push to fascism are all so clearly spelled out for us. And the mainstream media has…
Poetry for the Peeps! Poems For Humanity
This week, before the celebration of the birth of Christ in Beit Layem in a week’s time, Israeli leaders and their U.S. handlers continue their vicious bombardment and genocide of Gaza and its people. It is with a heavy heart that we witness no mercy. From occupation to apartheid to genocide, settler colonialism seems to follow the…
Poets and Artists Against Occupation
Again I share the words and art of Palestinians. In this upside down world where to call an end to slaughter is to be silenced! More eloquently than I, the poets and visual artists I have been sharing, lay out the daily costs of expulsion, occupation and hope for liberation. “Don’t stop talking about Palestine”,…
Poetry for the Peeps! Against Devastation
Once again I find myself still reeling from not only the onslaught of terror that is being perpetrated in the name of Israeli expansionism, but also the apathetic and two-faced world in which we dwell. The disconnect between the kleptocrats who rule us (disguised thinly as bourgeois democrats) and those of us who appear to…
Poetry for the Peeps!
We are seeing the rise of the new era of capitalism in its decadence, that is, decline. The thrashing tail and head are swinging all of us on this globe from side to side, twisting reality, employing doublespeak, and criminalizing compassion. In the midst of this slaughter of civilians and children, with over 12000 dead…
Poetry for the Peeps!
I have been overwhelmed with learning, feeling, raging, and mourning about the state of the world. Stuck in the freeze mode of powerlessness, we watch the absolute destruction of a people; reminiscent of the words of the advisors to the infamous fascist house painter, of the final solution. Psychopaths run nations, corporations, militaries ,and institutions…
Poetry for the Peeps! Palestine in Poetry
Watching the invisibilizing collusion of mass media and the Israeli state vis a vis the media blockade on Gaza shows us not only the weaponizing of the internet but of everything necessary for the maintenance of life. Add to that, the genocidal bombing under the cover of absent eyes. Peoples around the globe have called…
Ear to the Ground 