OCTOBER 2005

NO WAR....NO SOLDIERS ANYMORE...quoting:

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous’d words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

By that old hound of war: Walt Whitman
I underline there the reference used from my poem below

THE INTIFADA

The olive, the vine and the fig
Will never creep as the briar,
Barren is the land of the thorn.
I am alone beside my people
I stand alone here
With my people.
I eat from our dish
I drink from our cup
I may hear the engine of enemies
I may hear the hammer of the flame
I  may hear the voice of this enemy
An enemy in uniform.

I never scream…..
But I may shout ! I raise my voice only
With the shout of my people.
I am strong
I can move with rapidity
I have the sling stone of words
I can target you, to realise
This moment in time
When my father’s tree falls
When our mouths are dry
When our mother collects from a puddle
The water she boils
The herbs she adds.

I see the black lightning of her eyes.
The people who wall us in are standing there now,
The fact is I see a soldier man, his hands idle.
The fact is my father is a man too and
The fact is two men stare into the air
But my father is alone…. as I am .

What is this solitude?
It is the solitude of the trees.
Did my mother hold me or expel me
Into this dusty air of wreckage?
As I look at the cloth I found in her pocket
I see small stitches of embroidery.
I place this cloth in a hidden place
To save it for my own woman.

The military men of Zion use the word 'hatred';
What is hatred?
I look at the man in uniform
I am not afraid of him
My father had life and death
So I also have life and death.
The care we bear is for the light
In the black eyes of our women.
Why should we trust anyone else?

When they took our land
I could see it stir under their machines
When they brought a wall
I heard the sound it makes falling
But I shall see the brambles writhe and burn.
There are trees and the fire in them
Is made by man for the wind.
Brambles burn without wind
Briars burn and scream.
I will set fire to the brambles
With words of truth
I will crush the black fruit of their words with truth.

I will strip thorns for my fists and finger rings
Because I learn their use.
These men in the uniform of the undergrowth
Know they are nothing but brambles.

The curse was laid on them by a young boy
Of our race, Jotham….as I do,
Repeating it now.
As the enemy goes home today
They shall writhe on the truth.

As the thrust of their tines dictates
The boys in that house of briars have to escape
There is no alternative.
But I am free forever.
Our tribes stand alone at all times
No servitude to the waste land of Zion.
Our tribes live in the gardens of Palestine
I stand alone in the gardens of Palestine
No man or boy among us writhes in fear or in pain.

Jocelyn braddell©