a previously unpublished poem written in 1982
by Mitchel Cohen
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Veterans warn of echoes from 1982 Lebanon war as new conflict looms on Israel’s northern borders —The Observer, July 14, 2024 |
Israel, baby, you're doing it again!
How many times have I told you
You can't use me as your trench coat
Flashing your Mezuzah in the subways?!
Look, there are three things in this life
that carry us through in one piece
and one of them is Love!
This isn't love, it's murder.
Israel, sweetheart, listen to me.
Take your planes and go home.
Take your tanks and turn the guns around.
You point them at the wrong people.
Your enemies are at home.
They are in bed, living fat
Off their profits, traif pigs
in plush corporate boardrooms
Israel, the desert
is rising up around you. Refugees
are thrashing the sands with thatched straws
peeled from the rubble of huts
and phosphorous bombs. It rises up
from the desert floor of Galilee, from the West Bank,
and over Beirut, little separate clouds of sand,
Smoky clouds, bloody clouds
Of Palestine's Indians.
Israel, even in America,
in the apartments of Jews
along Ocean Parkway, in Co-op City,
In Miami, and Cleveland,
and St. Louis, a panic
jangles in the teeth, a shudder
shivers through the shawls
worn on Shabboth, an unspoken nightmare
kicks open the jaws, a tear
a scream. No, Israel, no!
We will not be your gestapo!
We cannot shield you from the genocide you commit.
Israel, O Israel,
Get the hell out of Lebanon now!
Mitchel Cohen was a founder of the infamous Red Balloon Poetry Conspiracy and Red Balloon Collective at SUNY Stony Brook (1969 and on). He co-founded the No Spray Coalition against pesticides, chaired the WBAI radio Local Board (2008-12), co-edited G, the newspaper of the NY State Greens/Green Party as well as the national Green Politix, and hosted a weekly internet radio show, Steal This Radio. He has published two books of poems—The Permanent Carnival and One-Eyed Cat Takes Flight—with a third in the works. He has also authored radical pamphlets and books including The Fight Against Mosanto's Roundup: The Politics of Pesticides (Skyhorse). Mitchel's currently mourning the death of Willie Mays—the greatest baseball player of all time—and his dear friend and poet Connie Norgren. Mitchel lives in “The People's Republic of Brooklyn.”