by Felicia Nimue Ackerman
with apologies to Emily Dickinson
An Israeli military investigation that has roiled the country with allegations of sexual abuse by its own ranks was set in motion by doctors who reported injuries to a Palestinian detainee that were so severe they required surgery, medical staffers familiar with the matter said… In a heated exchange in Israel’s parliament last week, one lawmaker asked another, “To insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” “Yes,” replied Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Likud. “If he is a Nukhba [member of Hamas’s elite fighting unit, which was involved in the Oct. 7 attacks] everything is legitimate to do to him. Everything.” —The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2024
We'll maim our captured foes and show
No mercy or respect.
We'll soon be lords of all the land
With all rebellion wrecked.
We know we'll be condemned and yet
We forge ahead like kings
Triumphantly. What liberty
Unfettered vengeance brings!
No mercy or respect.
We'll soon be lords of all the land
With all rebellion wrecked.
We know we'll be condemned and yet
We forge ahead like kings
Triumphantly. What liberty
Unfettered vengeance brings!
Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 300 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, The Galway Review, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Options (Rhode Island's LGBTQ+ magazine), The Providence Journal, Scientific American, Sparks of Calliope, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Your Daily Poem. She has also had eight previous poems in The New Verse News.