SEA OF DESPOND

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

Israel clears final hurdle to start settlement construction that would cut the West Bank in two. —PBS, January 6, 2026. In the video above from four months ago, Israeli minister Smotrich explains the plan.

From the river to the sea,

Palestine won't come to be.

Bibi's stance is very clear:

Arabs aren't welcome here.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has around 360 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, Light Poetry Magazine, and Lighten Up Online.. She has also had fourteen previous poems in The New Verse News.

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF EXODUS?

by Mary K O'Melveny 

Illegal Jewish settlers yesterday attacked Palestinians and prevented them from working on their land in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, in the southern Occupied West Bank. Fouad Al-Amour, coordinator of the Protection and Steadfastness Committees in Masafer Yatta, said in a press statement that a number of settlers attacked farmers from the Abu Qbeita family, preventing them from cultivating their land in El-Saifer area in Masafer Yatta, and destroyed the seeds prepared for cultivation. The settlers were protected by the Israeli occupation army, Al-Amour added. Masafer Yatta is a community of 12 Palestinian villages located in the city of Yatta south of Hebron. Its residents have been suffering from the threat of forced displacement for decades due to the establishment of scores of illegal settlements, outposts and military training zones by Israeli occupation forces. —Middle East Monitor, December 29, 2022

Before I fall asleep each night,

I stare up at my curvaceous ceiling,

darkened by age, pock-marked

by stone, spider webs, jagged roots.

 

Each “room” is bordered by rock slabs,

boulders, dirt mounds. My clay cook

pots sit behind me. To the right, my sleep

ledge is softened by keffiyehs, quilts.

 

I have swept one center section

almost flat. An aid worker found us

a wooden table with two crooked

shelves. My prayer rug is folded there.

 

In that corner to the left, a brass box

still holds my yellowed deed to this land.

Tanks have bulldozed my three homes.

Now my sheep graze overhead.

 

These crooked steps, long smoothed by water,

footfalls, wind downward from their pen.

That slim cord dangling above provides

just enough light to read Fadwa Tuqan.

 

Like me, most of my neighbors have burrowed

beneath West bank hillsides we once owned.

Above ground, apricots, almonds, olives

thrive, as they have since Ottoman times.

 

Jurists who know nothing of our narratives

have ruled that we must evacuate, as if

we were as nomadic as our grazing flocks.

They name us trespassers, transients.

 

The army says our villages are best

suited as live-fire training grounds.

No one wants neighbors who remember

every whisper of their past lives.

I still have the dented bronzed key

to our ancestral dwelling place.

In chilled night air, I am warmed

by memory’s refracted light. 

Author’s note: A recent ruling by Israel's Supreme Court will allow the military to clear a rural West Bank area known as Masafer Yatta for use as a live-fire military training ground. This will mean expulsion of 1,200 residents of thirteen Palestinian villages in the region, in violation of international law. Many say their families have lived in the region for generations and that some families have already been forced to move into caves, leaving their ancestral homes behind. This poem imagines a conversation with one of those villagers now living beneath the ground. 

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

THE OPEN MIKE POET WHO READS A PASSIONATE PIECE IN ARABIC PROVIDING A BRIEF PROSE SUMMARY AFTER

by Alan Catlin

'The U.S. State Department on Tuesday punched a big hole in Israel-led efforts to induce the Obama administration to regard boycotts of settlements as identical to boycott of Israel proper. In doing so, it provided the Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobby with yet another painful lesson in the pitfalls of being too clever by half and biting off more than one should chew. A special statement issued by the State Department Press Office on Tuesday afternoon made clear that while the administration “strongly opposes” any boycott, divestment or sanctions against the State of Israel, it does not extend the same protection to “Israel-controlled territories.” Rather than weakening efforts to boycott Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, as Israel supporters had planned, the State Department was actually granting them unprecedented legitimacy.' —Haaretz, July 1, 2015; Photo: AL-JANIYA, (Palestinian Territories), October 30, 2014: Abbas Yusef points wistfully towards his olive trees, which are bearing their annual fruit. Yet again, the 70-year-old Palestinian farmer will be unable to make the autumn harvest. Yusef’s olive groves lie on land either side of an Israeli settlement in the northern occupied West Bank. For years, he has been denied access by the army, and the settlers have ploughed it, uprooting many of his trees. —Dawn

It’s a timeless story.
The speaker is a man.
A very angry man
with eight children and
another on the way.

He is a farmer but
is no longer able to work
the land that has been in
his family for a thousand years.

The occupiers prevent
anyone from working
the land.

He is so angry he can
barely speak.

The occupiers want to build
new settlements here,
right here, on my land.

The man is so angry because
he feels helpless.

How will we live?
he asks

How will we survive?


Author’s note: The poem is a based on a reading from this week by a young man, probably a high schooler, who read at an open mike. I’m not sure if he wrote the poem or not.  He was extremely shy and self-conscious, until he passionately read this dynamic piece  in his native language and tried to leave the stage without an explanation, but the moderator, a high school English teacher, gently prodded him to provide some kind of translation. I took some liberties with the translation, adding some details I think he was hinting at but could not provide as he didn’t have the words for them in English. 


Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full-length books of poetry and prose, the latest of which, from March Street Press, is Alien Nation.

SOVEREIGNTY

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Resounding global support for Palestinians
Demonstrates natural affinity of humankind
Empathetic to populace under siege
Public opinion demanding fair-minded justice

After 47 years of oppression
Self determination enshrined in humanitarianism
De facto military control restrictive prohibitions
Bullyrag abuse of power preconditions

Enough is never enough said
Gaza war senseless assault grim
Reaper bloody reminder 2000 dead
Conflict resolution no negotiable solution

Ending occupation oppression persecution devastation
Requires return to 1967-designated borders
West Bank Gaza East Jerusalem
2-state side-by-side civil coexistence

Stumbling block issues borderline security
Water rights religious site access
Palestinian refugees’ right of return
Jewish settlement expansion termed illegal

Aim just lasting comprehensive peace
Pseudo agreement hypocritical pyrrhic victory
Where everybody loses nobody wins
Israel more isolated than ever


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 

UNAMERICAN CON

by Charles Frederickson

All four of my grandparents

Were born in Sweden great-grandfather

Member of Svenska parliament Midnight

Sun legislators making heritage proud

Declared intention to recognize Palestinian

Statehood long overdue illegal settlements

Extending far beyond green line

Contrary to genuine peaceful desire

Netanyahu slams Sweden’s unilateral steps

Contrarian going against universalistic values

Ambrose Bierce defined un-American as

Wicked intolerable Heathen Garrison Keillor

Opined I think the most

Un-American thing you can say

Is You can’t say that

Burt Lancaster dared to ask

Can anything be more un-American

Than the House un-American Committee

Fred Swedish for peaceful harmony

Shalom Salaam pax on you

Islam isn’t the major problem

Combating hateful violence is

Shared principles justice compassion tolerance

Require respectful dignity without exception

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson  proudly presents YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .