A TOMATO FOR JOSEPH

by Liz Rose Shulman

Haidar Eid’s book available for pre-order today; shipping tomorrow from LeftWord Books.

Note: The following poem adapts language from Haidar Eid’s Facebook page, with his permission. He is currently trapped in Gaza. Haidar Eid is an Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza’s al-Aqsa University. As of this writing, he is alive. 
 
 
I am standing over the ruins of a house in Gaza City 
peering at the horizon
 
Please don’t let our posts go unnoticed 
This is the only alternative we have 
 
Where is Abu Muhammad
under the rubble
Where is Muhammad’s mother
under the rubble
Where is Muhammad
under the rubble
 
I’ve just received the long awaited news of my book while I am trying to stay alive
LeftWord Books is publishing my latest work 
Decolonising the Palestinian Mind
 
My former student Samah Eid has risen
“My heart is ripped out of my ribs.”
 
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
They need Palestinian fig leaves 
Sorry, I don’t feel like doing that 
There are others who are more equipped to deal with that.
 
I am a South African Palestinian literature professor in Gaza right now, 
with a wife 
and two small daughters
 
My kind dentist, artist Oraib Rayyes has risen
My colleague and co-founder
of the Department of English
at Al-Aqsa University, 
Abdul Rahman Elhour, has risen 
with 14 members of his family.
 
Some are still under the rubble
 
My friend, ex-student Khalil Abu Yahya, has risen
with his wife, Tasnim 
and two daughters
 
This was my home
 
Where is Salwa
under the rubble
Where is Magda
under the rubble
Where is Mahmoud
under the rubble
 
Where is the rest of the family at
 
Nine members of my family were killed today
One man 
three women 
and five children
 
Progressive activist friend, mother of Prince Samira Rafiqah, 
Our friend Em ElAmeer Samira has risen
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
On the hospital floor
wounded children sit next to their injured mother
one aids her as she receives treatment after a bombing
of a family’s home in the Gaza Strip
 
Why would any country vote,
even veto, 
against a humanitarian ceasefire
 
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
The home is a lover
A woman who has feelings for you 
and for whom you have feelings.
She is you and you are her. 
There are no boundaries 
No separation
When the home is demolished 
something within you dies.
The sweet story of Youssef Al-Baydani as narrated by his mother: 
“Mom, I’m hungry, I want to eat.
Don’t be afraid, my love, 
I will make you a pan of tomato
I went out to the house of Um Mahmoud, my neighbor, 
in search of a tomato 
to quench Joseph’s hunger,
hoping to find a tomato for Joseph. 
I waited at the door for Joseph to come back from school every day 
I waited for him 
in front of the door every day 
welcomed him with my arms
and a tomato grill that he loves.
How can I wait anymore when Joseph is no longer here
How can a mother protect her son in war?”
 
In this house, a woman lived with her husband 
three sons 
and three daughters. 
They had also provided refuge to relatives from northern Gaza 
who had been displaced
 
Besan was a third-year medical student 
she loved her cat 
Besan was killed with all her family and her cat
 
The young columnist of We Are Not Numbers, Yousef Dawas, has risen
along with his entire family.
He attended my lecture on Postcolonial literature last month.
A few months ago he wrote the article 
“Who will pay for the 20 years we lost?”
 
“I wish my eyes were a sea
where my eyelids could dwell.”
 
In 2014, I performed “Love in the Time of Genocide” 
adapted from a poem 
by the late Egyptian poet Abdul Rahim Mansour. 
 
What we need for literature 
and literary criticism 
is a critique of institutional thought
by offering an alternative
 
A will written by a little girl from Gaza via Anat Matar:
“My name is Haya and I will write my will now.
My money: 45 for my mother, 5 for Zeina, 5 for Hashem,
5 for my grandma, 5 for Aunt Heba and five for Aunt Mariam, 5 for Uncle Abdo and Aunt Sarah
My toys and all my stuff: for my friends Deema, Menna, and Amal, and Zeina (my sister)
My clothes: to my uncle’s daughters and if there’s anything left, donate them
My shoes: donate them to the poor and vulnerable
after washing them, of course.”
 
To white, mainstream media
As per my cardiologist’s instructions, plz do not call me
 
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
Haidar Eid updated his profile picture
 
They need Palestinian fig leaves 
Sorry, I don't feel like doing that 
There are others who are more equipped to deal with that.

Liz Rose Shulman’s work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Review, Mondoweiss, The Smart Set, and Tablet Magazine, among others. She teaches English at Evanston Township High School and in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. She lives in Chicago. 

CRUELTY

by Frederick Wilbur

Birds rest on concertina wire along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass , Texas, Thursday, July 6, 2023, that has been recently bulldozed. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s escalating measures to stop migrants along the U.S. border with Mexico came under a burst of new criticism Tuesday after a state trooper said migrants were left bloodied from razor-wire barriers and that orders were given to deny people water in sweltering heat. —AP, July 19, 2023

Along the helix

of razor wire 

meant to keep

refugees stranded,

there are delicate spiders

spinning webs

that rainbow

in the early sun,

their snares

of a different will.

 

Frederick Wilbur’s collections of poetry are As Pus Floats the Splinter Out and Conjugation of Perhaps.  His work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Dalhousie Review, Green Mountains Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The New Verse News, and Shenandoah among others. He is poetry editor for Streetlight Magazine.

KEEPING INDEPENDENCE

by Archana Sankaran

Old Beggar With a Boy - Pablo Picasso, 1903

I will keep my
strong sense of independence,
my fierce will,
precious freedom
and hopefully,
creative lust.
Until the minute coffers
where I pinned my
existential insecurities,
stand near empty.
But empty, it does not
scare me anymore.
I have seen empty,
spread those bowls of begging
and received often pity
but sometimes crumbs
that were and are of
much value to me.
That some people can
be kind, never mind if grudgingly
to strangers.
There certainly is
a clarity, a looking at truth
a freedom at empty.
Oh, what a wonderful
place I am at, tonight.
Happy at going to full.
And happy to get to empty.


Archana Sankaran is a poet based in India. She is also an artist . She finds writing poetry often emotionally cathartic. And is grateful for the gift of writing.