Even if disaster catastrophe is always new
to those souls to whom it horror happens
there’s nothing new about the new Naqba
oh, so obvious to anyone dares to look at it
for at least 75 years back in recent history
at least to the 1st Crusade Jerusalem 1099
there was blood up to the bridles of knights
on their horses as they hack their way thru
the people how much more convenient now
the bombs take out whole apartment blocks
in great heavy swathes of collapsed concrete
and these massive clouds toxic dust & smoke
Israel ethnic cleansing Palestinians from Gaza
this ancient urban area of the Hyskos and the
Canaanites where Samson performed his feats
got his hair cut and brought down the temple
on everyone’s head, Gaza on all our heads now
                           NOW!

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.