Riding Roughshod: How to Choose Your Neighbours

By Ingrid B Mørk

You steal their land and their water,
Destroy their hopes and their dreams,
You break their bones with bloody great stones,
`Cause nobody heeds their screams.

You can lock them up in your prisons,
With no form for legal appeal,
Freeze them and harm them
Hunger and starve them
`Till despair is all that they feel.

Destroy their homes and their culture,
Every dream, every seed that they sow,
Beat them and bruise them and if you can, use them,
They are DIS-POSE-ABLE don’t you know.

Show no mercy for the sick or the hungry,
The dying, the dead or the lame,
No worries about world opinion,
Since no one gives much of a damn.

They’ve been demonised by world leaders,
The press and the “anti-Islam,”
No worries about retribution,
The “Bushies” will keep us from harm.
They lie for us, they die for us,
They will for us, they kill for us
The US, our giant pet lamb.

Make certain they constantly suffer,
That their days are a living hell,
That they’re battered and torn, wish they’d never been born,
With a neighbour like Israel.

***

People of Palestine

By Mamoon Alabbasi

Like a slave in the American south
They shall be liberated
Even if it means another civil war

Like a persecuted Jew
They shall survive the genocide
Even if takes another World War

Like beloved yet betrayed Jesus
They shall be back
Even if it would be at the end of time

Like the visionless cured by Jesus
They shall regain their sight
Even if the rest of the world remains blind

Like resurrected flesh
They shall come back to life
Even if it would be at the end of days

Like the Day of Judgement
They shall have justice
Even if it means there will be hell to raise

It matters not on whose side is the Divine

It matters not who shall inherent the heavenly kingdom

While on earth stop the massacre of the people of Palestine

Let peace and justice reign, not Lucifer’s Pandemonium

***

Felons

By Deepak Sarkar 

We punish felons for the sake of the communities
Keeping them isolated in prisons and correctional facilities
Sometimes killing them in pre-emptive defensive shootings
Often justifying regrettable death penalty verdicts!

But what happens?
When felon leaders are free running countries –
Destroying the very fabric of equality under participatory democracy!
Withholding proof, avoiding subpoenas taking fifth,
Citing executive privileges as national securities
Detaining citizens without trial blaming virtual enemy
Still visiting foreign lands with dignity pursuing ideology!

Unpunished, unchallenged, they gain genocidal authority –
Lying under oath as the commander in chiefs
Insulting constitutions, honest minds, and the virtues of justice
Falsifying intelligence for invasions degrading soldier’s morality!
Endanger citizens, world, and the dreams of truthful society –
Promoting evangelical bigotry of crusades in anarchy
Marring communal civilizations with burden of supremacy!

(Photo by Musa Al-Shaer/PalestineChronicle.com)