Gaza Stripped

by David Erdos

War is raw in reverse, which is the state of foul play in Gaza.
Now, more than ever is the wrath of God reinvoked. As those
Once chosen now choose to persecute their close neighbours
In methods as lethal as the holocaust’s harsh killing joke.

For a joke can be seen as something separate to clear reason.
As with what Hitler decreed; all that followed was seeing how far
That tale spun, which is clearly happening now, as over seventy
Years of resentment breeds hatred, stemming it seems from

The sharing of what was thought at first to be won - after both
Tribulation and trial, Exodus and excoriation, but which has now
Become to my horror and to the horror of all the next nail
Hammered into the hands of the Palestinian born boy Bibles

Worship, whose equivalent today bleeds in Gaza. As his children
Are torn, truth’s impaled. One would never believe that so called
Holy Land was fought over. Or that the same soul stained city
Would be rendered in twain and reduced as being the homeground

From which the Palestinians are evicted by Israeli force
And by soldiers, as what we thought we were falls traduced.
I write this now as a jew and in a near state of panic, for while
Irreligious I am proud of my heritage, which contains survival

And strain, the pyramids, yes, and Shylock. Hollywood,
And a culture of tailors and towns long pillaged. So this has
Always felt like revenge, of the sourest sort, and more bitter
Than the pungent root sucked at Pesach to remind us of course

Of the past. I can taste and hear it today as Hamas fire rockets
And the threat of War like the virus and after Trump sounds
Like signs storming out of the earth, as a burning bush
Reconfigures, but which remains unseen when surrounded

By so much fired faith and crossed lines. If God is indeed
Speaking there, then no-one close can bare witness,
Or indeed hear the calling as the shouts of life and death
Clash. For just when the top end of the west thinks its free,

The Middle East carves fresh chaos. And what we thought
We knew about people and other places on earth fall to ash.
This need now for land, which seemingly can’t be shared,
Creates ruin; the kind that runs from the desert all the way

Towards overload. In our green and once pleasant land
There’s been plight that no-one ever dreamt of. The last few
Years have brought scandal once more around jewish codes.
But is anti-semitic feeling still that, or solely concerned now

With Israel? Zionism for me is as separate as the trainer is
To the road. I wear them not only to run, or rather to walk,
But for comfort. And yet once applied there’s a process
That others would call exercise. So, what has it become

Over there, but a set routine they can’t loosen. And what more
Will it take; how much horror, before they finally recognise
That unlike the knife Abraham placed against his son Isaac’s
Throat to test favour, these brutalities will not save them,

And nor, will it in time, bring them peace. For there can be
No true peace once there’s war. Everywhere’s raw once
That happens. For peace to come we’ll need Noah, or fresh
Tablets to form and release some new unknown truth

Belonging to Mohamed, Christ, or just Moses. And then, latterly,
Buddha, though only of course from rebirth, and at a time
When one’s race and one’s place as well is location and where
Each faith is the journey that with no destination reached

Achieves worth. There are protestations today.
Temples fall, raised. Lives are bartered. If one child cries
Is religion , or humanity itself doused in dirt? This is the question
Today: what do we live or die by? What do you believe?

For what reason? Look, Gaza is stripped. Like all earth.