You have to kill the poets

When they laugh at your lies.

You know there were no babies,

burned in an oven on the seventh of October.

Not one.

A baby killed in an oven has a dreadful resonance

In a culture haunted by the nightmare

Of so many of them in the forties

Too much so not to use the idea

Made hallucinogenic by past fears

Constantly stoked

To put a genocide beyond moral question.

Unbearable to have that exposed to ridicule

To have self deception stripped bare

By caustic words that cut to the nerve ends

So much better to pretend

That the poet was mocking the baby

As if it was as real

As all the babies killed by the Nazis

Than allow any self reflection

On why you need to make up a lie

As terrible as that.

Better by far to kill the poet

Before he expose you again.

But the explosion from the bomb you used

To kill him,

his sister,

his brother in law,

and their four children,

has blown his words

around the world

like a million kites

written in two hundred languages,

has thrown his pen

in your soldiers faces,

and a phoenix alights

in a billion hearts.

Somos todos…

Nous sommes tous…

We are all…

12/12/23

In homage to Refaat Alareer; Poet, teacher, Palestinian. 23/9/79 – 6/12/23