A Slow Moving Genocide of the Palestinians
Was this built-in in the original plan
Of Israel's genesis...
When did an honorable defense
Become a slow moving genocide?
When the land was captured temporarily,
Then never given back?
When a labyrinth wall was built
To further crowd a corralled population?
Cleverly, you made agreements
When the world was watching
Then easily broke your word
When the world looked away.
Now you instruct the settlers stealing territory
That they can have those houses over there
If they remove the families dwelling within,
What do you call the occupants,
Vermin?
I note, too, how well your bombs target children
Dead – they will never have
Children of their own,
And how well you bullets target women
Dead – they can no longer bear children,
Leaving only men who
Stewing in the bitterness you have strewn
Will grow old sooner and die younger.
And when your genocide is complete,
Will you say,
“They brought it on themselves?”
Carl Scott Harker ©2021
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My latest book of poetry — poems written between late April to Late October, 2020, can be found on Amazon here: Above Us Only Sky.