Private Sonnet Road Through Settlements and Tears
by John Kendall Hawkins
.
Reigning dogmas and concatenations
bottle rockets from the Golem Heights
bombs on Hamas, on al Jazeera's zen
raining bombs on men in tights
'Salem tomatoes watching CNN
couch remotes in hand, eating army rations
If only I could have been a wailing wall
We hear words -- lambasted, apart-hate, bulldozers
Apart-Hate-in-chief-Nitwityahoo, says Tlaib
It's Pegasus, please pick up your phone
And you picture against your will
3 Israelis cheering when the towers came down
suddenly you're a conspiracy theory shrill
lizard listening in to their prayers
Pick up sticks and sundry stones
may break the donkey jaw's bones
and don't you think that should be sufficient?
But now the little Gaza kids
have taken to throwing locusts
like fusillades of hocus pocus
Take that, they scream, you Yids!
as seas dried up and famine came with tears --
Arafat is turning in his grave
like a scapegoat on a spit
the crazy f*ck was no slave
but what's he got to show for it?
O Oslo you let me down
Your Checkpoints have coffee stands, ours a frown
tribes of the Three Abes in an endless pall
Americans are fleeing the West Bank
as a precaution, by the thousands
waving goodbye to their summer settlements, bye
knock knock knockin' on the Embassy door
"Get me out, I can't take no more"
returning to the Upper Eastside
till word comes the lawn's been mowed, they hide
constantly conjuring up miracles
schizophrenia is a two-state solution, too
boo-fuckin-hoo
to get by, make it to the next prophet
Balfour, you're out!
Take first base, take it all, take it all
and a new Jerusalem -- or soffit
Zionists with that crazy look in their eyes again
hungry to bomb the dome of the rock
to bring this world to a whimpering end
the whole planet circled in chalk
then one of them took a rock to the dome
and it turned his mind to loamy loam
shmamits, tiny arch and pink oracles
welcome to the hot hell davidfornia
you can check in but never ever leave
cue the solo blues
when Biden comes, throw the shoes
that look down on you like Woody Allen
the Israelization of America is almost complete
75 years of war have made footsoldiers of us all
O say can you see
a shin bet gonad to the knee?
That Palestinian George Floyd sure did.
at the kibbutz, between lectures on Marx
You could start world culture over
with the America Jew, free minds,
culture to die for, and what soup!
L'chaim and Fiddler on the Roof
and Dylan's a Ukrainian Jew:
let's ask him about Burisma!
and Piketty, little narrative arcs
the muscle toughs are at work
making sure it never happens again
on weekends they watch reruns of Shoah
and say, each to each, are we not men?
Then read passages from the Torah
and thank God they hate pork
that tauntingly trace how we have fallen.
I'd like to see all the checkpoints in Ramallah
turned into drive-through Mickey Ds,
and I'd like to teach the world to sing
in perfect harmony
Now get the f*ck out of here
I ain't no 60s queer
Self-loathing Semites in devolution
who laugh about the two-state solution.
(Article changed on May 20, 2021 at 8:32 PM EDT)
