Attitudes toward death and sacrifice play an essential role in Gaza’s resilience. Here, death really is a constant companion. Yet it is not viewed as an ending but as a continuation of a larger struggle.

Suffering, in this worldview, becomes a portal to another realm, where the values and principles people live for persist.

The resistance of Gaza is the embodiment of a powerful rejection: It is a refusal to accept injustice and subjugation and a call for the world to recognize that freedom and dignity are worth every sacrifice.

In the end, Gaza’s suffering is not without purpose. It is the flame that continues to burn, lighting the way forward, even when all else seems lost.

 Asem Alnabih,                                                                                                           When suffering becomes an affirmation of life                                           The Electronic Intifada

POEM

At your light side trees shy

A kneeling enters them

Saint Geraud (Bill Knott)

The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans

 they still got that kats for kamala sign in the yard. that's one reason they lost. they lied. there are no kats for kamala, or genocide. kats are anarkist.

 shoelaces will untie themselves, and knot themselves when one tries to untie them. the spiral turns into a twist. the loop turns into a noose. thoughts unravel and ravel again.

 some buddy removed the hand of fate, (which was unglued and adhered by moist adhesion), but fortunately i had a backup in my memory card.

 

same old song. netinyahu is a mass murderer. biden's his partner in crime. let's all watch the bibi files. 

 pardons kids for cash judge. bombs kids in palestine. genocide joe.

obama the oligarch's epic styrofoam landscape of displacement in the park.

i'm just trying to sleep here. humans, oh brother! 

 

who was that crazy cat who woke us up at 4am?

that wasn't me.

we are drawn to entropy, aren't we?

 

boycott xmas while america destroys palestine.

 

 i think about my friend, now dead, reading this. this place where a spirit might come.

 olive woke at four this morning. we woke at four, we three. the moon was full of light from the absent sun, jupiter and mars appeared. it is funny, the same cat who chewed the wires under the bed, and attacked our sleeping feet, rests now so peacefully in the sink.

we feed the monster. the monster grows.

 

 i called bug. i just wanted to make sure he's ok. i think i have to put bug on pause. he's got a pad now. i trust he's relatively safe. at least he's not riding the trains. he keeps talking about the immigrants, they're eating pets, they're raping people. then he says it's the one percent that runs the world. he recognizes that the rich are destroying the planet, but he still blames the immigrants. anyway, i know he was living in the urban wild for many years, and a lot happens to people to make them the way they are, and i know there are multitudes that are powerless in the scheme of things and blame the ones that are even weaker than them. it's unbearable. i just can't bear to hear it. 

i know, it's the system.
i know it's complicated.
i know we voted for it.
i know they're planning more genocide.
i know the oligarchs made this hell on earth.
i just want to say one thing.
fuck the empire of hate,
fuck the terror state.

 

building anxiety, unraveling world.

 looking down at the encroaching development i had the feeling of seeing something so long you can't see it anymore but it's there you see it and moreover feel it in your gut. 

 yes we are, smitten by the kitten. it amazes how a cat can enhance, and entrance, a family. olive is a joy and a balm to the spirit sorely tried by the status quo.

 i'm ever a dog boy and a cat man now. yes i am smitten by the kitten. it's a need unlike the old lust for bottled spirits. the kid keeps on feeding my sober soul. so i can wonder about human depravity. how can it get so bad that we have to pay and pay for the criminal state to wage democratic genocide. it's murder in other places but it's psychological terror at home. home? the obamachron is the home front of the encroaching terror state across the street. the home we have is ever within. 

 how long will the u.s. of israel be allowed to continue its campaign of genocide. is there a possibility of stopping the murderous rampage. how can we survive on the scorched earth.

olive in sink. 

 

 just watched haneke's film of kafka's the castle. it's just like reading the book, yet with haneke's characters from funny games and the white ribbon and it's the same world they inhabit and we inhabit and it's confounding as a dream you live within. you can't escape and you know it can't be resolved but you can't stop trying.

 well, you wanted a kitten.

 we saw a runner running toward us by the dog yard. charlie veered their way to catch their scent. the runner all in black took out her black earphones and whipped around saying what the fuck! what? i did not say the fuck. i said charlie did nothing to you! not the slightest sign of aggression! the runner said she was hit by a car by jumping away from a dog into the street. but you did not jump this time, this time there was no danger, and you saw that, but you had to say what the fuck! i love myself for being so calm. in the past i would have been more aggressive than the runner in black with ear plugs and anger and a mean and anti-social attitude. 

 we did not see each other for many years. it's sad that she's not here.

 imagine this is as real as it gets. 

    the day before the day after today the day after the day before today.

 

 i think maybe something has to break inside before we can know gratitude, though we were likely born knowing it.

no, that wasn't me.