Taylor Swift drops a fresh fiery album,
Near rubble it plays
on a shattered Palestinian phone,
in what one called home,
now turned to talcum.
Critically overly bombastic,
yet the cast finds it fantastic.
 

Far removed
from the theatre of the sand
amidst rubble, splintered pine, shattered wall,
many seek to claim
their share of a sacred land.
Those digging through rubble
lament withered red poppies
along with their memories of old.
 

On distant quiet hills, joyful, they hear
the boom of fireworks, rockets, loud and clear.
On the ground the shockwaves
bring teary-eyed tides,
giving rise to their single spring.
Across the wall, parades, victors today!
Celebrated by way of counless grenades.
 

Most know, but pay no mind
to this act — the theatre lies comfortably away.
Easiest to watch talking heads without talent
speak in anger of wedges to divide.
"Keep them out, with crashing hundred-foot waves."
Demanding to segregate. Never to repatriate.
No reason to hear listening wind.
 

In the shattered home
on the shattered phone playing “Guilty as Sin?”,
a poor mother will lose her baby lamb,
to be dismissed by media as a sham
played by an actor. How would it feel
to be told what you held in blood-soaked hands
had never been born nor loved? (You act so well.)
 

A play centuries old, does it speak when told?
Is the voice drowned by the unconsoled
who scream, before they evaporate?
Pointless policies, written in blood
turn the pages of this act.
Gnarled olive trees older than prophecies,
turn to splintered wood under stars that grieve.