Finding a sanctuary in an inferno

You will be forgiven
Just not yet
Just not now
I had a vision
of the country
where you live now
but all I can think of
is the Iraqui war
the Gulf War, cues
All I have is this
This morning
and Palestine
I fight the pain
of you leaving me
The odour of death
all around me
Sanctuary and Jung
is to be found there
All life is sacred
There is a divine power
in blood and lymph
internal fluid, echoes
of past trauma
I am empowered
by this night for
on this night
I speak for poets
whose voices cannot
be heard anymore
for in this realm
they are no longer
familiar to me and
cannot be heard.
Another sleepless night
The enemy turns into a snake
Another sleepless night
Blood turns into a river
Another sleepless night
The dead Palestinian poet
is a human stain that cannot
be washed clean
All these clothes are
bloodstained and thick
with the energy of death
In my dream comes
the image of the interior
of a tunnel but there's
no light to guide the angels
home just this poem
becoming a river and these
bloodstained clothes
of a woman whose entire
family was wiped out
by an air strike and all
that is left is rubble and
dead children buried
beneath the rubble
In a former life it was
a school playground
but now there's only
the coverage of internal fluid
blood and lymph.
I am writing for all
the Palestinian poets
who were martyred
but I'm writing for Israel
for Israeli poets too
In war no one wins
I want you to remember that.