"Eye to Eye"
A Poem to Americans by a Palestinian Youth
By:Gihad Ali
____________ _________ _________ _________ _
Look into my eyes
And tell me what you see
You don't see a damn thing
cause you can't possibly relate to me.
You're blinded by our differences.
My life makes no sense to you.
I'm the persecuted Palestinian.
You are the American red, white and blue.
Each day you wake in tranquility.
No fears to cross your eyes.
Each day I wake in gratitude.
Thanking God he let me rise.
You worry about your education
And the bills you have to pay.
I worry about my vulnerable life
And if I'll survive another day.
Your biggest fear is getting ticketed
As you cruise your Cadillac.
My fear is that the tank that just left
Will turn around and come back.
America, do you realize
That the taxes that you pay
Feed the forces that traumatize
My every living day?
The bulldozers and the tanks
The gases and the guns
The bombs that fall outside my door
All due to American funds.
Yet do you know the truth
Of where your money goes?
Do you let your media deceive your mind?
Is this a truth that no one knows?
You blame me for defending myself
Against the ways of Zionists
I'm terrorized in my own land
And I'm the terrorist
You think that you know all about terrorism
But you don't know it the way I do
So let me define the term for you
And teach you what you thought you knew
I've known terrorism for quite some time
Fifty- four years and more
It's the fruitless garden uprooted in my yard
It's the bulldozer in front of my door
Terrorism breathes the air I breathe
It's the checkpoint on my way to school
It's the curfew that jails me in my own home
And the penalties of breaking that curfew rule
Terrorism is the robbery of my land
And the torture of my mother
The imprisonment of my innocent father
The bullet in my baby brother
So America , don't tell me you know about
The things I feel and see
I'm terrorized in my own land
And the blame is put on me.
But I will not rest, I shall never settle
For the injustice my people endure
Palestine is OUR land and there we'll remain
Until the day OUR homeland is secure
And if that time shall never come
Then they will never see a day of peace
I will not be thrown from my own home
Nor will the fight for justice cease
And if I am killed, it will be for Falasteen
It's written in my breath
So in your own patriotic words
Give me liberty or give me death.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I'm struggling to understand how you interpret this Janessa. As someone in favor of a non-interventionist american foreign policy and free trade with all nations I fell horrible for the children that reportedly wrote this poem. I wish my tax dollars weren't being directed to phony wars. I wish to tell those kids that many of us disagree with our foreign polciy but we are merely trying to earn a libing to pay for our kids lives and the government takes our money without any real permission. If we don't pay or protest too much our homes are taken away we are tasered or attacked by government agents, but in most cases we are just ignored.
I struggle to understand how you interpret this poem, because you seem caught up in show trial theatrics against ex-cia(sadam) operatives that glamorize our criminal wars.
I also know that religion is used by the most powerful islamic political regimes in the mid-east to stir up some of the worst violence against Israel and don't understand why we continue to support some of these regimes with tax payer dollars from hard working americans that just want to leave peaceful lives.
Post a Comment