A POEM FOR GAZA Remi - Poems Written by Remi Kanazi    I never knew death until I saw the bombing of a refugee camp Craters filled with disfigured ankles and splattered torsos  But no sign of a face, the only impression a fading scream I never understood pain Until a seven-year-old girl clutched my hand Looked up at me with soft brown eyes, waiting for answers But I didn’t have any  I had muted breath and dry pens in my back pocket That couldn’t fill pages of understanding or resolution In her other hand, she held the key to her grandmother’s house But I couldn’t unlock the cell that caged her older brothers They said, we slingshot dreams so the other side will feel our father’s presence A craftsman Built homes in areas where Palestinians no one was building And when he fell, he was silent A .50 caliber bullet tore through his neck shredding his vocal cords Too close to the wall His hammer must have been a weapon He must have been a weapon Encroaching on settlement hills and demographics So his daughter studies mathematics Seven explosions times eight bodies  Equals four Congressional resolutions Seven Apache helicopters times eight Palestinian villages Equals silence and a second Nakba Our birthrate minus their birthrate  Equals one sea and 400 villages re-erected One state plus two peoples…and she can’t stop crying Never new revolution or the proper equation Tears at the paper with her fingertips Searching for answers, but only has teachers Looks up to the sky and see stars of David demolishing squalor with Hellfire missiles  She thinks back words and memories of his last hug before he turned and fell Now she pumps dirty water from wells, while settlements divide and conquer And her father’s killer sits beachfront with European vernacular She thinks back words, while they think backwards Of obscene notions and indigenous confusion This our land!, she said She’s seven years old This our land!, she said And she doesn’t need a history book or schoolroom teacher She has these walls, this sky, her refugee camp She doesn’t know the proper equation But she sees my dry pens No longer waiting for my answers Just holding her grandmother’s key…searching for ink	COEXISTENCE   Remi - Poems Written by Remi Kanazi    I don’t want to coexist Not like good guys and bad guys in True Lies and propaganda Put on blackface as cab drivers or deli owners in racist comedies Not bomb Dunkin Donuts with my Kuffiyeh  Fist pound Fox News Or let you steal my food and call it Israeli salad I won’t Mess with the Zohan Or let him turn the rocks of Palestinian children into balloon animals While Israeli soldiers snipe our children’s heads, shoulders, knees, and stomachs Hollywood snipes ears of young ones with lovable tales of blue and white heroes   I am not looking for your approval Not a token role or a job on my knees scrubbing toilets in Israel’s Congress I’d rather fight with blacks and Latinos against oppression Than concede to a mainstream plantation that sees me as Other Unless I’m checking a college application I don’t believe in the tooth fairy  Or 2000 claims of homes you supposedly deserve  When people resurrected and walked on water I’ll exist in a world that fights against racism like Martin and Malcolm Bleeds ghetto tales of Steve Biko  As a song that never dies no matter what Apartheid makes of our bodies Feeds mouths in Belfast streets and resurrects Bobby Sand’s message So that we will never be hungry again And whether you know it or not I am the best solution you have One man asking for one vote Telling you to look at the sea And I will never drive you into it I will never return the favor I am not outstretching an olive branch and a rifle I’m extending reality Because being surrounded by so-called enemies on your border Is easier than enemies in your town and election centers We may not be brothers, but this neighborhood has made us cousins I don’t want to coexist! I want to exist as a human being And justice will take care of the rest!