Blame a Palestinian
If on Margate Sands it’s not
nothing we find, connected with nothing.
If the horizoned ships are only that,
secretless tramps towing rags and widgets
to mundane ports; and when we approach,
the sea settles without calling, the clouds
crash soundless above, offer no more solace
than bickering gulls.
If the chip shop on the strand is
only itself—plus a woman dashing to the corner for a smoke;
and if, when the parasols are brought in, some snotty kid remarks:
Your poem, it’s gone wrong—
It’s been generations since a parasol stood on Margate Sands.
And if on the train home we’re reminded of
possible threats to life and property, of knifings, bombings,
in short, terrorist attacks—Please,
enjoy your journey.
And if this poem suddenly veers,
if this poem suddenly
jumps the tracks; if everything
is now rubble—rubble, scrap and smoke,
dust, dust, dust; howling, howling and
death death death.
If this poem, this poem suddenly plummets, crashes
down from our great questions, our
wavering lodestar, beginnings, our end; if
it’s slipped greasily into sloganeering
If this poem, if this poem, this poem’s a mess,
death death death
Blame a Palestinian,
dead, dying, still breathing,
refusing, refusing, refusing
to disappear.
This, for instance
This, for instance, for which
I will surely be accused of antisemitism.
For mentioning those 15, those 20 medics murdered
by the IDF.
This also, stupidly, about how poems fail and fail, and fail again.
And the world shrugs.
Another word, another word, another syllable,
a comma, a breath held back even, would
of its own weight tumble
into oblivion.
Would tumble, pulling
the whole damn contraption down behind it.
And the world shrugs.
And the only thing I know is
that words come after words
until they don’t.
