Mizna is honored to publish Mohammed Zenia’s “Gaza 2 Khartoum,” published as part of Mizna 25.1: Catastrophe Issue. Link to order here.
Toussaint Nate Turner Leila Khaled John Brown Tubman Joseph Garang
(2 name but so many few)
— Mohammed Zenia
Birdsong drifts
Over murder north
(But this is more than murder)
They are trying to unname the dead
Whole litanies of olive bloodlines stuffed teeth Moloch
Cadillac future moves its carrion cannon/
Like famous fathers of death before them
An air raid silence rumbles the pentagon but
No body tinged burns will bear the
Silence of tectonic plates no longer
– Maybe this does mean war,
– But altogether I think we may be on opposite sides of the equation—
Cross over Golgotha has long been buried maimed or homeless and the stench of this
Evil traces its first step lost colonies nestled island desert Virginia
Burials at sea
But the kids of Kumerica still holster their Stones
No surprise who is who,
Clearly this has always been here—2 many for 2 long have in vain explained
And some even rode—
Toussaint Nate Turner Leila Khaled John Brown Tubman Joseph Garang
(2 name but so many few)
Jihadist for the Word
After kingdom walls fell
Serpent struck Jericho
— Fucked Babel —
— Today We stand shoulder to shoulder in the trenches of resistance —
Oct 7th—communique from the Sudanese communist
Party trapped in the bombed out suburbs of Omdurman—
From Shendi 2 Jerusalem echoes the prophecy,
That this world will burn its shell 2 make way anew.
—Ellijah has fled 2 Chad on the back of a Toyota—
And the holy land has fallen into the hands of the Romains once again—
From Al-Aqsa to Mosul we avenge the ruins but inshallah
There will be birds born free over Gaza once more and no slight
Can unravel this fundamental truth
The earth may never yield its burns
The cosmos maintain its mysterious silence
Our long march 2 exile repeated
Over and over to the soundtrack
Of Triumph of the will
And if the deathcamp is the only future
Then
Serenely we will engage the
Endless intifada
To face this
Future of war.
But climate change is I empire is indigenous struggle.
And from Lenape 2 Palestine 2 San Juan 2 the Nile basin
Back 2 Patagonia
In Bay Ridge outside the Hemos you
Could smell the sage.
Diana Di Prima once wrote about
How it feels,
To be up to your eyeballs
Revolution— love spelled backwards
And I couldn’t help but cry
Cuz’ it’s really that
For a free Palestine A free Sudan land back America 2 Australia
S/o Wellhanue
The Philippines and Guam will see the sun
Thailand 2 Nepal beam without the yoke
Planet Arab rise LOVE
\The true unification of the Habeshas nation
From Sahrawi 2 the five stars of Somalia
Yemen breath birth!
Borderless AFRICA drum spread the healing
(Earth without sadness)
Our conferred confederacy tribes
Once and will again
HOLD GARDEN PAST PRESENT FUTURE
Till it’s backward.
Free Palestine.
(From the river to the sea)
Palestine free.
Mohammed Zenia is the author of Tel Aviv, James Baldwin’s Lungs in the 80s, and Black Bedouin. Their work has appeared in e-flux, Changes Review, poetry project AND 240 magazine among other publications.
We are proud to present this text as part of a list of resources to take action for and learn about Palestine, as well as works by Palestinian artists, writers, activists, and cultural workers.