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August 30, 2024

Gaza 2 Khartoum

And the World Borne Between

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

Gaza 2 Khartoum

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. 


Toward a Free Palestine: Resources to Learn About and Act for Palestine

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.


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