Chapter 1: A World I’m Learning
1.
It’s October/ the grass here is lush/ I put my knees in soft soil/ face Jerusalem/ to conjure secular Salah. Praise be to Allah.
Palesten is Ancient/ across the partition/ racists/ sit elevated/ chewing apples/ eating Challah/ popping bazooka gum/ eyes on arab annihilation
What way/ is this way? eh?/ As if this is Yahweh/ Like Semitic isn’t also Allah
2.
I like to tell my other sisters of my 1st times in my sisters masjid/ i tell her I’m afraid to do wrong/ she reassures me
We lose ur shoes, plump our rumps on decorative carpeting for sermon/ I’m covered in correctly/ though no one-
kicks me to the curb/ in fact I am pulled in further/ I see how devotion is the act of returning/ when you don’t know-
because you don’t know/ on our way out she invites me to come again/ InShaAllah
3.
When Israel started its assault on Gaza/ once again/ me and this sister/ were here in the West/ getting Pizza and frozen dates/ from a Muslim man
They are common foods in the land of Caanan/ after we head to her gym- she gloves up-
punching the past/ punching the present/ challenging the future/ blows so powerful- she became a single woman intifada
I think I’ll patron the same shop for those hearty dates/ my mother is fasting for her weight/ and the sugar can keep me
upright on the streets when I march/
May her blood sugar stay balanced during a time of change/ I shall see Palestine free/ Alhamdulillah
Chapter: Universities & Land Acquisition
4.
I dropped out of my colonial college/ they acquired us with the fall of the old empire/
I have not/ graduated/ but I am/ liberated
It/ owns/ 11 schools globally/ beginning in New England/ by its teeth/ Oakland is its newest catch
They call us satellite campuses/ I call us territories/ Ohlone land longs for priority but finds occupation
5.
When the old empire kicked rocks/ tears for indigenous wishes fell on deaf ears-
They drafted daddy’s sons/ to come make honest women of us/ feels more like we were sentenced to a disappearing act
they were sent to work over us wretched wenches
then came white pride gangs, rapes have run rampant, territory scorched in pee, slurs to silence us savages, allahu akbar
6.
Praise be to Allah. Duas are due. I do-
not want this life/ lost in their lies/ if the road gets better/ let me stay the ride/
if it does not/ i’d rather wade in fresh waters/ until YOU my creator/ deliver me new
My God is sufficient/ I cannot/ be undone/ allahu akbar
7.
Praise be to Allah.
My Black Bostonian major advisor allows himself to be a pawn to the old white establishment
He speaks/ over me/ rhetorically wondering/ why someone like me/ would be in school/ with grades like these-
like I’m unworthy of the struggle/ he wants us out/ they wants us out/ they all want us out/ I must leave
They curse us/ they block us/ they flank us/ they laugh in our faces/ they walk right past us/ they surveil us-
but we are not seen/ I know they will exile us first and never ask later/ they/ are not with/ Allah
Chapter 3: Israel is a Terror State
8.
Israel is using bombs to blow apart earth and make mass graves to unbrown the holy land/ how does that even work?
Israel sent guns to Rwanda to help the French keep the Hutus ideologies disoriented for the slaughter of the Tutsi
To assist the apartheid in South Africa/ to unalive the Mayans in Guatemala-
so skinheads with swastikas stamped into their skin in the states can kneel on our necks/ we cry mama so loud-
our screams can be heard in palestine cutting through the whistle and eruption of stingers-
Israel is a terror state/ they force Paternalism/ they say their actions are Bismillah
9.
Zionists hide behind the Star of David/ but it’s the soul of a people not the soil/ the wants do not justify the means
Israeli Prophets warned of the dangers and the crimes of statehood on tribes
they warned in Yahweh, settler colonialism is not the way/ Yuafiqunah Allah
10.
A people/ a nation/ a land protected by God/ no man/ nor no monster/ can erase me
Jews haunted by the holocaust break bread/ love thy neighbors/ teach history/ triumph by God
Zionists harbor Aryan evil and will not give the pain to Allah
Chapter 4: All Power to Palestine & People of the Globe
11.
At noon on Jummah/ did you hear the many rise from the rubble in Gaza/ face Kaaba/ pray for abundance
Did you not see arab youth of the diaspora make demands/ disturb the elite eating lunch on wall street-
stop street traffic in Frisco/ link arms in front of federales/ did you not see Jews take on Washington DC
Did you not hear anti terror project talk stop cop cities/ bringing wisdom of South Africa/ Korea/ Haiti
Did you not see Black folks raise our fists high in solidarity/ hear the bass in our voices/ ressurect negro spirituals-
Did you not hush when our Indigenous siblings showed us the power of O how our voices create the wild collective
Do you not hear us chant death to project white power?/ This October/ have you not tried calling The Almighty, Allah?
12.
Have you donated?/ Have you marched?/ Have you called your elected officials? Have you boycotted?
Will you serve in the holy war? Will you sacrifice to disempower the elite and their goals of imperialism?
I shall wake up every morning listening for Allah
13.
75 years and not one more
Palestine shall be free/ and hurt no more
Like Mosab Abu Toha wrote/ If we say their names/ we’ll have the names of the martyrs- hidden in our ears-
in their ascent/ cover them please Allah
14.
When I say: FROM THE RIVER TO SEE THE SEA
you say: PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA
PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA
PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!