In lieu of An Essay, Some Poems
Short messages for you all today. I hope you're watering your plants, and drinking some tea. Taking the time and energy to experience all the rage, grief, distrust, sadness, confusion, revulsion, and immense love as we're witnessing yet another “final solution,” the bombardment of Rafah, Gaza by Zionist forces including Israel and the United States
government.
I’m including some poems from Noor Hindi, a queer Palestinian-American poet and writer. I’m finding much hope these days in the words and messages of militant, QTBIPOC student occupiers from Cal Poly Humboldt, CUNY, UCLA, and elsewhere.
Our work is not done, yet.
May we fall all walls, and may we soon free ourselves.
***
Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are
Dying
By Noor Hindi
Colonizers write about flowers.
I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks
seconds before becoming daisies.
I want to be like those poets who care about the moon.
Palestinians don’t see the moon from jail cells and prisons.
It’s so beautiful, the moon.
They’re so beautiful, the flowers.
I pick flowers for my dead father when I’m sad.
He watches Al Jazeera all day.
I wish Jessica
would stop texting me Happy Ramadan.
I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies.
Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound.
When I die, I promise to haunt you forever.
One day, I’ll write about the flowers like we own them.
**
Thirst
By Noor Hindi
That summer, Amman was a broken
railing I tried to lean on
& the Athan was like a song
I tried & tried to love. I was
little & terrified
of God, my lust
hanging
from the roots of my hair —
what did I know of hunger
which moved at the speed
of fingers exploring a body
I wanted to be mine. I
remember
my grandmother
tapping her feet during iftar,
say al-Hamdillah, say I am thankful
for this sunlight, this
sorrow,
this summer which is endless
& tastes like a heat. After iftar,
I would hold her hand, let her guide
me to the women’s mosque
where dirt
lined
the soles of their feet,
their hands clutching prayer beads,
eyes with us & not. I longed
for that softness & surrender
which I mistook
for faith.
Oh Allah, I never found you
in those spaces. Oh Allah,
it’s true: I became selfish, years later.
It’s true I wanted to
fuck
her — drank to drink
& get drunk until I was brave
& no longer a girl
wiping my teeth
with pages of the
Quran.
When morning came, one of us
spent hours washing
her hands in an ocean of bleach,
the other stumbled into a
mosque
for the first time in years
& howled at Allah for creating
appetites & tongues, for lungs
that inhale so much of this world.
*
All My Plants Are Dead
By Noor Hindi
I stopped trying
to feed anything but myself.
I woke up yesterday and couldn’t see
a road, then I woke up the next day
and someone gave me a book
about male entitlement
that I drowned in orange juice
before setting fire to my desk.
I am trying to be more even tempered.
I am trying to eat my Craisins in peace.
Sometimes I think I would
like
to have the memory of a dog,
it would make me more forgiving.
Someone tells me to imagine
my troubles as leaves floating
away in a river, so I ask them why
men have giant mouths
and there I go again fucking
things up with my politics.
Yesterday a white guy tried
telling me what it’s like to be a woman
of color so I placed my hands
in his mouth and ripped out his vocal cords.
I am not a political
person.
Let’s talk about the moon.
It’s so pretty tonight.
No. Fuck that. I am the moon.
Description of the artist (from her website):
Noor Hindi (she/her/hers) is calling on you to join the global fight for the survival and liberation of Palestinians and all oppressed people. Anywhere and everywhere you are, you can disrupt, advocate, speak out and refuse in small and big ways. Revolution until freedom.
Hindi is a Palestinian-American poet. Her debut collection of poems, Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow
(Haymarket Books 2022), was an honorable mention for the Arab American Book Award. She is currently editing a Palestinian poetry anthology with George Abraham (Haymarket Books, 2025). Follow her on Instagram @NoorKHindi.
