My Dear Readers and Friends
On April Fool's Day morning, I got a warning/Not Prank (see my first warning detailed in "To the Lighthouse: Magical Realism in Times of Crises") from X, formerly Twitter, now owned by Elon Musk, who has been accused of antisemitism MANY times, and most importantly, who now calls himself ‘Aspirationally Jewish’ after his "Rehabilitation Tour" to the "first and only democratic country" in the Middle East, Israel, accompanied by its Prime Minister" (The New York Times, Jan. 22):
We have found that your account may contain spam or be engaging in other types of platform manipulation. You may not use X’s services in a manner intended to artificially amplify, suppress information, or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience or platform manipulation defenses on X.
This warning was sent two days after the posting of NeverEnding Story: Call for Haiku and Tanka Submissions in Response to UN Report,"The Anatomy of a Genocide" and the following tanka:
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XLII: "2,000 pound block-busting bombs"
thousands more
2,000-pound bombs sent to Israel ...
Joe Biden's eyes spark
at a roomful of donors
chanting, four more years
FYI: Business Insider, March 30: Planned US arms transfer to Israel of 2,000-pound block-busting bombs branded "obscene" hypocrisy by Bernie Sanders as criticism builds
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders labeled the move "obscene" in a post on X, formerly Twitter, writing: "The US cannot beg Netanyahu to stop bombing civilians one day and the next send him thousands more 2,000 lb. bombs that can level entire city blocks."
It's all because of my fireballing poetry about Israel's US-backed War on Gaza
Here is my response:
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XLIII: "covering the war"
You and I: Covering the War
you, a reporter
hide behind the headlines
of deaths and famine ...
I mourn this Dead-Sea-wide chasm
bombed out by your contextless words
beware, beware
of my hunger and anger
as airstrikes rage
I drop fake-news-busting wordbombs
on the spokesmen for Israel
FYI: Ls 1&2 of the second tanka allude to the last stanza of one of the most read/popular Palestinian poems, "Identity Card," written by Mahmoud Darwish, poet of Palestinian resistance (1941-2008) and author of The Butterfly Effect, 2008, who died believing in the power of his poetry to make a difference.
Therefore!
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware ...
Beware ...
Of my hunger
And my anger!
The following is one of my favorite remarks on poetry:
Previously, I believed that poetry was a form of combat, but today I don't think that it has an immediate task. Its influence is very slow, cumulative.
To conclude today's April Holy Fool's Message post, I would like to share with you a relevant excerpt from Michael Enright's essay, "Seamus Heaney's last words to his wife"
In the course of the funeral tributes, his son Michael told the mourners that a few minutes before he died, the poet sent a message, in Latin, to his wife Marie. It said simply: "Noli Timere --- Don't be afraid."
Poets know about human pain and human fear.
It is part of their mandate to write about our fears, not necessarily to assuage them, but only to describe them accurately so that we know what we are dealing with.
We seem to be steeped in fear these days, marinating in the uncertainty that something dreadful is about to happen.
In his poem "The Cure at Troy", Seamus Heaney wrote;
History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
And to repeat the following call:
NeverEnding Story: Call for Haiku and Tanka Submissions in Response to UN Report,"The Anatomy of a Genocide"
Happy Holy Fool's Day
Chen-ou
FYI: The Holy Fool (Yuródivyy, chiefly radical Eastern Orthodoxy), often associated with gifts of prophecy and vision, publicly acts as if mad or foolish (for Christ).
In my case, it's for Truth because
The first casualty, when war comes, is truth.
Hiram Johnson (1866-1945), a Progressive Republican senator in California)
And The Hill, April 1: Israel’s government passes law to temporarily shut down Al Jazeera
Israel’s legislature passed a law Monday paving the way to shut down the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network, under legislation allowing for the temporary ban of foreign news networks that the government deems a threat to national security.
The law passed Israel’s Knesset 71-10 in its second and third reading in the Knesset plenum...
But the Biden administration said it was concerned over the Israeli passage of the law.
“We’ve seen the reports and certainly I’m going to refer to Israel for what they may or may not be considering. But if it is true, a move like this is concerning. We believe in the freedom of the press. It is critical. It is critically important,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday.
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