HIC JACET GAZAM – HERE LIES GAZA

 

HIC JACET GAZAM (accusative case)

 

Hic jacet:

Here lies,

Where there was strength, 

Hopelessness,

A redaction of history,

The rendering of an

Abrahamic race,

A pitiless erase.

 

Hinc illae lacrimae,

Where endless tears,

Are a symptom 

Of systematic,

Annihilation,

Blood lust,

Apartheid,

And Genocide.

 

Hoc est bellum

War, 

They cry out,

They celebrate.

A clarion call

To congregate

To justify, to apply

The Beit Knesset lie.

 

Hac lege,

The law,

They declare

To an assembly of 

The dead

In the Beit Lahiya dunes

And ever haunted ruins.

 

Hic jacet,

Here lies,

Amongst the sycamore figs,

Where a father digs,

With dust tears,

And fatigue of life

For a decapitated child

And much loved wife.

 

Hinc illae lacrimae

Searing tears

For the thousands

Of innocents;

And they are:

Starved of love

Of sustenance,

And of deliverance.

 

 

Homo homini lupus,

They, the eretz wolves;

Are voracious,

Sacrificing lambs to deposit,

In the timeless layers:

A knesset of bones,

A charnel house

Of endless attribution

And retribution.

Homo sum,

I am a human being,

Haunted,

Because for Gaza

I can do nothing,

Except with these words

The wolves condemn.

Words, however, for dead children,

Are a useless requiem.