Vox Populi
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Joy Gaines-Friedler: Guest Appearance
Israel, Oct. 7, 2023
I had a small, non-speaking part,
a morning call in the massacre scene.
Five hours–I was made to walk in circles,
pace the floor, check the clock.
The scene was full color, sound, and soundless.
Fields of guava, the houses burned. Children fled; A festival
of music played in the background then went blade silent.
Their blood disappeared into the sand.
They hired extras to do the slaughtering, & later,
to pour in through the breached borders to steal
laptops & the kids’ bikes.
In the end, grenade pins sparkled in the desert sun
outside the packed then blown-to-pieces shelters,
miles of machine gunned cars,
(drivers plastered against glass & rubber),
babies killed in their cribs & bunk beds,
parents forced to watch, then slaughtered
in their pajamas.
In the burnt acreage, the stench of motorcycle exhaust
carrying hostages west
hummed with the distant sound of approaching tanks & drones.
Critics immediately weighed in; it was too bloody;
it wasn’t bloody enough. They couldn’t tell
who were the enemy, who, the innocent.
Audiences were told, none of what you saw is real.
The farmers & children killed themselves, an excuse
to invade others. It was lambs that were slaughtered
for the festival of harvest. It was all made up
in order that war crime could meet war crime.
My part was played from home – standing in my kitchen,
standing, sitting, standing, checking my husband’s face,
he checking mine.
~~~~
Joy Gaines-Friedler is a photographer and poet. Her publications include Capture Theory.
Copyright 2024 Joy Gaines-Friedler
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Excerpt from Thomas Lux’ poem’The People of the Other Village’: “The quicksand pits they built were good. / Our amputation teams were better. / We trained some birds to steal their wheat. / They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace. / They do this, we do that.”
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How many thousands of years has the tit-for-tat killing gone on? It seems never to stop–will there ever be a day when such poems are no longer essential? One war crime does not justify another; meanwhile, perhaps we all feel helpless, but poems can get us through day by day. Thank you, Joy.
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Hey, Meg! Yes – thus the line “in order that war crime could meet war crime” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel – who marched with MLK said that war is a crime against God.
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I am so glad to see this poem published here. Since the Hamas atrocities, the Israeli voice has been silenced in most publications.
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Unfortunately, the terrorism of October 7 has been used to justify the wholesale slaughter of people in Gaza. I’m glad that Joy has not fallen into that rhetorical trap in this poem.
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Never.
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Thank you for giving us this poetry of witnessing. To write this type of poetry after October 7th in Israel seems essential, as it does for writers who confront any terrorism whether at Auschwitz, Selma, or Gaza. Essential, but painful for the writers, and the readers. Bur more so for the victims.
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Indeed.
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