The Straight Path: In Praise Of Israeli and Palestinian Poets

I am writing this to honour the dead. Every single person that’s experienced affliction during this, what they call, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Like Yehuda Amichai, I “believe that all poetry is political because it deals with a human response to reality”. King Netanyahu, King Palestine, I bow before you. War builds new empires, genocides build new countries. In a heartbeat poets are immortalised during war. This has taken place since ancient times. This has been a bad year. Israeli and Palestinian poets and writers are chasing hope, peace of mind. Mosab Abu Toha writes, “I have these stories with me. The hard part was reflecting on my feelings, not my experience. There are two parts to any story, the experience and the feelings…And this is what poetry is to me”.

A poet understands the blank page because they are a philosopher. The night sky isn’t an airstrike, it turns into starlight, a constellation beyond becomes a wildflower, a hostage becomes a freedom fighter. A poet has no country, a poet belongs to the world, and they speak on behalf of humanity, for the generation that came before, and the one that will follow.

It isn’t war, it is a fight for humanity, for the return of a divine power to set the record straight. It isn’t conflict, it is more of a human nature to amplify the genetic predispositions for chronic illness, mood disorder, and manic depression. In that meeting room, that place, that space, holding the laws, in that tender room lies the rhythm and vibration of eternal rest. The poet is the holder of a moral compass.

In the poet’s hands a straight path becomes a detailed map encompassing vision and interior, shapes of consolation that carry divine power.

What is this vision

this interior

these shapes of consolation

men, women, children

turn into a wave

their body becomes

a ripple in a sea

this poem lands in a river

for all eternity

Poets have a sacred language

every word is from the divine

All life is sacred

Poetry nourishes. In conflict, we confront and sabotage.

I fade into your hurt

into this poem

into your collective pain

to build a home

to build a country

to build a sanctuary

in war, it takes peace

a collective peace of mind

words, the poems

of Israeli and Palestinian poets

it is only death that parts us

in war there are tanks

but also summer and wildflowers

I suppose if you can

handle melancholy (see depression)

you can handle anything.

Death is neither

just or fair. Life is neither just

or fair. In war, in the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict there are still

novels, plays, films. In war, poetry

is a saint. Poetry is truth.

Poetry is meant for humanity

Death can wait. I write this journal entry as if I found a journal that belonged to a poet in the rubble of the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike. Perhaps it is the journal of a poet who is studying at an Israeli university. They left this journal behind on a bench found on the campus. Poets want the same thing. Poets believe in the same thing. They believe in truth.

I am underground in this dream

Underground they tell me

that there’s a tunnel

that will lead me to your body

I take seed with me

Next Spring wildflowers

will grow in that tunnel

to commemorate the departures

of both the dead and the living

A child, a young bride doesn’t know the meaning of instability, or how to handle emotional triggers in war. Poetry is not meant for enlightened beings, beings of light or only dark, poetry is an act of defiance, a source of justice and integrity. Poetry is meant for humanity. I turn the page. Death can wait but not life.

I am, I was

You are, you were

and so, a new chapter begins

I give in to gravity

to madness and despair

to this book of lives

Look how this poem

becomes a river

and look how every

ripple turns into a ceasefire

Poets and novelists understood, understand what was meant by personal freedom, every artist that ever lived, dead or alive, those remembered, those whose work have turned to dust.

The following is an extract taken from my essay “The Hypomanic, And Unquiet Mind Of The Tortured Poet” published on LinkedIn.

“Here are some life events, people found in the unquiet imagination of a thinker, intellectual, philosopher, activist, that a female poet from Africa envisions. Reading poetry is a sensation that is fluid. It is nourishing, this thin activity. It reminds us of our survival. That our survival is found in our blood, and the ladders of our genes. Survival is also found in the unquiet mind of the tortured poet. Death is just another location. To be oblivious to someone is like being in an alternate universe (paralysis). How do you communicate with this person, people that you love if you can’t embrace them, talk to them and it torments you. I think you give them a signal. When you’re in love it is almost like an illness, this stupor, this nameless disturbance. And the poet writes, but what do other people do who aren’t poets? They let life happen to them. They find that concentrated quiet word ‘love’ beneath them, complicated, and unnatural to them. The body of a woman is art. The body of a man is art. Art has both physical and spiritual dimensions to it like an empty mountain, the rural countryside, unbroken communication, old men and women reliving their childhood through flashbacks, memories and dreams and their own grandchildren.”

I write as a poet, as humanity for the children, men and women of Israel and Palestinine but especially for the children and this is my prayer for all who are affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No one is immune to pain. Perhaps more so, a vulnerable child who cannot defend themselves against a tank.

Let us pray for small children. Let us pray for new beginnings for them. Their expressions of laughter, enthusiasm and glee from a novel discovery. Let us pray for the affection of small children. Let us pray for mothers and matriarchs. Let us pray for single parents and grandmothers. Watch them as they smile. Watch the innocence in their eyes. Ideas transform society and so we become an unlimited and united family who no longer feel triumphant and arrogant by material accomplishments in the world but whose body consciousness becomes much more spiritual.

We feel that we are no longer devoted to or expressing spiritual poverty. Protective wings sheltered us when we were young. We were lotus flowers and so we began to discriminate between the two images. The images of arrogance and success. The images of success and humility. Let us pray for the vicious, negative vibrations that we cannot escape in war, in conflict, in occupation, in genocide. Let us pray for the leaders of Israel and Palestine, and for the setting of goals. Humanity needs to release him/her/every child from anxiety, loneliness, bitterness, resentment, regret, past humiliation and weakness, past mistakes that have been made in a moment of passion, anger, outrage, violence, brutality, depression and stress, frustration and a feeling of being pathetic in a situation that you had no control over.

Let it go. Release it. Surrender it to the universe. Now we come to rewards. We pray for a clear intellect. We pray for a lack of ego. We pray for a clarity of vision. Goals that will lead to rewards and a flow of concise language. In the human drama that everyone has a role to play a part in be careful what you feed the intellect. Pray for your children, pray for your family, pray for humanity, pray for the plant kingdom that nurtures the human family, pray for the animal kingdom that protects you and your folk and kin, pray for your guardian angels, your spirit guides, your earth angels, your family who have crossed over into the hereafter.

Humanity is concerned with the ego and not with the lack of it. The brothers and sisters of your human family whether they are believers and non-believers are concerned with atonement, and charity. The easiest ways to love, honor, cherish and obey in hardship and struggle is realising that it is all a part of your journey, your destination, the fork in the road, the open road, the pathway. These are all beautiful things to realise. Almost as beautiful as statues. Are we living life the way we should? Are you being very careful with what we are feeding the intellect? With our thought processes?

There will always be people to uplift you. Look to the poets and novelists to enrich and uplift you. Do you have a tendency to panic when things do not go your way? This happened in apartheid South Africa. This happened to Mandela and other freedom fighters. In war, all soldiers are freedom fighters. Appreciate the fact that life is sending you obstacles and challenges and opportunities. Realise that sometimes you are limited in the help you can give other people but know that you will eventually empower and uplift other people with the simplicity of your humility.

The Christian prays the following: God, sovereign Lord, sweet Christ, our caretaker, language and protector. We pray that you will help us value our achievements on this planet earth with a clarity of vision, with effortless and with constant love, a grateful heart and humility. Make me realise that a situation is only as difficult as I want it to be and that we all need someone to lean on in hard times. When we are going through trials, let us learn that a problem shared is a problem solved.

The members of this family in their own way have, like all people around the world, felt lonely, vulnerable, different, rejected, the outsider for their faith, their religion, stigma, addiction, the spirit of brokenness in relationships and they do not want this exposed because it is a sign of weakness.

The energy of this world is becoming more and more unstable (for example, climate change and the talk of social cohesion, and there is a lack of respect that young men and young women have for their elders, they worship the material life, the physical).

But in war, all children are extraordinary. They have the intention and the potential to do the impossible. A mother’s work like a community leader’s work is never done. She is the nurturer. With her constant unconditional love, she is working with the classical ingredients to make a home. She uses her energy and her resources; the source is her unwavering faith. If you are a child in war, then you are an exceptional, extraordinarily built child. If you are a mother, then you are special beyond words, lovely beyond imagination, intelligent that goes without saying, and elegant.

Let us pray that we will change old patterns, spark new and magnificent breakthroughs, take on adventure, a leap of faith and make the perfect landing.

Dearest Humanity, it takes one person, one enlightened being, one poet to start a movement. Remember that. King Netanyahu, King Palestine, and the powers that be, I kneel before you and ask for a ceasefire.

Published on the Modern Diplomacy website in the blog African Renaissance on December 5, 2024.

Is it possible to master words? 

Yes, in silence. 

The best protection against life’s corrupting  experiences is innocence. 

Loneliness is the price we pay  

for not embracing aloneness. 

Those for whom the natural is extraordinary tend to find the extraordinary natural.

The problem with celebrity culture is that the 

superficial external lives of strangers concern 

us more than our own profound inner life. 

There are many ways to donate blood: writing is one. 

Words of wisdom are not stolen, they are borrowed, until we make them our own.

Yahia Lababidi’s new book What Remains to be Said is available here from Waterstones and contains a fuller collection of his aphorisms.

 Role of time management and habit formation in education

 UzSWLU, foreign language and literature 1st faculty

Shukurilloyeva Lazzatoy Shamshodovna

Annotation: This scientific article presents information about ways of habit formation, time management,  punctuality and their role in education.

 Key words: speed age, time management, taylorism, polymath

        Living in the speed age is requiring us to manage our time more smartly than ever before.   Otherwise, we will end up getting chased by clocks. Unfortunately, many people in our distracting world are failing to shape that habit of punctuality.” Lost time is never found again” – says Benjamin Franklin—American polymath. Our future depends on what we do now. If we want it to be bright, starting from now we have to appreciate it and manage properly. As the lost time cannot be found we have to make use of that when we have.  The history of planning time goes back to very ancient times, over 1,500 years ago, human beings discovered many ways of managing time. It was the monks who used planning and strict schedules to boost productivity. Frederick Winslow is the person who has used the term “time management ” and considered to be the father of this field. His motto was: “Work smarter, not harder”. Thanks to his book “Principles of time management in 1911”, written with the association of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth people started thinking about the ways of doing things quickly and more productively. Taylor’s ideas are popular as Taylorism, and they are a crucial part of business administration.

      The world has seen many of such professionals since then. One of them is James Clear, who showed the importance of habit shaping in time management with obvious examples in his book, called “Atomic Habits”. He says that, habits ended by satisfying results are highly likely to be repeated over and over again. Vice versa goes with the ones started by unsatisfying results. James Clear states that, every human behavior experiences this process:

Try ➡ fail ➡ learn ➡ Try differently

Which means, when you try to do something or build a useful habit you might encounter failure at the start. Then you learn the effective and proven ways of doing that, which makes you try again but differently. Ultimately, you find a way to be an achiever, not a loser. You have to do, try, rest, do again, learn, do, but should never stop along the way. Moreover, you have to make it enjoyable and engaging for yourself so you keep up with the habit.

There are a lot of ways to do to be labeled as a productive person. You are supposed to manage not only time, but energy too. It works like a paradox as you manage your energy, you will get your time managed too. Imagine, you finished 20 projects in the morning within five hours, would you go for an 80 minute lecture at the university? “No” without a doubt, you are already run out of your energy. So you cannot have other tasks done in the next following hours of the day.

James Clear strongly states that consistency is a key to achieving any success at any age. So you are supposed to be disciplined first before being productive. If you want to change yourself, you cannot do that gradually but over time with practice and patience. However, the writer recommends changing the atmosphere you have, first. It’s really important when you want to be another, best version of yourself. It is, actually, scientifically proven that habits can easily be changed when you are in a new environment. It makes it easy to escape from the subtle triggers that motivate you to do your current habits again and again. It is very difficult to read books on the same couch where you are prone to surf the internet, or to choose healthy food when at the cafe where you eat only junk food. In such cases, new environments can help greatly to form a good habit without interruption.

The same goes for the study habits you want to build: completing assignments before deadlines, constant engagement when learning a new language, being on time for classes. All of these goals need a new environment to become your habit. If you want to be productive academically but always see yourself struggling to get up early because of staying up late it will be hard to be referred to as “early bird”. Proof of this point is made by— David Allen, whose version of the Two-Minute Rule states, “If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now.” This rule helps us to start, whatever the situation is, because our mind knows that we will be able to finish that process within 2 minutes only, then it can do whatever wants. In two minutes as you finish you get very happy because you finished one project successfully. That thing creates dopamine in your brain and pushes you to do another thing in this kind of quick way.

Waking up earlier in the morning, which is quite hard to do easily is a very great opportunity to use this method. When your clock alarms, you have to say yourself: if I cannot stop being sleepy even after washing my face I will sleep. This method makes our brain to be fooled, as you wash your face, you realize you could wake early as you wanted. It is highly unlikely that you sleep again after such a big achievement of the day. And James Clear’s “1% percent better” strategy can also be helpful in this case.

If you want to be perfect, you will not be able to reach that level overnight, but with consistency and practice, he says. If you want to be a morning person you cannot be an early bird the day after you want to be, but you have to start with small steps like getting up 30 minutes earlier than you usually wake. Then with 1% change within 1 week, or 1 month, you will get a lasting habit. If the vice versa goes with you, however, you’ll get 1% worse each day. This technique not only helps you to get up early but also to start your day with a fresh and amazing mood that will come in handy both in academic and social spheres.

     In management of time one of the most effective way is using “To-do lists”, as your mind feels itself organized. Once you finish doing things one by one you will put check marks next to them which makes you have a sense of accomplishment and makes you finish all the tasks on time. You can do that either in the traditional way (with pen and notebook) or with e-version of notebooks which are available in every smartphone, nowadays. This method not only helps you cope with all of the things you have to do throughout the day but also to balance your academic and social lives. As a student or employee, you might not spend a bunch of time with family members, who are a great source of stress relief.

Katherine Lee, an American poet, once said: “Quality family time is important for strengthening family bonds, improving self-esteem, creating happy memories, and reducing stress”. Balancing our day properly helps to have happiness, there will be no need to wait for some specific day to be happy but each minute will be significantly filled with joy and happiness once we start following this rule.

      Energy management is very crucial when productivity is concerned, which ultimately leads to solid success that lasts forever. Plus, it is a double-edged sword that works both positively and negatively. That is to say, if you allocate your fresh and full energy period to something that is beneficial to your overall health and life that makes you to be motivated. Unfortunately, if you spend them consciously or unconsciously in a bad way like, surfing the net, chatting with friends and such kind of bad habits that work against yourself, you will end up having a distracted lifestyle. All of these depend on you, you chose to be successful or failure in the end. Both of them contribute to your overall motivation of life.

      Time management, habits, punctuality, balancing day are all interconnected to each other. Once you possess strong habit of punctuality you can easily follow time management and  can successfully balance your day. To start building all of these habits one should change current environment and never stop trying. Balancing academic life and family times are really important factors to achieve success of any kind.

REFERENCES

1) “The history of time management” https://www.taylorintime.com/history-of-time-management/#:~:text=The%20History%20of%20Time%20Management%20Dates%20Back%20to%20the%20Late%201800s&text=But%20it%20wasn’t%20until,the%20father%20of%20scientific%20management.

2) “Atomic Habits” James Clear 2018

3)   “Two minute structures” https://jamesclear.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating#:~:text=Read%20more%20here.,York%3A%20Penguin%2C%202015

4) “Importance of family time” https://www.jstor.org/stable/25684496

🎄New Year🎄

New year is knocking on the door
We look forward to this day
Heart full of beautiful feelings
Bring joy to all years. 

It is unique to the world
Lights shine like fir trees
Santa and Snow White sharing gifts
He likes all children. 

We are looking forward to the new year
We welcome a new day
Forget all the sorrows
Do not leave us dreams. 

May the world be happy
Cheerful girls playing on the street
These happy days will not end
Having tasted the love of winter. 

Let's wait for the new year and wish for goodness
May our hearts shine like the sun
Hearts full of sweet dreams
Happy New Year everyone. 

               ✍️Ruzmetova Zuhra

Ruzmetova Zuhra Vyacheslavovna November 30, 2006 I was born in the city Urgench, Khorezm region. There are 6 of us in the family my father my mother my brother my twin and me. I am currently a student of the 11th grade of school no 14 in Urgench city. I appeared on the international website "Synchronized chaos" and I am the coordinator of the this international site. My poems have been recognized in more than 10 countries. Every week I am guest on Khorezm TV channel. I am the holder of badge "For the international Services"🎖by the bi wing poets writers Association. I am the winner of competitions of more than 100 national and international organizations. I have a B2 certificate of knowledge of the Turkish language. I have many future dreams and goals. 

Portrait Of A Boy 

This poem starts with tears 

shaped like darts on my mouth;

Where the board is my tongue!

Underneath the surface,

A boy struggles with murdering a mosquito 

But always touch the neck of failure with a sharp metal

A boy has to hurriedly 

expel all the volumes of fear

& thunder courage outside for 

The community to acknowledge his manhood.

A boy doesn’t know the weight of wishes 

Until he climbs the mountain after adolescent

and the sky is no longer just house to rain;

The celestial becomes wing of the devil

that fans hades into every angle of his nose

The sun is no longer an ocean of warm fire 

but a lagoon of lava of suicide to bathe inside 

and success is no longer a seven-letter word

But a monster with seven horns, in several forms;

It could numb all the limbs of wish

or cremate will into dust and still name you weak

A father’s dream if it’s too late 

Is given without a choice to a boy

and he wanders with earth on his back 

Till the sole of his feet find hell or bliss

A boy thinks the sky is wide enough to house his wish

But the wind hand him a shovel when he crossed over. 

Money

I’m delighted when I hear

A crinkling in my pocket

When I walk. I think

I’ve forgotten some money,

Surely a ten or twenty,

A distinguished portrait,

A little green man

Staring back at me.

Then I remember a scrap

Of paper from a grocery list.

At breakfast I scribbled

A thought, a letter,

The outset of something-or-other,

But nothing too moving.

I smile. I am happy.

This is grand.

The Evidence

Here, here is the evidence.

Listen! Pay attention

To a relentless repetition,

Of cruelty, of greed.

In the reign of the tyrant,

Let’s be unequivocal

In what we witness

Despite elaborate obfuscations,

Grotesque rationalizations.

Let’s not stand idly

Wringing pristine hands.

In the reign of the tyrant,

The benevolent king’s compassion

Suddenly a wistful memory,

We’ve lost our humanity.

Our homeless, our aged –

Our veterans plagued

With the images of both

Righteous and absurd war –

Our children, our children,

Suffer a little more,

Die a little faster,

Ostracized, marginalized,

Neglected, deported, all

In the reign, in the name,

At the whim, of the tyrant.

An Effort

The core of the Sunday paper

is not news: a glossy

circular, three pages of

Guns! Guns! Guns!

Sale! Sale! Sale!

a Christmas Spectacular.

Pretty, pink pistols for girls,

youth-action-lever for boys

(hyperbole unnecessary),

there’s no effort in squeezing

a trigger, a seductive little tug.

A child could do it.

However, enormous effort

is required to kill a man, or

an old man, a woman, a child,

so many in the ditches of My Lai,

so many at their desks at Sandy Hook,

our enemies, our enemies. 

This all takes time:

an effort to mine lead,

dig and move and sift and drain

the earth for steel, brass, plastic,

an effort, so much thought,

in drafting an efficient weapon.

Our efforts are clever

flying a young man

around the world to end a life

and irrevocably transform his.

Spare no resource. Spare no expense.

Such effort, such effort,

our expertise is astonishing.

Big Men with Big Machines

I got out of bed

To distinguish between

Verity and incubus.

Periodically, this dream,

In variations of anxiety,

Arrives abruptly and unbidden.

(What would Sigmund say?)

Drawn to my window,

I see men have come again,

Big men with big machines,

Loud and busy and blunt.

They produce a clipboard,

Papers with official signatures,

Authority indisputable but all wrong –

The crazy logic of the psyche.

There is chaos everywhere,

Mounds of dirt, sod, and rock,

As they dig an enormous hole,

Its width and depth terrifying.

My house teeters on the lip

Of the chasm, everything

I know, everyone I love

Will fall in, buried and forgotten.

And on each round of this 

Subconscious carousel,

I fail to comprehend why

I simply surrender,

More puzzled than troubled

Over my capitulation.

Three Curses

Ellen the secretary,

an unlikely sorceress,

more grandma than harpy,

squinted and poked

two fingers at the air,

an object of malevolence.

I was inclined to take cover

then considered a favor,

a handy malediction.

But she used her gift with

discretion, rarely exacting

curses in seventy-one years.

At the county fair, when her

daughter was muscled out 

of a ribbon for her rabbit

by another, pushy, rather rabid 

mother, the other kid’s bunny 

was dead by the end of summer.

When her quiet respite, 

an unobtrusive strand, 

egrets, herons, waves lapping,

but prime lakefront property,

was bulldozed, within the year, 

the condominiums caught fire 

and burned to the ground.

When her boss, a mean, petty

little bastard, endeavored

to eliminate her position,

he was diagnosed with cancer

soon after and nearly lost an eye.

Ellen the secretary.

Sexy Thing

I’m your sexy thing.

You leer, you lust,

Your desire, my pleasure.

I’m your ecstasy,

Your smutty reality.

All the good girls seethe,

My armor sheath

Stunning, steely, specious

Angles and curves.

I swivel my hips.

Saunter up your street,

And all the boys’ heads

Turn, instantly in love.

My tread is my power,

My dread silencing critics,

Clink, clink, clink.

Shamelessly I grind

Against your soft body,

Pierce your skin,

Snap your bones,

In mud, in sand, on brick,

Caen, Kursk, Budapest,

Prague, Tiananmen, Kuwait.

Ride me, fire me,

I’m such a blast,

My lurid muzzle,

My fiery retorts,

Boom, boom, boom,

Rat-a-tat-tat.

David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

David Sapp, danieldavidart@gmail.com