Hope

It's the darkest and heaviest days
I've witnessed in my life.
The night is so bleak
And the day is so pale

The earth shakes under our feet
And the sky is swamped with innocent flying souls.
But our faith is stalwart 
Like the rooted mountains.
The sun will rise again 
And the settlers will leave my stolen land.
The hideous and notorious occupation will end
And all free people around the world will celebrate
A new era of freedom
They'll gather in Palestine, 
The flags will wave
And the sweets will be served.

Gaza

Here's Gaza, where hunger becomes a killer,
The buzzing drones become a chronic disease, 
and coldness becomes a knife
In the heart of homelessness,
The destruction becomes the witness to the crime.

No flour, no bread, no medicine, no children's milk,

No fuel, no power, no hospitals,  no schools,
No safety, nothing except death.

Gaza is starving, 
Destroyed, punished,
tortured every minute, hour, day.

It's not a war,
It's a collective execution to a whole land, 
an entire people and a complete life.

Ahmed Miqdad (b. 1985) is a Palestinian poet resident of Gaza. He has a B.A. in English and a Master in Education. Ahmed is the author of three collections of poetry (Gaza Narrates Poetry (2014), Stolen Lives (2015) and When Hope Is not Enough (2019)) and a novel Falastin: The Hope of Tomorrow (2018). The latest poetry collection is The Shadow: Poems for the Children of Gaza. He has witnessed over three wars and severe aggression by Israeli forces on the Palestinian people since the 1980s with a huge loss of life. He writes and publishes to raise consciousness about the Palestinian cause."