Three Poems by Lynda Tavakoli

 

LITTLE BONES

 

This is what he

owns of you now

 

your little bones

 

these treasures

sieved like flour

amongst the dust

of what remains

 

and between

his fingertips

the fragment of

a foot, a tooth,

a curvature

of clavicle

 

their blessings

singing to him still,

a song of love

and only little,

little bones. 

 

 

BLOODLINE

 

Imagine a light shining down the generations,

lineage intact, its pulse beating through

the arteries of Gazan hearts. Imagine,

then, the bleeding out,

the trickled leak of

what you were,

until in the

end, there

is only

you. 

 

*More than 2,700 Palestinian family bloodlines have been erased in the Gaza genocide while 6,000 families have been left with one sole survivor. 

 

 

THIS IS HOW THEY SILENCE US

 

Stealthily at first, skulking

with their anonymity

of falsehoods and deceit,

seeking compliance

in our acquiescence.

 

Oh, how easily we forget -

for what is Gaza now

but some addendum

to a wider world

at war in perpetuity? 

 

Yet, history will not dismiss

their modus operandi:

intimidate, coerce,

oppress and demonise.

And if all else fails,

pulverise our children into pulp. 

Lynda Tavakoli lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, and is a professional member of The Irish Writers Centre. She has won several international poetry and short story awards and been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Lynda’s recent poetry collection ‘A Unison of Breaths’ is published by Arlen House and her digital book with video ‘Unbroken/The Gaza Poems’ is published by Live Encounters Publishing.