Angel of Nuseirat
I am an oncology nurse
The real cancer bombed and
destroyed all our hospitals
tried to kill our doctors
So now, I don't work
As all the hospitals are gone
Now I'm here in Nuseirat
With my precious Aaliyah
Each day we survive
We are blessed.
They say nurses are angels
whose main asset is to care.
A man lost his eldest son yesterday in a drone attack
His eight-year-old died today from the same attack
His wife and his children's mother was also murdered last year
So today, this elderly man hanged himself
I am a nervous wreck living here
You live everyday
Knowing it might be your last
You just don't know what comes next
My daughter weeps,
I can't talk now,
My daughter needs me
Speak to you later
No sleep last night,
gunshots and those whooshing sounds.
Not a good sound
Someone else has lost a loved one
When you ask me
How was your day
Ì say, all days are fine
When I survive the day
Some here say that there is
no such thing as true love
but this is untrue; it's because
all they have loved is gone; they think this way
Yesterday, there were just two slices of bread
So I gave them to Aaliyah
Today, my friend Basma
Shared her rice, so today, we feast.
It is good that your country ( Ireland ) gained its independence,
Limited as it is,
But god, war is really terrible,
We have the highest child amputee numbers in the world
I watch children die every day
from Israeli drone strikes
I watch children lose their limbs or hands every day
from Israeli drone strikes
All these things make me question God
I read on the internet
We have many people supporting us from all over the world;
Unfortunately, this doesn't really matter because it won't stop Israel.
They have the support and financing of their big brother, America,
So our lives mean nothing.
Israel will attempt to wipe us off the face of the earth,
No one is going to stop them.
This is Genocide of the highest order.
We have stopped receiving food from outside
Israel has blocked food from coming here at the border.
They are killing us in every way imaginable,
Starving us, bombing us, shooting us, snipers taking potshots at us.
Targeting our most vulnerable,
even shooting children for fun.
Destroying hospitals and targeting medical staff so there is only limited healing.
I went to see if I could find food for Aaliyah and me
There was no food
We will be fine
We have been surviving
I am a Muslim converted to Christianity
I must check on my daughter regularly
The other kids pick on her
Blaming us for the Israeli strikes
We used to gather every Sunday to pray
The pope used to call by video link to pray with us
But we don't go any more,
What is the point
There is a belief here in Palestine
That is, shortly before one dies
The dead appear to them
Aalihay thought her father came to her in a dream
Europe and the world try to help us
They send us food and medical supplies
But Israel stops them at sea
Arrests and tortures the people on board
Didn't sleep a wink all night
I am always scared of sleeping at night
Afraid of Israeli attacks
Don't want to end up as a human barbecue.
I am as careful as I can
I want to stay alive
To someday get my daughter out of here
And give her a good life
Today, there are 5000 reported cases of chickenpox
It's spreading rapidly across camps in Gaza
There's no vaccine available
No medications. And it is extremely hot
There are many new occupants in my tent
So it's hotter and overcrowded
And I don't want my daughter exposed to germs
So we slept outside; it is cooler out in the night air.
It's been a bad day-to-day
I have been helping the medical team
to treat Palestinian soldiers caught in an explosion
One of the soldiers was my friend Basma.
She was in the van travelling behind
She had shrapnel stuck in her arm
Two died, and others were injured
Definitely Israeli fire, over the yellow line.
We have no standard hospitals left
Only makeshift medical centres
Where doctors volunteer, risking their lives
I help there when needed
It is with a grieving heart that I tell you
My daughter is dead
Aalihah was playing outside with other kids
When we heard a drone explosion
She was lying lifeless with two other kids
They had blood all over them
I took my daughter to the medical centre
I really tried, but couldn't save my baby,
My angel is gone,
I did my best
What am I living for
Israel has taken everything from me
I have failed my child,
I couldn't protect her
I'm broken
I'm dead
How can I live through this
They have her, prepared for burial
They have washed and prepared her.
Look at my baby lying there. Why is God silent?
I want to say a big fuck you
To all the world leaders who stand back
and say nothing as these atrocities happen
I am a mess, an emotional mess.
This is a poem inspired by online conversations with a woman from Gaza and written in her voice. I recently lost touch with her; when we last spoke, she was trying to make her way to Turkey.
Gordon Ferris was born and raised in Finglas, northwest Dublin, and moved to Donegal in the early 1980s, where he has lived ever since. He began writing in 2014, and his short stories and poems have appeared in publications including Hidden Channel, A New Ulster, The Galway Review, Impspired Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Live Encounters, and Flare. His poem ‘Mother’ won a prize in the summer 2020 HITA Creative Writing Competition, and ‘The Silence’ was a joint winner in the winter competition.
In 2022, Poetry Ireland awarded Gordon a Poetry Town Bursary. In January 2023, Impspired published his first book, Echoes, a short-story collection. That December, Impspired published his second book, A Mirror Looking Out, a poetry collection produced under the guidance of the late Steve Cawte.
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