Best Palestinian Poems

Harrowing shifts placating Palestinian patients
Awkwardly healing bones, injuries war caused
Comfort we gave seemed severely insufficient
Soul mates meeting among pain, implausible 

Crutch hobbling boy with copious haphazard grin
Caught both our hearts, we smuggled him chocolate 
You took every free chance to sit and joke with him
Your...

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I am no courageous,
Fearless, valorous, gallant,
Proud, adventurous,
Selfless patriot
I am a soul in exile
Expressing my thoughts in
All languages but mine
'' Hi…I am Palestinian''
'' Salut…Je suis palestinienne''
I cut my mother tongue 
In half
Palestinian poet
Rafeef Ziadeh was right when
She said
''Allow me to speak my Arab tongue
Before they occupy...

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Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

This poem has also been titled "Epitaph for a Child of Gaza" and it has become my most popular poem on...

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 Jesus was Palestinian


At this sad time
solemn remembrance
200,000 plus slaughtered Palestinians
bombed and shot
like fish in a gold fish bowl
none will come back to life
in three days or ever
children lost
murdered by the most evil
cult in the world

Bethlehem surrounded yet again
bagpipes will prevail..........
...

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Here and there 
Everywhere
Like an exhalation

Here and there
Everywhere
Spasmodic Hiroshimas

Here and there
Everywhere
Ash in wings of foam,
Sandal-less dodders
Violently envious of
Fallen leaves

Transience naked 
Here and there
Everywhere-

Nowhere 
The eel...

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They cut down the olive trees
and shoot the farmers, unarmed, in the belly, 
in plain view of IDF soldiers, relishing the moment.
How sweet it is to die under the shade of their olive trees,
that bind them to their tortured history.
And the wind that blows the...

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I
She was not unduly unkind, maybe a tad smart
Not ever imagining I am close to Israel and Palestine
My wife comes from Jeneen, a hot spot
But I quickly think of Jacob - NABLUS - old Neapolis
The Woman at the well,Samaritan, still there
In the occupied West-Bank, Mount...

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Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus thorns;
clouding your eyes
like sandstorms.

Here we shall remain,
like brick walls obstructing...

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English translations of Arabic poems by Fadwa Tuqan aka "The Poet of Palestine"

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish ...
only to spring...

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The Story
by Kamal Nasser
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will tell you a story ...
a story that lived in the dreams of my people,
a story that comes from the world of tents.
It is a story inspired by hunger and embellished by dark nights of terror.
It...

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Mahmoud Darwish English Translations of Arabic Poems



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's trembling beginnings,
a boulder covered with moss,
mothers who dance to the...

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Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to...

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POEM: Welcome to Palestine. The land of the prophets and the martyrs. 


Let’s show show some respect, and bow down in humility…
Gaza may be small, but their angels are all over and as far as the eye can see..
 
Saying Herod, Nimrod, and Pharoah are...

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Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable to sing.

What songs long forgotten occur to you now—
a babe...

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See no evil...
The blood spattered floors
Settlers smashing down doors 
Children manhandled and arrested 
Peaceful folk, patience being tested
Rogue nation hell bent on genocide
Laws don’t apply, only for others to abide 

Hear no evil...
The cries of Palestine
Born into oppression, their crime 
Gunfire, bombs raining down
Death and...

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