As of December 18, 2023, over 17,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, and Beau Beausoleil’s WAR NEWS series stands at 90 poems. The entire series is available as a free e-book in the online journal, AGITATE! A selection of 24 poems is included here.
Beau writes of the series:
“Writing poetry is the means by which I think through both personal and global events. I began writing these poems on October 8, 2023 with the onset of the violence in Gaza and I have written one, sometimes two, each day of this ongoing war. They are, to me, markers of witness, and each one holds my thinking and somatic reaction to this monstrously evil war.
“It is also my wish to jolt readers with these poems, to remind them, as well as myself, that we cannot turn away. That our humanity, our collective morality, requires that we bear witness and then take some kind of action. Each morning, when I have no words left to address what is going on, I begin to write. In the end, these poems may be both useless and necessary.”
Beau’s poems stand in witness to some of the most immoral acts of our time. In addition to WAR NEWS, two other series appear in the MPP Digital Poetry Series: In Ukraine: Poems and Poems for George Floyd. In 2019, Moving Parts Press published a letterpress edition of Beau’s book, The Long Distance.
Find more from the MPP Digital Poetry Series here.
War
News
Nothing
will
go back
to the
way
it was
Nothing
will look
the same
as it was
Only the
deep
emptiness
of loss
will be
the same
Only the
barriers
to freedom
will be
recognizable
And made
Stronger
(10/14/23)
War
News
Is this
enough
death
and
misery
Will it
be enough
tomorrow
or the day
after
Tell us what
metrics are
being used
Are they
adding in
pain and
anguish
subtracting
the last
shreds of
freedom
Or the
number
of people
killed in
a single
family
Must the
multiplier of revenge
be added
into each
answer
And
who is
searching
the bodies
of children
for a pencil
and a crumpled
sheet or shroud
of lined paper
from school
on which
to add
things up
for another
generation
(10/16/23)
War
News
On this
present
leaden
day
there are
so many
destroyed
bodies
that there
is little
room for
words
One can
only
privately
very
softly
sing
a dirge
in the
street
or fill an
entire sky
with our
collective
lament
A child’s
shrouded
name as
a lyric
repeated
thousands
upon
thousands
of times
(10/18/23)
War
News
Those who
are doing
the killing
always want
to kill
a few
more
Those living
at the edge
of the abyss
still have
to be
forced
to jump
(10/19/23)
War
News
(for Marwan Makhoul)
I wanted
to fashion
amulets
of protection
made
from my
poems
and send
them
to you
and your
family in
the song
of a
house sparrow
But
there was
no
house
left standing
on your
street
only
rubble
and
bodies
wrapped
in their shrouds
of memory
And the
sparrow
was
killed
as it began
to sing
(10/26/23)
War
News
(for Heba Abu Nada)
I keep reading
your beautiful
poems
each night
in part
because
in them
you are
still alive
on each
closing
page
(10/30/23)
War
News
1.
Bring me
some
words
to bury
in our
garden
Bring me
a bone
whistle
to play
in our
hallway
2.
When death
releases a child
from under
the rubble
of a home
And allows her
to be pulled
back into life
I am stunned
with the
terror of hope
(11/1/23)
War
News
(for FR)
I look for
the smallest
most determined
fish
that swim from
our shore
and wonder
what messages
of peace
they might
carry for you
Unless they
are caught
with so
many others
in another
tangled net
of empty
words
and die
gasping
for truth
(11/1/23)
War
News
Who will
identify
the living
after the
dead
give up
on us
in disgust
Who will
arrange
the family
members
for the
photograph
when there
are no
family
members
left
And for
how long
can anyone
live within
the violence
of today
as it
consumes
tomorrow
(11/3/23)
War
News
Is it better to be
killed in
warm weather
or cold
Is it better to die
sitting
or standing
Is it better
to die alone
or with your
loved ones
Does it remain
troublingly
easier to read
the murderous
news
than to live in it
(11/5/23)
War
News
Let
us
wear
the
shoes
of
the
innocent
dead
and
walk
into
their
names
and
violently
ended
lives
Let us
walk
under
their
breathless
sky and
demand
once again
that they
forgive us
(11/8/23)
War
News
These dead
don’t want
their bodies
written upon
by politicians
or sewn into
flags of war
that fly over
endless
cemeteries
Their names are
martyrs
in any
prayer
in any
language
These dead
don’t want
our memory
of them
loaded
into more
violence
to kill yet
another child
whose life defines
someone’s joy
(11/10/23)
War
News
What
ruined
body
can you
identify
as they
are pulled
out from
under the
killing
What can
you make
sense of
when you
can’t see
her shy
smile
(11/15/23)
War
News
We slow the hours
in our poems
we imagine
the killing ending
As
best
we
can
with
words
But even so
on some
of the cruelest days
we feel like foolish liars
who are unable to see
our own lives
between the pages
(11/15/23)
War
News
Death above
you
Death in
front of you
Death behind
you
Death to the
east of you
Death to the
north of you
Death to the
south of you
And
to the west
beyond
your shore
is the
body politic
of my country
floating
face down
waiting
waiting
on every
drowning
abandoned
road to peace
(11/16/23)
War
News
I try to extend the familiar
by writing of an apple
which could be on our
kitchen counter
or on a kitchen counter
in Gaza
If there still is a kitchen
not yet
destroyed
along with the woman
who would have cut
the apple into slices
and made tea
out of kindness to
my age
and a certain
poem that she read
about apples
so very long ago
before
the war
(11/16/23)
War
News
This
morning
my words
look like
small knots
of children
on some
playground
waiting
to go
back
into a
classroom
that no
longer
exists
In a life
that no
longer
exists
(11/18/23)
War
News
Who deserves
to be lied to first
Is it the living
or always
the dead
(11/20/23)
War
News
I read
this war
like
a novel
of tragedy
and try
to live
in the
last page
first
wanting
to know
how things
turn out
on paper
well before
anyone else
is written
into death
(11/21/23)
War
News
We have no authority over
the moon
except in our poems
but we know that its surface
reflects our
violent misery
Which is why
I refuse
to slow my words
or cover my eyes
under this
blood-filled
harvesting
moon
(11/23/23)
War
News
The sounds
of waking
The sound
of water
boiling
for tea
The sounds
of speech
across
the table
The sound
of a page
being turned
The sound
of dishes
being washed
The sounds
of words
rushing to
a child’s
tongue
Now lost
without
memory
Now
only
a document
of violence
(11/24/23)
War
News
The Museum
of
Collective Punishment
has installed
on its walls
a permanent exhibit
of the names
and handprints
of more than
4,000 children
using
common red chalk
found in any
bombed-out
elementary
school
(11/26/23)
War
News
The body
of a forest
is cut down
and
fashioned
into products
to be sold
to us
During a
temporary
pause
in the
killing
new trees
will be
planted
again
by the
surviving
children
(11/26/23)
War
News
There are still
patches of ground
where no one has
been killed
live there until you
are told to move
There are still
patches of ground
where no one has
been buried
dig a grave there
and climb into it
(12/05/23)