Earth was born a small stone from sling shot stars,
belonged to all before borders were fault lines.
Goliath was a giant hailed in the yellow sun, star,
I think all the stones have melted like ice in fire.
This is the age of walls being built or knocked down.
I dreamt of cuckoos in Jerusalem threading Acacia from Gaza,
they nested in the safety of mosque, spire, and synagogue and
I think the peacemakers with guns never heard that peacefulness.
Oh Jerusalem, a fool sang a ballad and asked wise men to dance to his tune,
and the fool saw a king so vain he was throwing crumbs like stones.
The stones looked big in the disappearing wastelands beyond the wall,
A slum child watches her breath shrink in the window pane and sees Palestine
Oh slum child, Gaza is an abacas made up of stones a little boy once held.
You live in skin that is not disputed yet it craves a place to be childhood.
Oh Jerusalem, your compass pin breaks at west yet your true north is all,
I am not going to tweet the songs that have come from your millennia’s.
There is a white house where an ass hee haws to the birds in Gaza
Once upon a time lived a family who lived to live and feel alive sometimes.
Nobody would know how a man excavated the shape of his son in linen,
How death wax leaves a fossil of who we were before the claiming.
Oh Jerusalem, the peacemakers with pens and guns will meet in the world,
land cannot be disputed if we are built of bone and the same blood.
I want to negotiate that I will decide as a citizen of the world
That I will not become a citizen of nowhere, I decide this.
I am not a silent poet 
Reblogged this on reubenwoolley.
LikeLike
Pingback: Jerusalem by Antony Owen | antony owen poetry
“A Tale of Two Cities”
(Raanana, October 9, 2015)
It was the blessed of cities
It was the cursed of cities,
A city located halfway between heaven and earth
And a city halfway between earth and hell,
A city where stones are cool and soft
From evening breezes and countless feet
A city where stones are hot with blood
And sharp with crashing down on heads,
A city purchased with the blood of David
From Jebusites for more than it was worth,
A city worth more today than the blood of all our children,
One city’s Mount Moriah where Isaac was bound for sacrifice
Another’s Al-Masjid al-Aqsa where Mohammed ascended,
A city protected by youthful soldiers
And a city defiled by youthful soldiers,
Jerusalem the capital of Israel
And al-Quds the capital of Palestine
But in truth the capital of no earthly nation,
A city twice destroyed
A city indestructible,
A city about which everything said is true
And one about which nothing said is true.
LikeLiked by 1 person