I was blinded by propaganda before 2008

I didn’t know what the Nakba was until friends in the Czech Republic started telling me about what Israel has been doing to Palestinians for decades. That shock was back in 2008.

I was deeply bothered with what I found out, so much so that I began to write a series of poems about a people I had never met, a place I had never visited.

I still intend to share all those poems as a set one day. But this just came to mind now as many people prepare for the coming year.

Please don’t choose to remain blind.

-o-

Israel Needs Shoes

new moon dimmed by flares
shoes scatter on rubbled streets
not one matching pair

-o-

I wrote that in January 2009 and appears in ALIEN TO ANY SKIN (UST Publishing House, Manila 2011)