EP 11: Odysseas reads poems by AJ Layon and Refaat Alareer

Greetings and salutations dearest comrades.
This episode is just Comrade Nephew Odysseas reading a few poems. 
Two are by Comrade Uncle, Doctor AJ Layon. One is by Refaat Alareer. 

https://inthesetimes.com/article/refaat-alareer-israeli-occupation-palestine
https://ajosephpoetry.wordpress.com/

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Transcript

1:15:00

All right. hey, guys, I would like to read you guys a, a poem. this is by my uncle. and it's called, my uncle AJ Layon. and, your comrade uncle and mine, This is a caged child's cry by my uncle, doctor AJ lion. A caged child's cry. Her agonized and lost cry. A light lights my soul as a wasp whose sting comes without fail. Indifferent a nation of indifference. We've become. Watching children die with the same eye. Nonchalance with which we delete ads from our cell phones. The coronation of our souls. Hearts happens in real time. Who will speak for us when our time comes? 2019 2024. In room 720. here's another poem, again by, my comrade Uncle Joe. Where? Again and again, the demand plaintive, insistent. Where is the Palestinian Mandela? Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? I've searched and searched. And now, having found them, I'll tell you. She was assassinated in the 1970s by your death squads. He was murdered in Sabra and Shatila. While you watched standing above the carnage. She rots in an Israeli prison. No charges filed. He is buried under the rubble of an apartment in Gaza City. She was shot and killed by settlers in the Hawa pogrom. He was beaten, jailed by the Israeli police, administrative detention. Her car was wired with explosives by Israeli security extremists and all in Nablus. Her legs were blown off. He was with friends for the Great March of Return. Your snipers killed him. All gone. The best of us. The best of you. You thought a religious group would be easier to control? Eliminate the secular resistance. Well, you wanted Hamas. You got Hamas and all that is seen with religious nationalisms. We must free our Palestinian Gandhi. We must find our Israeli Mandela. November 2023. March 2024. Thank you for listening. Those were poems by comrade Uncle Doctor Abraham Joseph Lyon. Okay. I have another poem for you. And this was written by the fat I letter here. that's RF 80 a lr e r. he was killed in an Israeli, in an Israeli airstrike on December 6th, along with his brother, his brother, son, his sister and her three children. this is a poem, a poet. you know, this is, this was not, not a fighter. and, I don't know, he was not a, you know, member of the military. He was not a, because one can fight with a pen to, as they, show us, he, you know, he was in he'd been being hounded and you'd gotten all these threats from the Israeli military, and they had struck one house. And then, you know, he'd gone to a different house. They struck that one. And, you know, they had been chasing him around, you know, trying to kill him. and they got him eventually. The last poem that he wrote before he died, is as follows. It's called if I Must Die. If I must die, you must live to tell my story, to sell my things. To buy a piece of cloth and some strings. Make it white with a long tail. So that a child somewhere in Gaza, while looking heaven in the eye, awaiting his dad, who left in a blaze and bid no one farewell. Not even to his flesh, not even to himself, sees the kite. My kite you made flying up above and thinks for a moment. An angel is there bringing back love. If I must die, let it bring hope. Let it be a tale. And that was, If I must die by that thought, I'll adhere. thanks for listening, guys. I hope you enjoyed this. I don't know if that's, something people are to let us know. I would be happy to read some more, poetry. I like reading, stuff. Do you guys like poetry? So, maybe, maybe you guys can get into that, I don't know, maybe something you like, let me know.