Forgotten Oppression

This is dedicated to all the Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War Two.

I cannot look you in the hate-filled eye,
For you shall surely know my soul.
And my papers will send me to a gutter,
By rifle butt or by ridicule and scorn.
One look: you have killed my people for less.
I am less than nothing to you.
I walk on by, my heart pounding,
Another checkpoint lie.

I am a doctor in some other life,
One now reviled in subtle slavery.
But I cannot help my people,
As I watch them die in the street,
As I hear of the deaths in the camps,
When friends relate their horrors.
I am impotent, but for stones against steel.
In vengeful rage, we die.

A news vendor spits words at me,
A paper raised as if to reinforce a truth,
That my people killed a soldier somewhere,
Yet I am unsure of who "my people" are.
We are everywhere, yet homeless,
We are sub-human and evil,
Without trying, made a powerful foe.
In chains, seen as dogs.

They're evicting another family,
The old woman's been there since birth,
But history means nothing in this time,
In tears she's beaten to the ground.
I'm enraged, but the troops are watching me,
She weeps as grandchildren are led away.
I have no idea when this madness will end.
Welcome to Palestine.