SAY SOMETHING

What can I do

What can I say

To make you sway

To make you stew

Enough to make a call

Advocate for morality

Champion humanity

A measure so small

If we all turn a blind eye

Looked the other way

Not a word we say

Letting the time fly

Maybe the atrocities will go away

Maybe another story will consume

Sweep our emotions like a broom

Escape from our mind in a day

There are so many atrocities

You say to me

Too many for me to see

Who am I to influence policies

Neutrality helps the oppressor

Never the victim

Silence is a symptom 

Silence assists the tormentor

Do something say something

Speak to your friend

Speak to no end

It starts by communicating

-Fadi Zanayed

November 3, 2023

6:32 am 

A TALE OF TWO PALESTINIANS

I am here

He is there

Tranquility surrounds me 

Pandemonium surrounds him

I fear nothing 

He fears bombs 

Peacefulness in my home

Helplessness in his tent

Food a plenty fills me

Hungry belly aches him

Water on my nightstand 

Water he cannot find 

Warmth under my covers

Chills through his bones

Tears in my eyes

Survival on his mind

-Fadi Zanayed 

December 6, 2023

11:36 pm

A SEED RISES

A father is anticipating
His first child rejoicing
Away looking for food
In this catastrophic mood
His son is born
In a war zone
He has not returned today
Bombs falling what can I say
The mother’s tears fall
Upon the child and us all
The child with no name
Scurrying quickly is to blame
 No diapers to change
No clothes to exchange
No food to nourish
No water to flourish
What is this child’s fate
Born on this date
No father to see
No joy no glee
Will anger spring forth
Will revenge be his growth
A father died this day
A son is born this day
A body is buried today
A martyr’s seed rises today

- Fadi Zanayed, December 9, 2023 5:46 am

I wrote this poem after I saw a video of a recently born child in Gaza.

CONSUMED

 

I am tired and exhausted

Overwhelmed

demoralized and

Fatigued

I’m on my phone constantly

Reading

Copying and

Pasting

Another truth I post

Writing

Talking and

Educating

My friends everywhere

Atrocities

Grief and

Humanity

I cry out to the world

Babies

Helpless

Endless

-Fadi Zanayed

November 2, 2023

12:19 pm

HOPE IN A CHILD

Sitting on the rubble

Lamenting my struggle

Oh my heart aches

Sounds my stomach makes

Thoughts in my mind

Relief I do not find

Destruction all around me

Dead bodies I see

Where is my son

What have they done

I shout out my pain

No venue to explain

Does anybody care

Wondering as I stare

Up to the sky I gaze

Around me a blaze

I hear a voice very near

A child cries by my ear

I remove a heavy block

Upon a child my eyes lock

I pull her up into my arms

Agony hidden by her charms

She is alive

Hope does survive

My inner spirit I revive

Indestructible in overdrive

You can kill my physicality

But never my mentality

Know my struggle and see

My spirit will make me free

SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS

Sixty-seven years of occupation and oppression  

Sixty-seven years of confiscation and colonization
Sixty-seven years of destabilization and devastation
Sixty-seven years of dehumanization and deprivation
Sixty-seven years of peace plans and pieces of lands
Sixty-seven years of road blocks and land locks
Sixty-seven years of un-stabilization and un-justification
Sixty-seven years of imprisonment and impoverishment

Sixty-seven years of terrorizing and traumatizing

Sixty-seven years of exiling and expunging

Sixty-seven years of erecting and eradicating

Sixty-seven years of antagonizing and annihilating

Sixty-seven years of segregation and separation  

 Sixty-seven years of UN resolutions and UN reports

Sixty-seven years of abandonment and abomination

Sixty-seven years of uprooting and uprising

Sixty-seven years of refugees and re-imprisonment

Sixty-seven years of prisoner exchanges and promises exasperated

Sixty-seven years of US backing and US double standards

Sixty-seven years of UN veto and UN violations

Sixty-seven years of diplomacy shuffling and diplomatic failures

Sixty-seven years of promised hopes and promises commandeered

Sixty-seven years of terrorizing assaults and tumultuous  assassinations

Sixty-seven years of  horrifying  remembrances and holocaustic reverberations  

Sixty-seven years of status quo appeasement and structured apartheid 

Bewildered

Gaza casualties by Israeli indiscriminate bombardment in July, 2014


My heart bleeds
My eye tears
My mind cannot comprehend
My soul screams to no end
I sit In shock
My jaws lock
My head does shake
A gesture to God my arms make
I scream why
To the One up high

Fadi Zanayed
July 30,2014 6:05am
Lombard, Illinois

Fly Bird Fly

Picture Credit:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150253161370814&set=a.10150253142165814.321090.524025813&type=3&l=e4ffae0bcc&theater

Whistle in the night

Somber moment without light

I welcome the song of the bird

For days the only sound I’ve heard

The song of freedom chirping in the air

Ironically I am a prisoner of despair

Fly bird fly in support of those who care for you

Go and fight for what we are due

Prosper mentally in our cause

Become a leader who knows when to pause

Build conviction, honor and determination

Build democracy into a nation

Fly bird fly letting your wings stretch across the sky

Encompass within your wings all within our pie

The whole without all its sum is but a part

Be a leader who is brave and smart

Build a consensus while respecting the call

The call to honor and respect for us all

My captors have brought supper for me to eat

Stay and feast before the duty you have to meet

Whistle in the night

Then I’ll know your path is right

Remember me as I linger in jail

Rescue me before I grow old and frail

I will be with you night and day

I am your conscience in the words you say

Bless the children who throw the stone

It is in their eyes that we see what we own

Condemn the hypocrisy of those who occupy

They see not the history of why they cry

Be good, self-righteous and fair

People will listen over the air

Neither harm nor be harmed in the course you take

Rather set your mark and plant your stake

For here is the line you must draw

While respecting international law

The world will then see us within our right

Using civil disobedience not our might

Fly bird fly letting your energy soar

Free me to Palestine once more

           Fadi Zanayed


(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)

Gaining Political Awareness

On November 21, 1967 at O’Hare Airport we landed

Onto a land filled with milk and honey that did flow

To greet us, all our relatives had banded

As little white flakes came down, my first snow

I remember the election of 1968

Death that year was howling like the moon

In April the television showed horses pulling a coffin in a crate

And then I watched as Bobby was shot in June

I wanted to know everything around

I watched the news and acquired knowledge

Seeing MLK and RFK slain did hound

Hound me to absorb compassion’s edge

In school the speech teacher took away my accent

As three beautiful smart girls inspired me

Their presence in my life meant

Meant a turning point you see

By third grade I knew what I wanted to be

A lawyer was going to be my deal

Being aware of my identity

I was beginning to feel

In sixth grade the Jewish teacher wanted me to engage

Dying a t-shirt light blue and wear a pants colored white

To sing Hava Nagela during the Spring Assembly on stage

I refused because I knew this was not right

For music I earned an F grade

Proudest grade I would receive

She knew not what she had made

In me a political activist she did conceive

As hijackings dominated the news

Political awareness came my way

As I was forming my political views

Listening to what my elders had to say

President Carter presented a human rights campaign

This gave me hope that he would correct a wrong

But with each Middle East event frustration turned into pain

And I knew that the days, weeks, months and years would be long

                                                Fadi Zanayed

                                                December 4, 2011

                                                1:35 am

(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)