By Michael R Burch

Courtesy: Wiki
I, too, have a dream
I, too, have a dream …
that one day Jews and Christians
will see me as I am:
a small child, lonely and afraid,
staring down the barrels of their big bazookas,
knowing I did nothing
to deserve their enmity.
―The Child Poets of Gaza
Published by Toronto for Kashmir, Poems for Gaza, Promosaik (Germany), Irish Blog, Fans of Justice, Zeteo Journal and Kenyatta University (Kenya)
My nightmare …
I had a dream of Jesus!
Mama, his eyes were so kind!
But behind him I saw a billion Christians
hissing “You’re nothing!,” so blind.
―The Child Poets of Gaza
Published by The HyperTexts, Poems for Gaza, Ishmael Gaza, Promosaik (Germany) and Tanzania German Youth
Something
for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapour curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.
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Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.
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Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which finality swept into a corner … where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.
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Published by There is Something in the Autumn (anthology), The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Setu (India), FreeXpression(Australia), Life and Legends, Poetry Super Highway, Poet’s Corner, Promosaik (Germany), Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse; also used in numerous Holocaust projects; translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte; translated into Turkish by Nurgül Yayman; turned into a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong; and used by Windsor Jewish Community Centre during a candle-lighting ceremony.
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Michael R. Burch has over 6,000 publications, including poems that have gone viral. His poems have been translated into fourteen languages and set to music by eleven composers. He also edits The HyperTexts (online at www.thehypertexts.com).
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4 replies on “Dreams of Children”
All three poems are good. Short and effective.
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I’m glad you liked my poems, and thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
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I wrote a number of poems using the pseudonym “The Children of Gaza” because the teachers of Palestinian students I knew were afraid to publish poems written by the children themselves, for fear of reprisals against their families. That’s how bad things have become in Gaza and the West Bank. Nine of my poems have been set to music by the composer Eduard de Boer in the song cycle “The Children of Gaza,” which has been performed in Europe by the Palestinian soprano Dima Biwab.
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Thanks Michael for sharing these with us. Thanks a lot.
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