Don’t You Dare Call This Holy!
POETRY FORMAT, 28 Jul 2025
Lora Lee - TRANSCEND Media Service
I sadly submit to the readers of Transcend Media Service this photo of Palestinian children (credited to the Anadolu Agency), facing the horrors of war, and this timeless poem by Lora Lee, the co-editor of The Poet Tree Press. Let us never forget….
— Gary Corseri, TRANSCEND Member
Don’t you dare
wrap this in scripture…
this wreckage, this ash,
these tiny shoes buried in concrete.
Don’t stand over bodies
and speak of covenant.
Don’t quote prophets
while pulling the trigger.
Don’t bless the tank:
the rifle,
the drone,
and call it obedience.
This is not sacrifice.
This is slaughter.
And no verse you recite
can sanctify
the screams of children
you refuse to hear.
You believe your hands are clean;
You say this is “their” destiny,
But look again…
Your holiness, drips red.
You think you know God?
Tell me,
where is He in this?
In the smoke?
In the silence?
In the names we stopped saying
because there were too many?
You build walls
and say they are protection.
You drop bombs
and say they are justified.
You erase lives
and say it’s complicated.
But I see what you mean
when you say holy.
You mean ours, not theirs.
You mean this blood matters, that blood doesn’t.
You mean God lives on your side of the fence.
You mean your grief is sacred,
and theirs is statistics.
Well I’m here to tell you…
there is nothing holy
about forgetting
who you used to be…
Nothing divine
about turning your back
on the child
who looks too much like your own
to be that easy to ignore.
If God is here…
and I still believe He is…
He is not: at your parade,
He is not blessing your flag.
He is in the rubble,
He is in the scream,
He is in the voice that still dares
to say ENOUGH.
So don’t you dare
call this holy.
Not while the sky
is still full of dust
and there are lullabies
no one will finish tonight.
© LoraLee 07/2025
Tags: Anti Zionism, Collective Punishment, Crimes against Humanity, Cultural violence, Direct violence, Ethnic Cleansing, Famine, Gaza, Genocide, Hamas, Hunger, International Court of Justice ICJ, Israel, Israeli occupation, Nakba, Palestine, Poetry, Sociocide, State Terrorism, Structural violence, USA, War crimes, West Bank
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Jul 2025.
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