Christmas In Gaza – 18th December 2024

Love and peace to all men
Your silent night, broken again
Tidings of comfort and joy
Burst wide open as bombs deploy

A Christmas, warm and bright
Lit by a white phosphorus light
Celebrating the birth of hope
Where none is found under microscope

The platitudes of seasonal cheer
Have lost all their meaning here
Peace unto you, my brother
“All I want for Christmas is my mother”

Shared with Poets and Storytellers United – holiday anxieties

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Today I’m feeling:

Good, once I got moving. Since a recent iPhone update, my alarm only seems to vibrate, no light and no volume. Usually, it’s enough to wake me but this morning Amy heard it vibrating and wearily shouted at me to get up! I guess I was tired!

As I’d been waking up before my alarm for the last week or so, my brain was probably thinking that it couldn’t be time to get up yet.

Some tough exercise this morning and in my half awake state I struggled keeping my balance at times. The positive effects from it have carried me through, though and I feel good.

Health:

Physical: 8
Mental: 8

Today I’m grateful for:

Dutchie sending me the photos that I asked him for, which he took this morning. As we were waiting for the flag ceremony, we were talking about fashion, and Achang showed up wearing a denim jacket. I told them that denim jackets are kind of a 70s/80s style for me and not really in fashion.

I asked him if I could try it on and he let me whilst Dutchie took some pictures. I said that it’s a little too big for Achang and he told me that it actually belongs to his sister.

I thought I looked quite good in it.

The best thing about today was:

Soldiering through a slow workday, where only having to work three hours feels quite tiring, as there is too much downtime. I managed to stick it out until clock-out time by sitting in the cafe. I saw lots of my students walk by outside and Noah was excited to tell me that she and Lin have been chosen to help with the visiting overseas students next month.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

Recently, I have been less interested in reading poetry. I think I have been overwhelmed with so much to read on prompt blogs and it’s burned me out. It always feels like a chore to analyse someone else’s work in the hope that they return the favour. It’s the ‘like-for-like’ mentality of social media.

Of course, I want my work to be noticed. I think some of it is good and worthy. But to trawl through another 40 poems about the seasons or the moon is a burden I’m getting tired of.

I need to refine my search a bit and perhaps find new places to submit my work where it might get some more exposure. Looking around, though, there are a million poets of all shapes and flavours, all looking for the same thing. I’ll just keep on writing anyway and do appreciate the people who do take the time and interest to read and respond.

Something I learned today?

In an odd coincidence, whilst I was talking with my grade 12s today, Alyn hung up a phone call from a name I recognised as a Facebook friend of mine but I had recently been wondering who it was, as they were using a different name.

She told me that it was her brother and that made me even more curious. It turns out that her brother is my old grade 9 student Achang!

Review your acts, Good and bad.

I received a message back from Anchan this morning, just stating that she is unhappy and I wasn’t really able to offer her any consolation. I reminded her that she told me that her aunt was coming in the next couple of days and that she was hoping for things to get better. I haven’t heard back again, though.