At one of hot summer nights, in front of the rough angry waves which were hitting the tiny crystal grains of sand. Waves that carried millions of oppositions of life, sadness and happiness , misery and comfort , black and white, beside secrets  that cannot be counted by statistics. While its endless scenario was being repeated, based on her crutch, like an earthbound mountain she stood. She had a white hair with a few black hairs. Her eyes were like falcon's. She was contemplating as if she had either been revealing what sea tried to hide between waves, or challenging the sea to know how many waves it has. Near the sea there was a settlement for armed Israeli soldiers.

Three young soldiers suspected the motionless old woman who kept standing for long time.

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"I am not sure whether my heart will bear that scene or it will betray me again. Nor I am sure whether it will continue pumping the drops of blood over my body or they will be trapped behind its strong walls." Suddenly, he started talking to himself, and to imagine the situation, in the dark night of cold October. All his senses gathered in a trial to collect the separated parts of the image which he has been trying to collect for tens of years and thousands of nights alone. His tears, which are the same as the hot flames of hell, began to fall till his white bear has been wetted. Hassan started to remember the first moments he  has interred this prison and in particular this solitary confinement, or so called room no.102 and prisoner no.102 due to the number of Israeli soldiers he was accused to kill! The rusty metal door, the tiny slot of air, the dark walls and the slant ceiling which always threatened me to collapse on my flesh to stop the continuous series of hardship I have been facing since youth all of them will miss me. Nineteen years is not just any period of time, it is another life a human being experience, Hassan would never forget the moments he had spent alone. Where he missed the true meaning of life, all his senses were influenced by the harsh years. How long his eyes missed the light of sunshine, how long his ears missed the pathetic voice of his mother who always used to sing songs for homeland Palestine which are still stuck in his memory. The smell of the soil during the heavy rainfall of January is also impossible to be forgotten. Thus the melody of the sad nye while harvesting orange crops in January and February is a memorable time. Hassan's memory is full of events, date, images, sounds and actions related to Palestine. He felt himself lost among the childhood and youth. Oh! What youth am I talking about? Hassan the handsome lofty man as strong as the solid mountains of the west bank. Hassan of the white skin which resembles the snowy peaks of Ramallah in winter, and his fare hair and pure blue eyes that are as blue as the sea of Palestine, are ,unfortunately, not still the same!

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This piece describes an image in my mind for previous Palestinian patients who were being tormented on the Rafah Crossing Point in the era of the former president, Hosni Mubarak.

They learnt me beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet now I am telling them pain is in the eye of the beholder.
The Egyptian armed boy and I were the beholders.
Two faces look the same , but one is the killer.

I looked in my mother's half open eyes like caves.
And stared at the dry eyelashes of her.
And noticed how slowly she opened and closed her eyes.
The smell of death was waving to her.

Her eyes were seeing nothing but pain.
Neither me nor my elder brother she could see.
She was waiting for that train,
Farewell train, now I see.

There, the Egyptian soldier was witnessing
The pain spreading in the sick organs of mother's body.
I saw his bright eyes despite the black glasses he was wearing.
Looking at my mum mercilessly.

Suddenly, my mother stole the last breath.
And rode the farewell train.
In front of their huge closed gates, it happened, the death.
Carelessly, he threw the cigar away his mouth with a sigh.

I closed mother's eyes and kissed her cold cheeks.
I wondered how I could see, feel and even smell her pain
while the Egyptian could not!
Then I realized that pain is in the eye of the beholder.

Rent a Horror Movie
after watching Jon Snow's "Unseen Gaza"

We know the science
of decent programming.
Our eyes detect the borders
of the mind, what horror
must not be allowed
to reach its shores,
what anatomical details
need to be blurred,
excised.

Take for example the body
of a baby retrieved
in a bombing lull
after the passing of a tank.
It is not necessary to reveal
the missing lower extremities
or the lifeless nodding
head, charred.

It is enough to show
a shroud
like a newly washed curtain
folded into its own whiteness.
There goes a man,
nameless as the dead.
See how he walks
so very slowly
with the bundle.
Much more pleasing
to the careful eye.

Cut.  Cut.  Cut.

Reality altered
in selected frames
can lead
to complete
calmness.

So if you want blood and gore,
go to your corner
video store.

January - February 2009

Jim Pascual Agustin

These poems are from my recent collection, Alien to Any Skin (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila 2011). I have a new collection to be released by the same publisher in the next few months.

Jim Pascual Agustin writes in Filipino and English. He grew up in Manila, the Philippines during the years of the Marcos dictatorship. He moved to Cape Town, South Africa in 1994. His early books are Beneath an Angry Star (Anvil, Manila 1992) and Salimbayan (Publikasyong Sipat, Manila 1994). In 2011, the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House in Manila simultaneously released two of his books, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan (poetry in Filipino) and Alien to Any Skin (poetry in English). He maintains a blog at www.matangmanok.wordpress.com.