Fight or Flight: Poetry after October 7
There are many unanswered questions about October 7: the events preceding it, the slow response on the day, and the war that followed, and a full investigation is needed. But I’ll leave those questions for now. Following the events of last week and the relief of the release of the living hostages, I didn’t want to write a regular blog post; instead, I’d like to share some of the poems that I’ve penned since October 7, 2023, in no particular order.
Fight or Flight
While the 18-21-year-olds fight,
I was searching for flights.
But there are no flights –
So we all have to fight.
October 2023
What about the little girl?
What about that little girl
dressed in yellow
who I saw standing there
as hundreds, maybe thousands,
of madmen ran, shouted,
and climbed on aid trucks,
in a flattened Gaza?
What was that little girl
thinking about in the middle
of a man-made chaos?
Maybe her favourite toy,
or her parents were buried
beneath the rubble.
Probably, she was hungry or lost.
I don’t know what to make
of this real-life movie scene.
Like the little girl dressed in red,
in Schindler’s List,
she was the only colour.
Perhaps, I was meant to notice,
what nobody seemed to notice.
October, 2025
Spring After October
(Not Another War Poem)
Sheltered by shade, pink cyclamens grow,
surrounded by thorns, hides a rare rakefet,
it must be protected, as all children know,
as all children should, from sirens and rockets.
In barbed wire fields, the wild poppy springs,
over the grassy hills of Al Quds or Jerusalem,
from burnt ashes, she spreads her wings,
nature’s red renewal, not a war memorium.
April 2024
Yeledim Atidim
(Future Children)
Adults sipping coffee with sad, tired eyes,
children playing in the sand, so alive.
Babies laugh, make eyes, and smile,
their tiny hands glide in the air for a while.
Kids will dance, run and shout,
I guess that’s what it’s all about.
The children of love are not to be fazed,
they were not born for these twisted days.
A crime is being committed upon their future.
We must stop it from spreading any further.
August 2025
The Silent Majority
Where is the silent majority
that I have heard of?
Is this massive moral backbone of a nation real?
Why are they silent until it’s too late?
I guess that’s the point –
They don’t speak up –
instead, the haters make the noise,
while the silent majority go about their business.
But the problem is, that won’t the silent majority
be one day overrun by the violent minority?
I’m realising that this deafening ‘silence’,
is just another word for ‘bystander’.
London, June 2025
Mamad (Safe Room)
Inside our safe room, we stocked
candles in case of a power cut,
toilet paper and a bucket,
cereal bars and bottles of mineral water,
my CD collection from the 90s,
two crates of Lego blocks,
our family photo albums,
electric and acoustic guitars, an amp,
two drums, a tiny Buddha statue,
a stained carpet from Weisel St,
and hidden on the top shelf,
a small plank of timber
to jam the door shut
in case terrorists
ever tried
to bash
it in.
Asmuns Hill
(Inspired by Bob Dylan and a road sign)
Yeah the storm was long, it’s still going on,
at the moment I write these words.
The commander-in-chief was a lousy thief,
‘It’s all over’, you might have heard.
And there’s been so much suffering on their side
they think God’s allowed them to kill.
It’s another world from where I’m waiting
up on Asmuns Hill.
For more than a year the sorrow and tears
have been flowing like a flood.
We could hear the booms that shook the room,
but we never saw the blood.
And all this airbourne hatred
has me questioning if it’s God’s will?
I’m still waiting for an answer
up on Asmuns Hill.
So we packed our stuff, enough was enough,
took the kids and left the Land.
Said goodbye to everyone, the Eastern Sun,
and carved a heart shape in the sand.
And there’s so many emotions flyin’ round here
that I can’t even feel.
Better wait patiently for one to come
up on Asmuns Hill.
What can we say about that evil day
that hasn’t already been said?
The world’s gone insane, and who’s to blame,
for the forgotten and the dead?
And it’s easy to judge from my safe place
where nothing seems real.
Think I’ll wait ‘til this storm is over
up on Asmuns Hill.
London, January 2025
New Year’s Eve
Fireworks at midnight
scaring little animals
sound eerily like
real daylight missiles.
Once I loved
those bangs in the air
but now I turn to
silent prayer.
London, December 2024
Comfort Zone
My comfort zone is viewed as a war zone,
protected by buffer zones and iron domes,
threatened by army drones and smartphones.
Somehow this war zone became my own home,
where my kids have grown and seeds were sown
– or was it always just a house on loan?
Maybe I should return to my old comfort zone,
where old men eat scones and love to moan,
though research has shown, it’s not a warm zone.
September 2024
A Red Line
The builders have stopped coming.
The borders have been closed.
A line has been crossed.
A red line.
But what does red signify?
Danger, anger, blood?
Devils. That’s it, devils.
The devils crossed a red line a long time ago.
Now the builders have stopped coming.
The butchers have no more meat.
And the mothers keep crying.
October 2023
Heroes Come Home
The leaders stole the limelight.
It was pure theatre.
They cast themselves as the heroes,
not the hostages.
Victory laps. But there is no victory here.
Too many people, died.
Too many families, destroyed.
Too many futures, denied.
The villains are everywhere –
in Gazan tunnels,
in the Knesset,
in Lebanon,
in Yemen,
in Europe.
Even Qatar and Turkey
posed for a ‘peace’ selfie.
Hosts of terrorists,
funders of fear,
sellers of deadly weapons,
and religious provocateurs.
Shabbat’s warmongers playing
Monday’s peacemakers.
We will not be fooled.
We won’t forget your neglect.
What we witnessed today
was the power of prayer
over politics.
Not prayers repeated or read aloud,
but real, genuine prayer
deep within people’s hearts,
in their own words.
Ani bebeit.
October 2025
