Laid Bare IV
The fourth poem in the Skendong Laid Bare series explores the language of ancient religious texts, historical memory, and the moral weight of conflict. Through imagery of destruction, resistance, and suffering, it reflects on how the echoes of past events continue to shape the present.
The occupied placed under herem.
Age-old policy worse than haram.
Destruction. Occupation. Extermination.
The women and children
Cannot be spared.
Obliterate them.
Show no mercy.
Neither old nor sick,
Sheep, ass, or ox.
Burn the olive groves.
The world in shock.
This vicious determination,
See allies grow uneasy,
For the day after tomorrow,
Their villainous hands
Shall be implicated
In the culling of innocents –
Captured in plain sight.
People never forget.
The orphans gush
From the catacombs.
They gather in the public square
And always declare a victory
In the lion’s den of resistance.
Troops encircle the enclave.
Thousands more congregate
At the city’s gate.
These accounts
People think are exaggerated,
Fictional or metaphorical.
Death and terror stalking.
Back to Myth, History & Cultural Memory
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