Ammiel Alcalay & Kholoud Hammad

Zionist Logic
after Langston Hughes
Lots of things have
become criminalized.
But genocide?
For our one & only
indispensable ally?
Between prayers,
the ambulance
drivers & medics
shouted
out loud:
“The Jews are coming,
the Jews are coming!”
What else were they
supposed to say?
April 5, 2025
“tidings”
while some might claim
& others even sleep peacefully
reveling in their bloodlust & butchery
—for there is no denying people
are so expertly capable—
others will wander eternally even
in surroundings most seemingly
familiar accompanied by
the severed limbs of
those they chose
to maim
the ever-seeing eyes
plucked out by shrapnel
the still-pointing fingers
dispatched from wounded hands
the indicting heads departed
from necks & bodies
the screams extracted
by alien instruments
& even organs
desecrated
in acts of
rape &
torture—
the metallic din of
an executioner’s order
or the bureaucrat’s keystroke
disappearing whole extended families
from the wondrous pleasures of life
in this terrestrial paradise
for these no amount of soap
will ever scrub the clumps
& bits of still burning skin,
tissue, tendons, muscle, &
bone clinging to what’s left
of their mental presence
crawling along the
interstices of their
bodily frame like
shadows just too
far from reach—
such states of distress are declaredly
what I or any rational person would
wish for them these miserable
worthless inconsequential
cowardly specks
of flesh & bone
once mistaken
for living
breathing
humans
turn the page
like hi-tech termites you’ve
eaten almost everything:
we know what you’ve
stolen lately but now
it’s entirely up to you to
prove what wasn’t stolen
long ago, from so-called
“time immemorial”: even
though it’s been ages since
I abandoned your alphabet
in witnessing myself I made
a most solemn vow to all
my departed companions
never to use it again un-
less it be to extirpate &
prosecute this radical
evil we’ve been
witness to,
on behalf of
beloved
Palestine.

Excerpts from Imperial Abhorrences / For Palestine [Forthcoming from Birds LLC], a collaborative work by poet Ammiel Alcalay and artist Kholoud Hammad. You can support Kholoud Hammad and her family at this online Spotfund page, or purchase prints of her work as a form of support by clicking here.
Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, novelist,
translator, critic, and scholar, and author of some thirty books. Controlled Demolition: a work in four books, Follow
the Person: Archival Encounters,
and Nasser Rabah’s Gaza: The Poem Said
Its Piece (co-translated with Khaled al-Hilli and Emna Zghal), have all
come out in 2025. His work has appeared in small and
large venues, from the Poetry Project
Newsletter and Clothesline, to Time Magazine and The New York Times. He regularly writes on
politics, most recently for Middle East
Eye. While bringing works from other parts of the world to the US via
translation and advocacy, Alcalay has also been a key figure in reconfiguring
US literary and cultural history through the unique publishing, pedagogical,
and public project, Lost & Found: The
CUNY Poetics Document Initiative. Founded in 2009, Alcalay’s work on Lost & Found was recognized in 2017
with a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award.
Kholoud Hammad is a Palestinian artist, illustrator, and graphic designer born in Gaza where she still lives. Repeatedly displaced in Northern Gaza with her family since October, 2023, she continues to make intricate and beautiful artwork about the beauty of Palestine and symbols of Palestinian identity and liberation. Her work is imbued with an overwhelming spirit of resistance, depicting heroic figures in epic tableaux, whirlwind scenes of chaos and destruction, or schematic views of exploding buildings. As she herself has written: “My art springs from the reality I live every day—harsh scenes of destruction, loss, and resilience... Art became my voice when words fail me. It is my way to process pain, resist injustice, and share my truth with the world.”
Kholoud Hammad is a Palestinian artist, illustrator, and graphic designer born in Gaza where she still lives. Repeatedly displaced in Northern Gaza with her family since October, 2023, she continues to make intricate and beautiful artwork about the beauty of Palestine and symbols of Palestinian identity and liberation. Her work is imbued with an overwhelming spirit of resistance, depicting heroic figures in epic tableaux, whirlwind scenes of chaos and destruction, or schematic views of exploding buildings. As she herself has written: “My art springs from the reality I live every day—harsh scenes of destruction, loss, and resilience... Art became my voice when words fail me. It is my way to process pain, resist injustice, and share my truth with the world.”