WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.400 align:middle line:90% I'm going to get on with it now. 00:00:02.400 --> 00:00:05.115 align:middle line:84% Living In, part 2, "In-Sufficiency." 00:00:05.115 --> 00:00:09.980 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:12.290 align:middle line:90% "What do I want you to feel? 00:00:12.290 --> 00:00:14.960 align:middle line:84% The absurdity of that question wanted 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:19.310 align:middle line:84% you to go, go into immediacy of Hebron's lilac, 00:00:19.310 --> 00:00:21.650 align:middle line:90% doors in the star flash. 00:00:21.650 --> 00:00:26.510 align:middle line:84% To go as what and for what, this poem has removed itself, 00:00:26.510 --> 00:00:29.240 align:middle line:84% effaced its thought, your need for it. 00:00:29.240 --> 00:00:32.210 align:middle line:84% Stand and turn, look toward rain, 00:00:32.210 --> 00:00:35.240 align:middle line:84% saw only iron latticed rain, where 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:39.380 align:middle line:84% ideas are wrought in metal, where we are not is Hebron. 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:42.140 align:middle line:90% Clouds descend in squares. 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:45.080 align:middle line:84% When every optic nerve dissects from sight 00:00:45.080 --> 00:00:48.410 align:middle line:84% to feel the measure of slogan's discordant pull, 00:00:48.410 --> 00:00:52.400 align:middle line:84% precipices, thought's collective voice as each voice finds, 00:00:52.400 --> 00:00:54.740 align:middle line:84% fails its pitch, moments of love, 00:00:54.740 --> 00:00:58.040 align:middle line:84% resistances, both wild and timid, trudged round 00:00:58.040 --> 00:01:02.240 align:middle line:84% lonely in despair, our hands or roads unfurled and flinching, 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:05.480 align:middle line:84% to thought where altered words might talk engagement's ear 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:07.320 align:middle line:90% and song, half wrong. 00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:10.460 align:middle line:84% What I don't want is for you to account 00:01:10.460 --> 00:01:13.160 align:middle line:84% for staining yolks of breath, ghosting vocals 00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:16.310 align:middle line:84% in these venues of retreat, writing letters, gauging 00:01:16.310 --> 00:01:18.800 align:middle line:84% witnesses, transnational distances, 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:22.290 align:middle line:84% love's equivalencies find but our known and mirrored selves 00:01:22.290 --> 00:01:22.790 align:middle line:90% there. 00:01:22.790 --> 00:01:26.480 align:middle line:84% Can there be no more talk of day-rendered specificities, 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:28.040 align:middle line:90% appatent luminosities? 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:29.720 align:middle line:90% Can you speak? 00:01:29.720 --> 00:01:33.410 align:middle line:84% Gang cats gathered in heat or died alone by skips 00:01:33.410 --> 00:01:37.040 align:middle line:84% or clawed homes' foundations, wounded arm at dusk 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:39.920 align:middle line:84% that took up half touristic rhythms playing us 00:01:39.920 --> 00:01:44.330 align:middle line:84% and the streets on goatskin derbakes or Jerusalem's outskirt 00:01:44.330 --> 00:01:47.300 align:middle line:84% taxi-driven roads at night, man turned in fear 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:50.420 align:middle line:84% to warn against walking up past Mount of Olives 00:01:50.420 --> 00:01:51.860 align:middle line:90% white-tomb promises. 00:01:51.860 --> 00:01:53.960 align:middle line:90% Can't drive to the high hotel. 00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:57.260 align:middle line:84% His politics or mute details have their day 00:01:57.260 --> 00:02:01.760 align:middle line:84% to think in, small January skirmishes, prisoner of love, 00:02:01.760 --> 00:02:05.420 align:middle line:84% looking at them in full and careful earnestness, 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:10.820 align:middle line:84% stone-thrown land to listen in, no ideas but in Palestine. 00:02:10.820 --> 00:02:14.600 align:middle line:84% Every poem's space yells, go, go to Palestine 00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:18.830 align:middle line:90% and, in sufficiency, live in. 00:02:18.830 --> 00:02:23.810 align:middle line:84% A white goat tired from the drum arches its back out 00:02:23.810 --> 00:02:28.280 align:middle line:84% of its vase-like neck, birthing itself on the sand, 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:31.910 align:middle line:84% and for a while stands, quiver of whites 00:02:31.910 --> 00:02:34.430 align:middle line:90% on new, uncertain legs. 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:38.510 align:middle line:84% How do I use these legs when all I felt were hands, 00:02:38.510 --> 00:02:42.740 align:middle line:84% it seems to ask, recalling its old drum life. 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:48.140 align:middle line:84% Night, as its knees fold down, as its belly follows down, 00:02:48.140 --> 00:02:52.190 align:middle line:84% on the sand, the goat, without sound, gags. 00:02:52.190 --> 00:02:57.080 align:middle line:84% One long line of tape spools from its goat throat. 00:02:57.080 --> 00:02:59.960 align:middle line:84% Shamed by its own obsolescence, goat 00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:04.340 align:middle line:84% decides to die, on the line of tape, the tongue, 00:03:04.340 --> 00:03:09.020 align:middle line:84% on the line of tongue, the cud, cud of multitude's movements, 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:13.370 align:middle line:84% magnetized lives, decomposed jaw songs play 00:03:13.370 --> 00:03:17.360 align:middle line:90% a poem, intestinal, inland. 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:20.540 align:middle line:84% Taxi driver stands, seeing naught but a dead goat, 00:03:20.540 --> 00:03:21.650 align:middle line:90% drives away. 00:03:21.650 --> 00:03:24.080 align:middle line:84% Cats just get on with their cat life, 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:28.280 align:middle line:84% claw away dark that drags away from its own dark self. 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:31.580 align:middle line:84% Everything that can back away backs away. 00:03:31.580 --> 00:03:33.500 align:middle line:90% You cannot back away. 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:35.330 align:middle line:90% You back away. 00:03:35.330 --> 00:03:39.350 align:middle line:84% On thin foam of mattress across thin frame of bed, 00:03:39.350 --> 00:03:42.320 align:middle line:84% arms in needles placed behind, supported 00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:45.020 align:middle line:84% by lattice, weight of a backward lean, 00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:49.670 align:middle line:84% back in Palestine with Dawud, reminding him of my brother, 00:03:49.670 --> 00:03:52.970 align:middle line:84% now in Somalia, tasked with clearance of landmines 00:03:52.970 --> 00:03:57.710 align:middle line:84% and securing munitions, mad country director, French NGO. 00:03:57.710 --> 00:04:00.890 align:middle line:84% Dawud's cousin, leant back, took one wistful glance 00:04:00.890 --> 00:04:05.200 align:middle line:84% at the ceiling, said, in Somalia, guns are like bread. 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:07.700 align:middle line:90% Remember this exchange. 00:04:07.700 --> 00:04:09.860 align:middle line:84% Five days later, interviewed Dawud 00:04:09.860 --> 00:04:12.920 align:middle line:84% about his six years spent in Israeli jails, 00:04:12.920 --> 00:04:17.570 align:middle line:84% cigarette loosely hung between fingers and lips like stars, 00:04:17.570 --> 00:04:20.720 align:middle line:84% told that in Israeli jails, cigarettes were rationed. 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:24.980 align:middle line:84% You get four cigarettes a day, but a lighter only twice a day. 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:26.810 align:middle line:90% That was once the way of things. 00:04:26.810 --> 00:04:28.460 align:middle line:84% It was no longer the system used. 00:04:28.460 --> 00:04:30.500 align:middle line:84% Cigarettes are now bought, he said, 00:04:30.500 --> 00:04:32.720 align:middle line:84% but during interrogations, it was 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:35.390 align:middle line:84% common to be given four cigarettes in the morning 00:04:35.390 --> 00:04:39.260 align:middle line:84% but not to receive a lighter at any point during the day. 00:04:39.260 --> 00:04:41.450 align:middle line:84% But what we used to fix this problem, 00:04:41.450 --> 00:04:45.260 align:middle line:84% he said, and prompted by the unmistakable sound of the flint 00:04:45.260 --> 00:04:48.140 align:middle line:84% on the wheel of his lighter as ignite the gas, 00:04:48.140 --> 00:04:51.470 align:middle line:84% I noticed the complex defiance of his timing, the lighting 00:04:51.470 --> 00:04:53.690 align:middle line:84% of his cigarette, sound that is caught 00:04:53.690 --> 00:04:57.360 align:middle line:84% on the recording I am using to record these exact words. 00:04:57.360 --> 00:04:58.490 align:middle line:90% We make, he said. 00:04:58.490 --> 00:05:00.830 align:middle line:90% We use the paper of the-- 00:05:00.830 --> 00:05:05.930 align:middle line:84% bathroom paper, and we take a long one for 2 or 3 meters. 00:05:05.930 --> 00:05:08.690 align:middle line:84% And we roll it in a special way like we do, 00:05:08.690 --> 00:05:11.690 align:middle line:84% like you know, the thing you roll it for the bomb. 00:05:11.690 --> 00:05:13.010 align:middle line:90% Yeah, a fuse, I say. 00:05:13.010 --> 00:05:14.900 align:middle line:84% Yeah, we use it like this, he says. 00:05:14.900 --> 00:05:18.470 align:middle line:84% This is a special way, and not a lot of prisoners can do it. 00:05:18.470 --> 00:05:21.812 align:middle line:84% We roll it, and after that, we burn it from the cigarette. 00:05:21.812 --> 00:05:22.520 align:middle line:90% And it will stay. 00:05:22.520 --> 00:05:25.400 align:middle line:84% You have a fire for a few days, but when, 00:05:25.400 --> 00:05:28.610 align:middle line:84% if they catch, if they catch this thing, they will. 00:05:28.610 --> 00:05:31.130 align:middle line:84% They will not give you cigarettes for two or three 00:05:31.130 --> 00:05:35.330 align:middle line:84% days, but we always like create and discover many things 00:05:35.330 --> 00:05:37.310 align:middle line:90% to make our lives easier. 00:05:37.310 --> 00:05:40.820 align:middle line:84% Can you think of another thing you created in the jail, I ask. 00:05:40.820 --> 00:05:42.860 align:middle line:84% Almost without pause, he responds, 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:45.770 align:middle line:84% we create chess players from bread. 00:05:45.770 --> 00:05:49.190 align:middle line:84% Yet still to stay and to speak to the fact of the staying, 00:05:49.190 --> 00:05:51.200 align:middle line:84% to the choice to the dying sustain that 00:05:51.200 --> 00:05:53.540 align:middle line:84% echoes the sound of a note that is staying, 00:05:53.540 --> 00:05:56.390 align:middle line:84% bread, her head that forces a stone in her hands 00:05:56.390 --> 00:05:59.540 align:middle line:84% is that staying, memory of sand in the flag in the barb 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:02.465 align:middle line:84% that is staying, rooms full of poets that listen and stay 00:06:02.465 --> 00:06:05.072 align:middle line:84% is what's staying, the need of the walls and the floors 00:06:05.072 --> 00:06:07.280 align:middle line:84% and the logic of glass, the flesh that has structured 00:06:07.280 --> 00:06:08.570 align:middle line:90% the sound of this staying. 00:06:08.570 --> 00:06:10.160 align:middle line:84% To stay and to speak to that sound 00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:11.990 align:middle line:84% is the feeling of loss that is staying. 00:06:11.990 --> 00:06:13.250 align:middle line:90% You can't feel. 00:06:13.250 --> 00:06:16.970 align:middle line:84% You can't feel anything, just your mind working, 00:06:16.970 --> 00:06:19.370 align:middle line:84% and all sections of your body like 00:06:19.370 --> 00:06:23.540 align:middle line:84% you are a dead, a dead man with a working mind. 00:06:23.540 --> 00:06:26.180 align:middle line:84% And the fuse on the floor that stays the light 00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:26.960 align:middle line:90% is what's staying. 00:06:26.960 --> 00:06:28.820 align:middle line:84% This sentence that binds to my mind 00:06:28.820 --> 00:06:31.010 align:middle line:84% is the lilac on doors of his staying. 00:06:31.010 --> 00:06:35.180 align:middle line:84% So alternate between sounds Palestinians, Somali 00:06:35.180 --> 00:06:36.680 align:middle line:90% make in my mouth. 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:40.970 align:middle line:84% Recall likeness Dawud's cousin saw between Somali guns, 00:06:40.970 --> 00:06:43.310 align:middle line:84% the ubiquity of Palestinian bread, 00:06:43.310 --> 00:06:46.220 align:middle line:84% how toilet paper becomes a fuse, how bread 00:06:46.220 --> 00:06:48.260 align:middle line:90% facilitates games of chess. 00:06:48.260 --> 00:06:50.990 align:middle line:84% On the land-flung torso of itself, 00:06:50.990 --> 00:06:55.190 align:middle line:84% what sure thing can you find beyond the ballad exchange 00:06:55.190 --> 00:06:59.570 align:middle line:84% of orange for grape read olive, to see in advance how pieces 00:06:59.570 --> 00:07:03.170 align:middle line:84% move with metal guns, bleeding gums of yeast, 00:07:03.170 --> 00:07:06.350 align:middle line:84% to measure the process of occupation's counterpoint, 00:07:06.350 --> 00:07:08.870 align:middle line:84% force that turns a screw on value, 00:07:08.870 --> 00:07:12.650 align:middle line:84% how a dwindled fuse of the paper turns preservation, dignity, 00:07:12.650 --> 00:07:16.520 align:middle line:84% cunning, nation in all this imprisoned overdubbed time? 00:07:16.520 --> 00:07:19.050 align:middle line:84% And what you mistake for the length of my breath 00:07:19.050 --> 00:07:22.170 align:middle line:84% is the slow, persistent clench of a fist. 00:07:22.170 --> 00:07:23.520 align:middle line:90% Be agile, friend. 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:27.300 align:middle line:84% Press on, your translator gone, has not arrived. 00:07:27.300 --> 00:07:30.750 align:middle line:84% The poetry workshop will follow the path of the wall. 00:07:30.750 --> 00:07:34.200 align:middle line:84% Gardens, your destination, cost money to enter. 00:07:34.200 --> 00:07:37.890 align:middle line:84% Class structures this place like it has done others. 00:07:37.890 --> 00:07:40.290 align:middle line:84% They don't have much, but they have something, 00:07:40.290 --> 00:07:44.370 align:middle line:84% drawing your maps, your plans for poem maps on lawns. 00:07:44.370 --> 00:07:46.830 align:middle line:84% We've come out here to think about space, 00:07:46.830 --> 00:07:50.010 align:middle line:84% you say, why certain things have been counted, 00:07:50.010 --> 00:07:52.380 align:middle line:84% why certain other things have not. 00:07:52.380 --> 00:07:56.520 align:middle line:84% Sweep arm in wide gestures to white shekel distances. 00:07:56.520 --> 00:07:58.620 align:middle line:84% In front of you, however, there grows 00:07:58.620 --> 00:08:01.770 align:middle line:84% a long, uncomprehending silence, undeniable 00:08:01.770 --> 00:08:05.160 align:middle line:84% as the space between one thump of a heart and its next. 00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:07.230 align:middle line:90% It is this breath that breaks. 00:08:07.230 --> 00:08:08.640 align:middle line:90% I am at Qalandiya. 00:08:08.640 --> 00:08:09.960 align:middle line:90% I am in Qalandiya. 00:08:09.960 --> 00:08:12.520 align:middle line:84% I, too, am of Qalandiya, another says. 00:08:12.520 --> 00:08:13.560 align:middle line:90% I am in Haifa. 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:14.850 align:middle line:90% I remain at home. 00:08:14.850 --> 00:08:17.700 align:middle line:84% I am the whole of Tel Aviv, and I, the countless wings 00:08:17.700 --> 00:08:19.260 align:middle line:90% of birds, another says. 00:08:19.260 --> 00:08:21.690 align:middle line:90% I, Nablus, Hebron, Khan Yunis. 00:08:21.690 --> 00:08:23.820 align:middle line:90% I am at Qalandiya, another says. 00:08:23.820 --> 00:08:26.160 align:middle line:84% I come to share our suffering and pain caused 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:27.660 align:middle line:90% by the neoliberal system. 00:08:27.660 --> 00:08:30.210 align:middle line:84% I come to share valuable knowledge, our experiences 00:08:30.210 --> 00:08:33.510 align:middle line:84% in struggle and organization, our goals and challenges. 00:08:33.510 --> 00:08:35.850 align:middle line:84% I am in Qalandiya, another says, I, 00:08:35.850 --> 00:08:38.880 align:middle line:84% that the Palestinian people will resist and will rise again, 00:08:38.880 --> 00:08:40.950 align:middle line:84% that they will once again begin to walk, 00:08:40.950 --> 00:08:42.929 align:middle line:84% and that they will know then that although we 00:08:42.929 --> 00:08:46.200 align:middle line:84% are far away on the map, I, that the peoples embraced them today 00:08:46.200 --> 00:08:50.070 align:middle line:84% as we have before, as we always do, with our collective hearts. 00:08:50.070 --> 00:08:52.200 align:middle line:90% I am of Qalandiya, another says. 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:55.260 align:middle line:84% You, in this long and uncomprehending silence 00:08:55.260 --> 00:08:57.270 align:middle line:84% that was once drawn onto their faces 00:08:57.270 --> 00:09:00.210 align:middle line:84% and which now grows undeniably to fall across yours, 00:09:00.210 --> 00:09:03.510 align:middle line:84% begin to rip your ears, which are the first to cave, 00:09:03.510 --> 00:09:05.190 align:middle line:90% followed next by your eyes. 00:09:05.190 --> 00:09:08.580 align:middle line:84% This workshop is not going at all well for you, whispers one. 00:09:08.580 --> 00:09:10.860 align:middle line:90% I am at Qalandiya, another says. 00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:13.380 align:middle line:84% Your lack of language begins to weigh more heavily 00:09:13.380 --> 00:09:16.680 align:middle line:84% in your throat, apple of stone, until under the weight of it 00:09:16.680 --> 00:09:18.150 align:middle line:90% all, you fall to the floor. 00:09:18.150 --> 00:09:21.540 align:middle line:84% What is left of those white ears bleed red, press, and ground. 00:09:21.540 --> 00:09:23.790 align:middle line:84% You hear something resembling speech. 00:09:23.790 --> 00:09:26.700 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it is the code sound of slaughtered goats. 00:09:26.700 --> 00:09:28.530 align:middle line:90% I am in Qalandiya, says one. 00:09:28.530 --> 00:09:30.660 align:middle line:90% I am of Qalandiya, another says. 00:09:30.660 --> 00:09:32.280 align:middle line:84% From a concealed pocket, they pull 00:09:32.280 --> 00:09:34.530 align:middle line:84% copies of some old document, leaves, 00:09:34.530 --> 00:09:37.260 align:middle line:84% which decaying, with your still one half-good eye, 00:09:37.260 --> 00:09:39.540 align:middle line:90% you try to read. 00:09:39.540 --> 00:09:41.640 align:middle line:84% On it, a flock of black-headed gulls 00:09:41.640 --> 00:09:43.740 align:middle line:90% dusk over serif cliff's glare. 00:09:43.740 --> 00:09:46.200 align:middle line:84% I am the Balfour Declaration, says one. 00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:48.510 align:middle line:90% I am in Qalandiya, another says. 00:09:48.510 --> 00:09:50.430 align:middle line:90% In rain, the past goes gorge. 00:09:50.430 --> 00:09:52.770 align:middle line:84% You, left with a flare of nagging thought, 00:09:52.770 --> 00:09:56.430 align:middle line:84% do not say, I must love what I will never believe in twice, 00:09:56.430 --> 00:09:57.330 align:middle line:90% echoes Day. 00:09:57.330 --> 00:09:59.040 align:middle line:90% You read Genet, says Day. 00:09:59.040 --> 00:10:00.930 align:middle line:84% That's not Genet, you try to say, 00:10:00.930 --> 00:10:03.720 align:middle line:84% as Day shoves your barely breathing corpse complicity 00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:06.750 align:middle line:84% into the back of a taxi that, as always from your love, 00:10:06.750 --> 00:10:09.660 align:middle line:84% peels away, who from 1970 onwards 00:10:09.660 --> 00:10:12.060 align:middle line:84% spent two years in Palestinian refugee camps 00:10:12.060 --> 00:10:14.280 align:middle line:84% in Jordan, who recalls in the book which 00:10:14.280 --> 00:10:16.830 align:middle line:84% details the experience a conversation he 00:10:16.830 --> 00:10:18.210 align:middle line:90% had with the fedayeen. 00:10:18.210 --> 00:10:22.350 align:middle line:84% Whenever Europeans looked at us, their eyes shone. 00:10:22.350 --> 00:10:24.090 align:middle line:90% Now I understand why. 00:10:24.090 --> 00:10:27.120 align:middle line:84% It was with desire because their looking at us 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:31.140 align:middle line:84% produced a reaction in our bodies before we realized it. 00:10:31.140 --> 00:10:34.860 align:middle line:84% Even with our backs turned, we could feel your eyes drilling 00:10:34.860 --> 00:10:36.630 align:middle line:90% through the back of our necks. 00:10:36.630 --> 00:10:40.380 align:middle line:84% We automatically adopted a heroic and therefore attractive 00:10:40.380 --> 00:10:41.190 align:middle line:90% pose. 00:10:41.190 --> 00:10:44.520 align:middle line:84% Legs, thighs, chest, neck, everything 00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:46.410 align:middle line:90% helped to work the charm. 00:10:46.410 --> 00:10:49.860 align:middle line:84% We weren't aiming to attract anyone in particular, 00:10:49.860 --> 00:10:54.390 align:middle line:84% but since your eyes provoked us and you turned us into stars, 00:10:54.390 --> 00:10:57.510 align:middle line:84% we responded to your hopes and expectations. 00:10:57.510 --> 00:11:00.030 align:middle line:84% But you turned us into monsters, too. 00:11:00.030 --> 00:11:01.800 align:middle line:90% You called us terrorists. 00:11:01.800 --> 00:11:03.990 align:middle line:90% We were terrorist stars. 00:11:03.990 --> 00:11:08.400 align:middle line:84% In the back seat of a car at night, Day gets real quiet. 00:11:08.400 --> 00:11:12.300 align:middle line:84% When all the stars are drones, Day just lets them talk. 00:11:12.300 --> 00:11:16.770 align:middle line:84% I am in the car with you, friend, of terrorist stars. 00:11:16.770 --> 00:11:21.780 align:middle line:84% Dawud is to my right, and it is 10:00 PM in occupied Palestine. 00:11:21.780 --> 00:11:23.880 align:middle line:84% This friend was with me in prison. 00:11:23.880 --> 00:11:26.850 align:middle line:84% I met this man in prison, too, then pointing 00:11:26.850 --> 00:11:28.360 align:middle line:90% to the man in the front. 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:30.990 align:middle line:84% This man was the head of Fatah in prison. 00:11:30.990 --> 00:11:34.590 align:middle line:84% A good person to learn from, then, trying not to stir Day, 00:11:34.590 --> 00:11:35.910 align:middle line:90% I coolly say. 00:11:35.910 --> 00:11:38.520 align:middle line:84% Yes, he says, catching the reference to what 00:11:38.520 --> 00:11:40.200 align:middle line:90% he had said the previous day. 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:43.530 align:middle line:84% He had received his true education in the prison. 00:11:43.530 --> 00:11:46.290 align:middle line:84% I, telling you what Dawud had told me 00:11:46.290 --> 00:11:48.390 align:middle line:84% while he was chained to the honor chair, 00:11:48.390 --> 00:11:50.370 align:middle line:84% a mirror had been left in the room. 00:11:50.370 --> 00:11:53.760 align:middle line:84% It had been known for the mirror to be used as a punchline 00:11:53.760 --> 00:11:54.870 align:middle line:90% to a joke. 00:11:54.870 --> 00:11:57.330 align:middle line:84% If and when the prisoner falls asleep, 00:11:57.330 --> 00:12:01.110 align:middle line:84% the mirror is moved closer to their face, so when you wake, 00:12:01.110 --> 00:12:03.090 align:middle line:90% you get a bad surprise. 00:12:03.090 --> 00:12:05.880 align:middle line:84% So simple, but very hard on the prisoner. 00:12:05.880 --> 00:12:10.680 align:middle line:84% Jaw wired, I laugh without sound in Palestine. 00:12:10.680 --> 00:12:13.590 align:middle line:84% During this, I slide in beside you, 00:12:13.590 --> 00:12:16.740 align:middle line:84% furnishing his words in the wound of your ear, 00:12:16.740 --> 00:12:21.120 align:middle line:84% face turned to yours, slowly turning to reflective glass. 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:23.460 align:middle line:90% On waking, you see you. 00:12:23.460 --> 00:12:25.085 align:middle line:90% You are now your own eye. 00:12:25.085 --> 00:12:28.440 align:middle line:84% I say, was I ever actually there in that car 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:31.440 align:middle line:84% with those prisoners that night in Palestine? 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:34.300 align:middle line:90% Mouth of clogged bread. 00:12:34.300 --> 00:12:38.560 align:middle line:84% This life has this quality of glimmering absence. 00:12:38.560 --> 00:12:41.560 align:middle line:84% Even lies shine out the truth in them, 00:12:41.560 --> 00:12:43.660 align:middle line:90% registers a violent shift. 00:12:43.660 --> 00:12:46.210 align:middle line:90% Escalations give no sound. 00:12:46.210 --> 00:12:48.520 align:middle line:90% Relation, the words need more. 00:12:48.520 --> 00:12:51.790 align:middle line:84% Absence, filled by past burdens of proof 00:12:51.790 --> 00:12:55.450 align:middle line:84% that any property was not absentee, fell upon its owner, 00:12:55.450 --> 00:12:58.570 align:middle line:84% displacement the present mass of this absence. 00:12:58.570 --> 00:13:01.900 align:middle line:84% Here and there, precise and chance locations, 00:13:01.900 --> 00:13:04.660 align:middle line:84% absence smashed out of presence, poem 00:13:04.660 --> 00:13:07.330 align:middle line:84% a distrustful displacement, resisting 00:13:07.330 --> 00:13:09.940 align:middle line:84% to sounding history's presence, though it 00:13:09.940 --> 00:13:11.530 align:middle line:90% is part of the absence. 00:13:11.530 --> 00:13:15.040 align:middle line:84% What sounds balanced gives no permit to balance. 00:13:15.040 --> 00:13:17.710 align:middle line:84% Violence sculpts its own reality. 00:13:17.710 --> 00:13:22.150 align:middle line:84% Offcuts observed turn memory, no speaking on behalf of. 00:13:22.150 --> 00:13:25.030 align:middle line:84% Blood current's far-off surface speed off. 00:13:25.030 --> 00:13:28.780 align:middle line:84% Solutions are foreign to its constituents, mirrors to all 00:13:28.780 --> 00:13:29.950 align:middle line:90% that we are. 00:13:29.950 --> 00:13:34.990 align:middle line:84% We are throwing stones on the street, if manufacture, ground. 00:13:34.990 --> 00:13:37.840 align:middle line:84% Saleh, my friend, throwing the stones, 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:40.750 align:middle line:84% if researched, copper, lead, or steel. 00:13:40.750 --> 00:13:43.060 align:middle line:84% We were in the street throwing stones. 00:13:43.060 --> 00:13:44.110 align:middle line:90% It was a game. 00:13:44.110 --> 00:13:48.310 align:middle line:84% If taper, primer, propellant, division of labor, not here, 00:13:48.310 --> 00:13:51.970 align:middle line:84% round there, round the corner, if before flight, mold. 00:13:51.970 --> 00:13:55.460 align:middle line:84% I saw the soldier here, there, here in the tower. 00:13:55.460 --> 00:13:57.760 align:middle line:84% If there is assembly, firm seating. 00:13:57.760 --> 00:14:00.370 align:middle line:84% Wee Saleh was on the street throwing stones, 00:14:00.370 --> 00:14:02.260 align:middle line:90% if there is length, crimping. 00:14:02.260 --> 00:14:03.670 align:middle line:90% Soldier had a sniper. 00:14:03.670 --> 00:14:04.840 align:middle line:90% I saw the sniper. 00:14:04.840 --> 00:14:07.270 align:middle line:84% If there is moisture, failure of ceiling. 00:14:07.270 --> 00:14:09.340 align:middle line:84% I could tell because it was long. 00:14:09.340 --> 00:14:11.710 align:middle line:84% If there is feed, primer is flush. 00:14:11.710 --> 00:14:13.660 align:middle line:84% I told Saleh, don't throw stones. 00:14:13.660 --> 00:14:15.100 align:middle line:90% The soldier has a sniper. 00:14:15.100 --> 00:14:17.380 align:middle line:84% If there is flight, correct charging. 00:14:17.380 --> 00:14:18.520 align:middle line:90% Saleh did not listen. 00:14:18.520 --> 00:14:19.600 align:middle line:90% He did not listen. 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:22.000 align:middle line:84% If quality control, correct sequence. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.580 align:middle line:84% He came around this corner to throw the stone. 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:27.340 align:middle line:84% If alteration, check barometric pressure. 00:14:27.340 --> 00:14:29.500 align:middle line:90% I heard some soft thing thud. 00:14:29.500 --> 00:14:32.200 align:middle line:84% If slight deviation, adjust for humidity. 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:33.190 align:middle line:90% I did not hear. 00:14:33.190 --> 00:14:34.750 align:middle line:90% I did not hear no thing. 00:14:34.750 --> 00:14:37.150 align:middle line:84% If vibration, see wind on the casing. 00:14:37.150 --> 00:14:39.100 align:middle line:90% Saleh was on the ground. 00:14:39.100 --> 00:14:41.800 align:middle line:84% If mushroom expansion, possible cavity. 00:14:41.800 --> 00:14:42.940 align:middle line:90% I did not go up to him. 00:14:42.940 --> 00:14:43.960 align:middle line:90% I saw his head. 00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:47.770 align:middle line:84% If expansion and cavity, multiple pathing. 00:14:47.770 --> 00:14:50.590 align:middle line:84% If pathing unrecorded, then this is the difference 00:14:50.590 --> 00:14:53.500 align:middle line:84% between the blood on the stone and the blood 00:14:53.500 --> 00:14:55.180 align:middle line:90% that he saw on the stone. 00:14:55.180 --> 00:14:59.140 align:middle line:84% When I lied to you, I was a flex of steel cloud. 00:14:59.140 --> 00:15:01.720 align:middle line:84% Difference between-- I saw the blood on the stone, 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:03.730 align:middle line:84% for it is not here for you to see it. 00:15:03.730 --> 00:15:06.310 align:middle line:84% And I saw the blood on the stone because you were not 00:15:06.310 --> 00:15:09.100 align:middle line:84% here to see it, the blood that I saw on the stone 00:15:09.100 --> 00:15:11.860 align:middle line:84% and the blood that was there on the stone. 00:15:11.860 --> 00:15:15.430 align:middle line:84% In the incoercible perfumed streets that I am, 00:15:15.430 --> 00:15:18.550 align:middle line:84% the difference between the blood that was there on the stone 00:15:18.550 --> 00:15:20.890 align:middle line:84% and the blood he said he saw on the stone 00:15:20.890 --> 00:15:23.470 align:middle line:84% because you were not here to see the blood he said 00:15:23.470 --> 00:15:26.500 align:middle line:84% he saw on the stone or the blood that was there on the stone, 00:15:26.500 --> 00:15:29.500 align:middle line:84% and the blood he said he saw on the stone and the blood that 00:15:29.500 --> 00:15:32.680 align:middle line:84% was there on the stone is not here for you to see it. 00:15:32.680 --> 00:15:37.240 align:middle line:84% Before crimson trauma, I claim this, my liar's right, 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:39.190 align:middle line:84% for the blood that was there on the stone 00:15:39.190 --> 00:15:41.080 align:middle line:84% said I saw the blood on the stone, 00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:42.850 align:middle line:84% for the blood that was there on the stone 00:15:42.850 --> 00:15:45.430 align:middle line:84% and my blood that wasn't there on the stone for us 00:15:45.430 --> 00:15:47.110 align:middle line:90% to see or not to see it. 00:15:47.110 --> 00:15:50.110 align:middle line:84% The blood was there on the stone, and I saw it. 00:15:50.110 --> 00:15:54.970 align:middle line:84% We flew in the cell of our skin, braces locked on teeth. 00:15:54.970 --> 00:15:57.790 align:middle line:90% This was the truth Zayid told. 00:15:57.790 --> 00:16:01.780 align:middle line:84% Whatever you want, you can have, as he worked out his story 00:16:01.780 --> 00:16:03.580 align:middle line:90% as he walked past the wall. 00:16:03.580 --> 00:16:07.270 align:middle line:84% Before all manufacture, there are grounds. 00:16:07.270 --> 00:16:11.650 align:middle line:84% After the workshop on space, protest comes to the camp. 00:16:11.650 --> 00:16:15.160 align:middle line:84% The arc of the tear gas was the glee on their faces, 00:16:15.160 --> 00:16:17.980 align:middle line:84% a dance in the scream of the street. 00:16:17.980 --> 00:16:21.220 align:middle line:84% Now Day is lost somewhere in Ramallah, 00:16:21.220 --> 00:16:23.980 align:middle line:84% glinting off the head of an iron boy 00:16:23.980 --> 00:16:28.390 align:middle line:84% who climbs in static to a flag that absent over life 00:16:28.390 --> 00:16:32.830 align:middle line:84% that feels much like normal life but is not normal life. 00:16:32.830 --> 00:16:34.780 align:middle line:90% Protest comes to the camp. 00:16:34.780 --> 00:16:38.140 align:middle line:84% The one lie is sharp when soldiers invade over 00:16:38.140 --> 00:16:41.680 align:middle line:84% Palestinian graves, using them for cover, the dead, 00:16:41.680 --> 00:16:43.300 align:middle line:90% their stones that watch. 00:16:43.300 --> 00:16:44.410 align:middle line:90% This is literal. 00:16:44.410 --> 00:16:46.180 align:middle line:90% Protest comes to the camp. 00:16:46.180 --> 00:16:47.590 align:middle line:90% The one lie is sharp. 00:16:47.590 --> 00:16:50.260 align:middle line:84% Tires burn to block, in hazy curls 00:16:50.260 --> 00:16:53.200 align:middle line:84% of smoke, the sun, the sight of the shooters, 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:56.200 align:middle line:84% ghost at that point and kneel to shriek at the gate 00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:59.020 align:middle line:84% or run back to the high gate of their coming. 00:16:59.020 --> 00:17:02.860 align:middle line:84% The one lie is sharp, standing in light's fast thrashes, 00:17:02.860 --> 00:17:06.339 align:middle line:84% reading, doing something, or sweating alone so long, 00:17:06.339 --> 00:17:09.250 align:middle line:84% doing nothing, so long, so long to an end, 00:17:09.250 --> 00:17:13.270 align:middle line:84% to an end of no other, save colonial circle's capital 00:17:13.270 --> 00:17:16.780 align:middle line:84% concrete, the wall of so long, bereft of ideas, 00:17:16.780 --> 00:17:19.599 align:middle line:84% living to itself, cut off from the people, 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:23.079 align:middle line:84% undermined by its own hereditary incapacity 00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:25.839 align:middle line:84% to think in terms of all the problems of the nation 00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:28.119 align:middle line:84% as seen from the point of view of that nation. 00:17:28.119 --> 00:17:31.570 align:middle line:84% Tick that sucks on a just cause, the continual, 00:17:31.570 --> 00:17:34.460 align:middle line:84% yells as its one true desire to borrow 00:17:34.460 --> 00:17:37.490 align:middle line:84% in the earth of the people, in quickening pupils, 00:17:37.490 --> 00:17:40.850 align:middle line:84% so long to justly hack at throat and skin, 00:17:40.850 --> 00:17:44.600 align:middle line:84% so long as there are managers living out or living in 00:17:44.600 --> 00:17:45.680 align:middle line:90% in the end. 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:51.170 align:middle line:84% In the end, it was an honor for me to be one of the prisoners, 00:17:51.170 --> 00:17:54.650 align:middle line:84% from the Palestinian prisoners, and it was an honor for me 00:17:54.650 --> 00:17:58.790 align:middle line:84% to be the first prisoner from Aida Camp in this intifada. 00:17:58.790 --> 00:18:02.540 align:middle line:84% It was an honor to sit in the interrogation chair. 00:18:02.540 --> 00:18:06.050 align:middle line:90% It is an honor chair." 00:18:06.050 --> 00:18:06.590 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:18:06.590 --> 00:18:08.440 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]