LINDA M. CRATE

If I Could, I Would 

how can you say
"never again"
then turn a blind eye to the
genocide happening
in Palestine,

how can you hear the
screams of innocent people
and think they somehow
did anything to deserve this?

how is a ceasefire not the
obvious option in this terrible atrocity
against mankind?

or is man truly unkind?

i cannot believe that the collective
of humanity is cruel and yet so many
are willing to let these people die
that my faith in humanity wavers,

but i try to wear ribbons of hope on 
my heart and let them bloom in the 
flower gardens of my heart,
and watch it glisten on the wings of
my birds praying that hope will be enough;

i hope that one day children can
laugh again in palestine,
that families aren't torn apart;
and they can truly be free—

no one deserves what they're enduring,
and it breaks my heart that i have no power
to stop it because if i could, i would.
-linda m. crate 

No Need For Genocide 

when have enough
people died?
when is enough finally
enough?

ceasefire, yesterday, today,
and every day afterward!

enough colonization,
what good does it do?
it causes ugly wars which make
people suffer,

their lives matter!

let Palestine be free,
so they can grow up and grow
old and know the stories of 
their parents and grandparents;

so they can know something
other than the carnage of bombs
and death hanging in the air—

free palestine,
there is no need for genocide
here or anywhere.
-linda m. crate 

I Will Always Protest It 

a land already lived in 
cannot be discovered
or belong to anyone else,

some want the end of the world;

i want peace in this world—

free Palestine,
let the waters gleam with 
promise;
let the skies dance with birds
and sunshine—

let this genocide die 
instead of innocent people
just trying to make the best of
what little they have.

it breaks my heart hearing the
screams of the children,
the mothers, the fathers, the 
aunts, the uncles, the friends, the
sisters, the brothers;

end this now!

how can you look away from the
suffering of another human?
how can you not have empathy
for another soul?

i will never understand such evil,
but i will always protest it.
-linda m. crate 

LINDA M. CRATE: She is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). She is also the author of the novella Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022). Her debut book of photography Songs of the Creek (Alien Buddha Publishing, April 2023) was recently published.