Why Make Art?
A glance at a poem I wrote on November 2, 2023
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984
I penned this poem at what would be called the beginning of the genocide of the Palestinian people, though it was not the beginning. It was a culmination, a final solution for Palestinians, after decades of their brutal subjugation by The Empire of the Machine. This empire is comprised of a number of industrial societies, working together to undermine human existence on this planet and free will. Leading the empire are The Masters of Industry, powerful people who wish to convince us, by any means necessary, that they are the owners of existence. To defeat their power, we must reclaim the evidence of our eyes and ears.
Why Make Art?
Why make art?
In this catastrophe,
why portray suffering
when the world has seen it already?
Has seen the children dying.
Has heard their cries.
Has watched as their limbs are amputated.
Has felt the guttural punch of bomb impacting
a residential building.
Has witnessed the birds vanish
and the aard, the earth, blacken,
become grey,
ashen as the moon.
Has heard the wail of sirens
and the umbilical cord of frustration
ripped from mothers’ wombs.
Is there worse than this?
Is there any other way of putting it?
Is there a word, a phrase, a sentence that needs to be born
for it to all make sense?
Does it have to make sense?
Can we not feel it in our bones,
in our flesh,
the tragedy?
Does the flesh not respond?
Does the heartbeat not quicken
when lives are taken so distantly beyond
and yet so near?
As near as the jugular vein.
Your vein,
your life,
means something—
but not theirs?
How can I put this into art?
How can I create a narrative more precise than a camera’s lens?
A dialogue more rapid than social media?
How can I frame it?
How can it be any more exact
and still not communicate anything?
—November 2, 2023
Dedicated to those that witness.