Problem-Not-Solving

Standing in front of the Canelleto of Venice’s “ghetto vecchio”, “ghetto”  the word for “foundry,”contemplating those arms and harms. I sit down in ghetto, I sit here in ghetto vecchio.

And metal was cast in the dream of the ghetto and metal was forged for cannons 1390 in “ur” in “pre” in the nightmare of ghetto and laboratory of ghetto a metal mentality for it takes a long harm a long arm a long hatching this mentality of force of problem-not-solving your ghetto and in the name of decree and forging a metal mentality with harming arms and where you can live under a low ceiling where you can live and problem-not-solving 5,000 in a crammed room un-dream it now of your nightmare not allowed into the light of other campos and canals your arms held in not able to reach out across a map a city divided and problem-not-solving.  Un-dream, un-dream  problem-not-solving the nightmare of ghetto or problem-not-solving your nightmare of ghetto of “ur” time of this ghetto. You want to stretch your human fleshly arms outside the walls toward campos and canals. You  want to stretch your rare fleshly arms out of here reach out of here reach out of harm’s way  towards campos and canals but you can only live here in this curfew  of “ur” time this “pre” time, before the dawn until Napoleon allows you can you can live elsewhere, o please step outside please step aside you say to  Palestine, you who were in pre-“ur” pre-dreamtime ghetto astride campos and canals. You are my problem I am not your problem grazie. And under Austrian rule come back inside ghetto and this “ur” nightmare 1797.  This “pre” dawn of “state” of arsenal. Of Palestine. Old  way back “ur”-Palestine, what of its rip and tears. Its tears and weeping its ghetto. I mark this for you I say this for you (tears and more weeping), carved in stone in metal of poem-time in scripture of 21st century winds. And then the dream of a full fledged fulltime arsenal  tears and weeping toward metal what do we do what do we have to or why have we to do air-strikes problem-not-solving 13 dead again in  ghetto Palestine when then arsenal  of problem-not-solving is long range rocket revenge toward Ashkelon no one hurt in Ashkelon 10 kilometers north of Gaza. O remember Gaza and then revenge in air strikes 13 dead in Gaza, ripped apart in Gaza and the fine elliptical gallery for women only, sit here, my dear downed dead decimated sister my one next to me in this “ur” dream nightmare of ghetto and arsenal and Palestine. Describe the body parts you sifted from the trees down from the scattered trees of Zion of Palestine. Three wells of Zion, the scattered trees of Zion, the miracles and tribulations of Zion of Palestine. The three ways to un-dream the problem. The dear dead body parts. Enter here the dream the nightmare of ghetto and the end of ghetto.
And say 3 three times:

I will not do to them what has been done to me.
   I will not do to them what has been done to me.

      I will not do to them what has been done to me.

What to do what to do as the merchant stranger Shakespeare  ghetto merchant works the Banco Rosso “real and tangible” or other side hits Sderot  with Grad rockets from Iran.  Hit with metal mentality forged in metal. Hit the word “Sderot” hit  the word “Grad” hit with harm your problem-not-solving scary alliances 4 boys between 8 and 12 dear dead body parts east of Jabaliya un-dream the dead take back the word “dead”. Not a jubilee. And more in Gaza and 2,000 in ghetto Gaza. This is the old “ur” held vision of unsolved Zion and now the guards in the nightmare that is new century inventory of the state of arsenals and the unsolved now divided Palestine building of more arsenals in the arms that harm and reach out and harm human and fleshly. I will sit here I will sit here and sound here and reach out arms human and fleshly, to ghetto to Gaza.

Originally published in The Iovis Trilogy (Coffee House Press, 2011). Copyright © by Anne Waldman. Reprinted with the permission of the author.