‘As Hamas Celebrates Dead Babies’: A Poem by Brian Yapko
As Hamas Celebrates Dead Babies
February 23, 2025
The Bibas deaths… how do I tell this news?
A mother and her sons—all blameless Jews—
Killed senselessly. My words seem desecration…
For I have not one word of consolation,
No explanation, nor a gift for silence
When faced with ululating savage violence.
No pretty words. Nor can I well control
The pain and sheer disgust at those who stole
The lives of little babes, who laughed and strangled
Helpless necks, who then vaunted their mangled
Dead bodies to all Gaza’s crowing cheer.
I did not know these babes yet feel their fear,
The fingers held too tightly to the throat—
Breath taken with an “Allah Akbar” gloat.
How do I now escape dark haunting dreams?
How do I keep myself from raging screams
Or else collapse in breath-defying sobbing?
And all about us savages are robbing
The West of all civility and grace.
All decency is toppled from its place
Outshouted by a world which hates what’s right
And gladly chooses darkness over light
While Jews are slaughtered, scapegoated and shamed.
But Islam must not ever once be blamed.
What do they think they build by taking lives
From innocents, by worshipping their knives?
How do I make this searing pain abate
And stop myself from prayers infused with hate?
In times like these when I can scarcely cope
I yet know God’s in charge. This give me hope.
Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals. He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel Bleeding Stone. He lives in Wimauma, Florida.