Poem 2

This poem was written two years ago.


The Athlete From Gaza

The athlete from Gaza
Is training for the marathon
The Gaza strip is 25 miles long.
A marathon is 26 miles and 800 yards long
So he runs diagonally
He likes to end his runs at the beach
Letting the Mediterranean sea
Cool his burning thighs

The athlete from Gaza
Is twenty two years old
He will be twenty six when the Olympics are held in London
A good age for a marathon runner.
He wants to stand on the starting line
Amongst all the other the athletes from all the other countries.
In a vest of red and green and black
And hear the bang of the gun
He thinks he could win.

The athlete from Gaza loves to run
Through Gaza city
He likes to hear the music coming from every taxi
And the shops and the sounds of the city
Coming from every wall and stone and the hot
Tarmac and his breath coming regular and deep
The fighters on the corner shout ‘look at him go!’
‘One day he’ll win a medal for Palestine!’
‘A medal for Gaza.’
‘Go on! Go on! Go on!’

The athlete from Gaza
Has what runners call ‘a big heart’
He can keep going even when the pain is immense
When his legs are on fire
And his lungs are burning
As if the oxygen is being scraped out of them
And he feels like he will die.
He can keep going. He has
A big heart.

The athlete from Gaza also has a good ‘kick’
A turn of speed for the end of the race.
His coach gave him that – he told him
‘Run every day along that beach.
Running through hot sand is hard, boy.
But it builds up your muscles.’
So at the end of the race
When all the other athletes have nothing left –
You’ll kick hot sand in their faces.’

Marathons burn calories
So the athlete from Gaza’s mother has a lot of cooking to do!
This is what he is supposed to eat -
Slow release carbohydrates like bread and wholemeal pasta
High quality proteins like chicken and fish and
Vitamin supplements.
And his coach recommends chick peas – to put a fire in the soul.
The athlete from Gaza eats with his family
Sometimes his sister gives him her portion.
She doesn’t eat so much anyway.

Training has recently been difficult
For the athlete from Gaza
His interval training – short dashes of a hundred yards or so
Up and down the alleys of the camp
Has recently been disrupted
And his long runs of 12, and 15, and 18 and 20 miles
Have had to be abandoned.
The training plan his coach wrote for him
Has red pen all over it now.
‘Postponed.’

Eating has recently been difficult
For the athlete from Gaza
His mother has not been able
To find the slow release carbohydrates and
The high quality proteins, the chicken and fish,
Although he still takes vitamin supplements
And bread, of course, and
His sister still tells him
To take her portion
She doesn’t eat so much anway.

The athlete from Gaza’s coach
Doesn’t care about running any more
This whole thing’s finished it for him,
he says. He smokes, he’s stressed all the time.
He thought once he’d help his boy break records
In stadiums all over the world
But he doesn’t care about running any more
‘What’s the point, boy?’ He says. ‘There’s no point.’
His eyes are red.

‘But I’m a runner.’
Says the athlete from Gaza
I’m a runner like Hicham El Gerrouj
and Haile Gebreselassie and Said Ouita
God gave me this runners body –
This runners heart and these long legs!’
On his bed, in his room, while his brother sleeps beside him
The athlete from Gaza thinks
I have only one life!
That’s the point.
His eyes are red.

The athlete from Gaza is training now
On a treadmill in a basement
Of an apartment block in Gaza City.
He runs his ten, fifteen, eighteen, twenty mile runs
Looking at the concrete wall
And when there is no electricity
He runs on the spot
Even when the ground shakes under him
He keeps going.
He has what runners call
‘A big heart.’

Every day the athlete from Gaza looks at that wall
That wall of concrete
He is forever running toward
And he thinks
You are not real
I will catch you
One day I will run through you
I will smash you –
Like a world record.

The athlete from Gaza is made of rage
His blood is hot and his body is burning
His eyes sting and his lungs ache
And that concrete wall is blank before him
You are not real. You are not real.

What would happen if he could run through it?
The athlete from Gaza
Smash through that wall
Like a world record?
Perhaps he would burst into this poem?
Into these words?
Perhaps he’d make a track of these lines
And a stadium of this page
And perhaps out of you and me
He’d make a crowd
To watch him run
In his green and black and red vest
Shouting
Go on! Go on! Go on!

Or perhaps he’d take these words -
this sentence
And he’d make of it a long road for himself to run on
And always put one step ahead of himself
An ellipsis
To form a road that can never end…