Noor Hindi - Mars Drum
Noor Hindi
Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying
Colonizers write about flowers.
I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks
seconds before becoming daisies.
I want to be like those poets who care about the moon.
Palestinians don't see the moon from jail cells and prisons.
It's so beautiful, the moon.
They're so beautiful, the flowers.
I pick flowers for my dead father when I'm sad.
He watches Al Jazeera all day.
I wish Jessica would stop texting me Happy Ramadan.
I know I'm American because when I walk into a room something dies.
Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound.
When I die, I promise to haunt you forever.
One day, I'll write about the flowers like we own them.
Taken from noorhindi.com
First published: Poetry, 2020
Noor Hindi (she/her/hers) is calling on you to join the global fight for the survival and liberation of Palestinians and all oppressed people. Anywhere and everywhere you are, you can disrupt, advocate, speak out and refuse in small and big ways. Revolution until freedom.
Mars Drum
Christmas day twenty twenty three
The family farm table was a feast to be seen
wooden platters silver and crystal bowls
red white black nested in leafy greens
pink white cuts with mustard and cranberry
sage green butter with sesame seeds
orange and purple with flashes of red
well tossed and turned in ivory cream
My oldest brother raised a glass to those
in the local district since deceased
Which was nice.
We raised our glasses
nodding and murmuring to their names
More family members added their own since deceased
our glasses stayed high
nodding and murmuring to their names
I added Gaza
and then there was silence
as the glasses were lowered slowly
to the table
It wasn't said aloud
but I'd heard it before
it screamed over the silver and the crystal bowls:
"MAAARS! NOT AT CHRISTMASTIME!
Noor Hindi is a Palestinian-American poet. Her debut collection of poems, Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow (Haymarket Books 2022), was an honorable mention for the Arab American Book Award. She is currently editing a Palestinian poetry anthology with George Abraham (Haymarket Books, 2025). She is a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow. Follow her on Instagram @NoorKHindi.
Mars Drum: I am an artist living on Wotjobaluk country.
My ongoing art series titled “The True History of Ned Kelly and Burka Woman” began immediately after 9/11/200. I donned a burqa in Melbourne for a few years to counteract the terrorist label applied to Melbourne’s Islamic community members. I began painting the series when the Allied forces first invaded Afghanistan. I have had several solo exhibitions in Victorian galleries, and have been reviewed and interviewed nationally and internationally.
Ï am committed to supporting Palestine and its people by sharing their online stories and voices to the rest of the world.
@mars.drum @martian.delany www.marsdrum.com mars@drawingtime@gmail.com
