Three Poems by Michael Campagnoli

from Beirut (1982-84): a cycle of poems

September 16

Pink leaflets dropped by fighter jets littered the streets.
Arafat and his men were gone. With assurances
From Sharon and American Ambassador Habib.
Wives and children, left behind.
Old fathers and mothers.

Then fell the pink leaflets.

Gaby, an Armenian who owned the barber shop in
The Commodore’s basement, was close to hysteria.
“What does this mean?”
he cried. He was one
who believed when Sharon said it was only the
Katyusha rockets they wanted. 43 kilometers.
Nothing more. He believed when Ambassador
Habib guaranteed the safety of the women and children.
But here we were, Kittredge breathing hard from the
Climb, on top of a high-rise on the Rue Assi, watching
The Israeli advance. Then came the cluster bombs.

And everything changed.

The Blood of Martyrs

During the day Hamra Street is crowded, but at
night it’s empty. A ghost town. Sometimes there’s
shelling—rockets, howitzer, Syrian artillery. Other times
just small arms fire, maybe mortar. But when it gets
going good, the shells land 100/minute and the fiery
arcs of tracers fill the black-purple sky.
.
“It’s nothing to see a cripple in Beirut,” Haji says,
smiling insanely.
“Islam’s a tree that feeds on blood,
Islam’s a tree that grows on severed limbs, Islam’s a tree
that drinks from the blood of martyrs!”
.
“When the firing starts,” an old woman tells me,
“we hide in the toilet and hold the children’s ears.”

Sabra and Chantila

During the early hours of the morning,
The Voice of Arab Lebanon
Began reporting the news that
The PLO had left the day before
Trusting the words of Ariel Sharon and
The American Ambassador Habib
Leaving their wives and children
Behind.

The Israelis surrounded the camps
Then the Phalangist trucks arrived
They killed all day and all night
House to house, even killing the dogs
The cats, leaving booby traps
Beneath the corpses for those
Who would come to bury their dead

The killing went on for two days
I arrived the afternoon of the second day
via Al-Sifara Al-Kuwaitiyah
They wouldn’t let us enter
But you could still hear the
Occasional screams
Of women and children

A young Israeli soldier
At his post on top
Of one of the buildings
Surrounding the camp
Looked down at me
Our eyes met
And he began to weep


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Michael Campagnoli’s awards have included the New Letters Poetry Award, the All Nations Press Chapbook Award, and The Chiron Review Novella Prize. Campagnoli’s fiction and poetry have appeared in New Letters, Nimrod, Southern Humanities Review, Descant, Crab Creek, and elsewhere. Michael’s published four chapbooks and my poems and stories have been anthologized in Best New Writing of 2010, ISFN’s Anthology #1, The Bethany Reader, Nothing To Declare, Vine Leaves, America Is Not The World, Poets to Come, and The Two Dreamers Anthology: Writing Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anne Frank.

“September 16,” “Blood of Martyrs,” and “Sabra and Chantila” originally appeared in Quiddity, Descant, and Eclectica Magazine, respectively.

Read More: A brief Q&A with Michael Campagnoli