Feature Poetry by Gary Geddes

Three Poems

For Pulp Literature Issue 51, feature author Gary Geddes shares three poems with us. Read the first of these three below, and find the remaining two, along with our interview with the author, in Issue 51, Summer 2026.

Palestinian Pietà

by Gary Geddes

After Inas Holds the Body of her Niece, Saly (2023), Mohammed Salem/Reuters

How can there be laughter,
how can there be pleasure, when
the whole world is burning?

I found these words in a book
called Buddha’s Teachings,
translated from the Pali by

Juan Mascaró. It startled me,
at first, by its contemporary
relevance, Gaza in flames

and the niece I love lying dead
in my arms. Was the question
rhetorical, the mystic aware

of things beyond my grasp?
I spotted the book on a shelf
in the abandoned hospital

beside a tin of stale cookies.
I could have taken one, but
picked up the scriptures instead,

asking Allah to forgive me.
In case my limited English
had betrayed me, I needed

time to root out their deeper
meaning, roll syllables over
in my mouth, taste them.

The office, otherwise, was bare,
the doctor fleeing with his wife
and child to Egypt. I don’t

blame him for his decision.
Fear and desire are enough
to ignite the flesh, incendiary

devices. She’s not just limp
but thin from hunger, from
scavenging among the ruins,

not a flutter in her delicate
cage of ribs, neither the oath
nor allegiance of oxygen.

I, the one to whom they
brought her, could not protect
her from revenge and rage.

My arms enfold what’s left
of her. O if I could offer up
myself instead, a sentiment

that’s real but laughable now,
her fine linen shroud too white
and far too small for both of us.

Find more poetry by Gary Geddes in Pulp Literature Issue 51, Summer 2026

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Have a story to share? A reminder that the 2026 Raven Short Story Contest is open to entries until October 15th. Find the guidelines and our entry form here.

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Gary Geddes has written and edited more than fifty books of poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, criticism, translation, and anthologies and won a dozen national and international literary awards. His forthcoming memoir, A Moving Target: Life in the Literary Trenches will be available early in 2027 from Sutherland House.

In this small sampling of his work, you’ll find two poems inspired by recent photographs from Gaza, and one older poem, ‘Sandra Lee Scheuer’, written after the Kent State massacre of 1970. Sadly, 2026 reminds us of that time. The first two poems in this issue are from his collection Eyeless in Gaza Again, which is available for free on World Beyond War: worldbeyondwar.org/powerful-new-book-of-poetry-on-gaza-made-available-free-to-world/