Yesterday, a black poet was lynched. Today, we review his poetry - "The Perplexing Smiles of the Children of Palestine", by Marcellus Williams

Marcellus... Marsey...lus. Say his name.

His last words were not a lament, not a supplication, not a polemic. They were a kind, empathetic, and truly Christian appeal to human goodness.

Springing from his bronzed Yakubian dome, like Athena from Zeus, like mayo monkeys from... Yakub...

a final poem.

The Perplexing Smiles of the Children of Palestine

A mealy-mouthed title, but a meaningful one.

despite the actions of a few,

(a bold word for a black man to begin with)

and excessive retaliation,

The Marxian (Marcian?) dialectic is set; action, reaction.

drones,

planes,

bombs,

tanks,

Notice the structuring here: first introducing the antagonists by an extended merism representing the state, or repeated synecdoche, arguably both - then their acts by the same device:

rubble,

buildings demolished,

vanished houses and neighborhoods,

hospitals targeted,

U.N. shelters disrespected,

Asyndeton. It's when you leave out conjunctions, example 'for'. A classic trick of Greek rhetoric to emphasize, one Maestro Marcellus employs in his jarring list.

murder,

death,

deliberate killing of noncombatants,

babies buried alive,

amputations,

hunger and political starvation,

Here, Marcellus employs the rhetorical equivalent of fugue stretto by introducing the harmonic elements of alliteration, rhythm and rhyme. It is clear the climax and coup de grace is up soon.

Next, take the line 'hunger and political starvation'. Isn't 'political starvation' odd? This is an example of hendiadys. What is this, you ask?

You take an adjective and a noun, and then you change the adjective into another noun.

So instead of saying 'I'm going to the noisy city' you say 'I'm going to the noise and the city'.

Here he means 'politically starving hunger', hunger brought by their political subjugation.

lack of or no water,

strategic sanitation,

An excellent use of irony, to cut off the tap is 'strategic sanitation'

daily terror,

and terrorized daily,

On another note, note that Marsey and I just used polyptoton. This is repeating a word in a different case, inflection, or voice in the same sentence; "to talk the talk", "Give us this day our daily bread", here, "terror and terrorized".

military maneuvering,

moving here and there,

to return back again to nowhere,

trauma with all its manifestations,

international parleys and hesitation,

defiance to the realization of two nations,

you can practically hear the stretto, the building climax as syllables and rhythmic elements are tacked on to say "two nations", but then a fall,

global aid thwarted,

global amnesia,

a fall of anaphora, the repetition of the beginning word for multiple clauses:

• We shall fight on the beaches,

• We shall fight on the landing grounds,

• We shall fight in the fields and in the streets,

parental worries -

notice here the dash, it's a clear rhythmic change via aposiopesis, Greek for becoming silent, a favorite of HP Lovecraft

• Tidy your room, or else …

the silence is filled by the reader, why do these parents worry?

in the face of apex arrogance

and ethnic cleansing by any definition...

still your laughter can be heard

and somehow you are able to smile

O resilient Children of Palestine!

What a brilliant, powerful finish by an Islamic scholar and gentleman, an innocent man who saw in his own peril, the "perplexing smiles" of the Palestinians. For you may think this poem is about Gaza, but it's truly about his own persecution.

Bravo, Marsey! Bravo!

A fair ratio:

TL;DR

As you can see, Marsey Williams is a brilliant poet and rhetorician. If you ever doubted this point, you may be a philistine. For Marsey uses merism, synecdoche, asyndeton, stretto, alliteration, hendiadys, irony, polyptoton, anaphora and aposiopesis to craft a poem with a profound double meaning that passed most by. Did you chuds even know what these devices are before I explained them? Did you even know what the poem meant?

Of course not.

You will never have the brains, the heart, the soul, or the poetic gifts of Marcellus Williams.

This is the fate of every innocent black man in modern America; to be persecuted, to be resented, and to be hanged.