The Blind

I am blind worse than Taha Hussein

And better than flies.

I can't see the truth of things.

I can't differentiate between virtue and vice.

I can't see the sense of the daily dirty game



Blindness poked my father’s eyes,

Dried up my mother’s blood,

And warmed up my children’s hearts.

Doctors, careless and gay, said

We were fated to live blind

And it would be wrong to want to live otherwise.



Blind am I!

Dead am I!

Mad am I!



The dirty game went on,

Doctors understood its rules and became masters.

The blind, like me, consoled each other,

And hoped for a calm and peaceful end.

Love

Sometimes

  I think

    Love is easy,

      A game to keep busy

        For all,

         Girls and boys.



Sometimes

   I really think

     Love is a nightmare,

       Snarling at the face of a lover,

         Each time

           I dare to get a kiss.



Sometimes

   I am quite sure

     Love is bliss

       For one with money-skin

         Or a bobby cheerful smile.

Life

Difficult, nice.

If you suddenly fail,

Give yourself another chance,

You’ve the capacity!

You’ll have the chance!

But you need nothing but a little experience

And a strong will.

Life

Nice, but not an easy piece.

If you want an easy chance,

Close your own eyes and

Abandon the earthly place

And dream of a golden chance,

Moving near your face,

Stretch your hands and

Get a gypsy dance.

But once the sun rises,

The easy chance becomes a big lie

That has no ally with life.

To understand the hammer,

You’ve to smash your finger.

To understand life,

You’ve to miss the gypsy dance.

You’ve the capacity!

You’ll get the chance!

A Man with a Uniform

A man with a uniform,

Blessed with an eagle’s freedom

And a pig’s might,

Spread a dark cold night

On the crushed poor, blessed with a bad fate.



A man with a uniform

Broke the muezzin’s call

And dried his black river.

The end of Heaven’s bliss!

The starvation of the crushed poor!

The prostitution of their old-established principles

Of democracy!

Of pea-ce!

Of rights!

Of…!

Words craved in historical books.

Words! Words!

Like sunny-side eggs, stood still under the sun,

Waving goodbyes with tears down their faces.



A man with a uniform

Injected fear in the shaky hearts

And ate the cold and the heat

Of the crushed poor, blessed with a bad doom.



A man with a uniform,

A wolf in a sheepskin,

Had a curse at nine-eleven.

His cracked strong bones widely shown.

With a shame on his wrinkled forehead,

He sharpened his blunt teeth again,

And smashed the crushed poor, blessed with a bad fate.

The Waves

I’ll ride the stormy waves

More than a fish I shall swim

More than dad I shall dream

To seek warm and bright shores

And eat new and expensive oysters.

How…?

Why…?

Where…?

When…?

Questions stuffed in my pocket,

Answers left for my teachers

And for my little pet.

I don’t give a damn

If my dream turns upside down.

I am an old, determined man not a teen.

My dad, worried and pale,

Refused to sing with my fiddle.

My mum, weepy and shocked,

Has no say to tell.



I assure them that my life

Is beyond the waves.

I assure them that I love

My little den.

But it’s too, too hard to live in.

I promise that I’ll return

With a black big car or an expensive van,

More expensive than my uncle’s

More, much more comfortable than our neighbor's.

I swear that I’ll let

Dollars clap hands in my pocket

And gold shine in my mum’s hands.

I swear that’ll build

A five-story house overlooking

The beach and poking the envious eyes.



One day, when stars wedded to the dark

And people walked in dreamlands,

A disguised man ordered the start.

Cold and fearful

I closed my eyes and rode the waves.

The little crowded life float was wriggling

Successfully through.

A lot of questions were merging eerily

With the horrors coming

Out of the waves!

Out of the waves!

In my sleep, I dreamt of

A white long cloth coating the waves;

And I was dancing and singing.

Far away, mum was weeping and sobbing.

Seagulls and swans were immersed in a prayer.

The grinding waves stopped blowing on the shore.

A Dust Girl

They say you are a beautiful girl.

I say you are a dust girl

Put into pieces to form a dirty whole,

Stuffed flesh with no heart or soul.

Your love, dry, fine and thin

Found in a plane and a dustbin.

Your sexy smiles poke my eyes

And gather a flood of tears.

A beautiful girl is made of true gold.

You’re made of dishonor and mischief.

Reckless and sightless,

You walk along a street or a flea market.

Like a homeless bitch,

You’re banished from every respectful spot.

With a broom and a bucket of water,

Your weaving dark fantasy

Is chased away; and very peacefully

I fall asleep.

Your night secrets are

Revealed in the first wide-wake moment.

Wedded to the dirt, faithful to the wind

You keep changing like a day’s face.

I, like the sun, have

One face and one known place.

In an arrogant stance,

I emit beautiful sunny smiles

On simple and respectful faces.

They say you are a beautiful.

I say you are a disgusting dust girl.

The Lonely Room

In a large open room

With forty empty tables,

A long black eagle

Spread its monotonous wings

Along the front wall.

The closed windows were shuddering,

And the door was dancing

With the silent tomb-like melody.



Like a bunch of ants on a hill,

Students crowded outside the room.

Exhausted, bored they sought

Another new thought.

The young wise-man, like a dress-man,

Stood still, waiting for the bell to ring.



When the bell shouted nine,

A parade began.

Soldiers left the battlefield.

The wise-man, used to the game,

Closed the door and

Acted as duty done.

The joy of learning was postponed

Till an unknown day.

The vibrating windows, wet with the sudden rain,

Predicted the doomsday.



Between the students

And the Wise-man

Between the silence

And the voice

Blew the wind.



Between the book

And the mind

Between the present

And the past

Blew the wind.



The lonely room,

Strange in the forest,

Expected one day a tourist’s visit

To fly back to its own nest

Before the last gust of the wind.

The Scarf

Behind her long usual counter

She sat immersed in her well-ordered loaves,

As brown as her face,

Well-baked like her fate.

She caressed her head twice

And felt her white silk scarf

Tightly and firmly tied.

It was there,

For long it had been there,

The white silk scarf!

The white silk scarf!

Meant a bait for a man,

A mesh of snow on a peak of a mountain.

But what a fate!

The curse of waiting is still flowing

The joy of a union is never growing.

Like a yellow dry flower,

She saw herself in a mirror,

A vulture with a few hairs,

A ghost swathed in silk rags.

With a confused, blurred vision,

She tried to take her life decision,

Tore the scarf into pieces,

And broke into endless tears.

Suddenly broad loud questions

Crossed the mirror’s surface:

“How can I dare to scratch my dad’s face?

How can I dare to break my mum’s peace?”

The subsequent harm of her act

Was reflected on the mirror.

She put on a new scarf on her thoughts

And hoped impatiently for the best.

An Empty Life

Life should be filled

And I filled it with Hashish smoke and

Vodka drops and silly small talk

Singing Aicha song and longing for a lucky card.

Daily, I poked fun at serious faces

Who kept an eye on their wristwatches.

I let my mind-watch be my faithful guide

And   months and years only one long, black day.



As a chick, I sought my seeds

From my mum’s cold and black hands;

And I overslept daily in her dirty lap

Near our Founty shanty’s doorstep,

Waiting long for my dad’s undesirable return.

Once there, it was the start of his daily din,

Vibrating, screaming, insulting and cursing all night

Before my mum’s weeping eyes and stars’ bright light.



I grew up with fears and tears

The harsh song of life tuned in my ears,

My dad was her best singer and we her perfect chorus.

I climbed my age with a cracked-mind.

I hated the alphabet that I’d never learned.

I despised the toys that I’d never touched.

I detested the man that I ‘d certainly never be.

I grew up simply staunch to sleep,

A fan of cards and drops,

Paying common visits to famous prisons

For a week or two, a month or three.



As a cock, I had a belief stronger than a rock

And as weak as my mum’s weeps,

That man’s life is useless without a mark,

Empty without a trace!

Shame on a man who died like a cockroach!

A disgrace to a man forgotten right after his mourning!

A defective scratch on a nose never sneezed in history’s face!



I, at least, had a point

In the history’s book drawn in white magic paint.

My finger was poking through life’s trousers.

I’d given birth to one,

Two, three, four…chicks

To fly away and relate

My sleepless nights to their classmates.

They’ll remember and proudly describe

Their dad as the hero of the night,

A golden necklace on women’s necks,

A sweet candy between a virgin’s lips.

With a tender touch of my magic finger,

I threw them in a deep seabed,

Throbbing, swimming and burning inside.

Yeah! Yeah!

Again! Again! Again!

Yearning for a feeling of release

I never felt limp in fiery heat.

Never gave up the swim first.

Again! Now! It comes!

The spirit came in,

And the inspiration broke out.





In the mirror, candles’burning light seemed dim,

My back shrunk and my hair whitened

My cough was so bad and my bones so slim.

My climb was reaching the end, I thought.

I looked around and heavily wept.

Just a Game

Tick, tick, tick

Advantage, life.

Tick, tick, tick

Deuce.

It is the long, long game

Of wining and losing,

Of going left, right and wrong.

It’s the start, just the start

That looms usually bright.

Tick, tick, tick

Advantage, life.

But the more it goes on,

The less exciting it seems.

Tick, tick, tick

Advantage, death.

That never moves the same way!

Suddenly, life starts shaking and coughing

The gas is running out

It’s a trap, known from the start.

Life, dead on its feet,

Lies down, embracing the earth,

Throwing its racket to the next.

Tick, tick, tick

Game, death.

The game is over!

Death, still in shape, awards itself

In an empty large stadium.

Beauty

(E.N.S   2002)



Like a light out of a tunnel,

The child comes to the world,

Crawling and crossing its short and long streets,

Feasting his eyes on its Beauty:

The beauty of stars making up the sky,

The beauty of roses draping the Earth,

The beauty of the blue sea wedding the blue sky,

Round, strong, small breasts energizing man’s thought.

O Beauty! O Beauty!

O Nature! O Woman!

Sweet words of a song sung all night,

Witty thoughts of Hamlet inspired a young poet,

Beauty, thou’ve your own seeds!

The child tilting his head back

To perceive his own deep roots.

Surprisingly, they were all

Torn from his father’s book,

And burned in his grandfather’s cradle.

O Beauty! O Beauty!

Lost in the woods,

Torn between the truths of the living and the dead,

The child yells out:

Who am I?

What am I?

Like a stranger in a long dark tunnel,

He seeks his own ego in a black panel.

Who am I?

What am I?

O Beauty! O Beauty!

Looking to himself

To spot some beautiful spots

But there are none.

He is like a dud wireless of the deaf,

Or a holed kettle on the shelf.

O Beauty! O Beauty!

The child presumes

His first life in the tunnel

Has darkened his self and

Black washed his stars.

Being now like a lily for the dead,

He is meant to smell and taste it,

But never, never be a bud of its belt.

O Beauty! O Beauty!

I Have a Dream

(E.N.S   2002)



I dream

To put the world between my fingers

And squeeze it like toothpaste in a tube

To give each one his own portion.

I dream

To see hatched chicks

Set free in oppressed lands,

Sowing and suckling in their mum's warm beds.

I dream

To establish a white glass city

Where moving glass souls

Can lay bare their deep insides,

Concealing nothing but lies.

I dream

To lend my tongue to all birds

To feel my long, long suffering,

Sympathizing at last and letting

My words grow freely in my land.

I dream

To live out my dream overnight

And water white roses in my dreamy nest.

By Jove, it’s really a dream!

And what a dream!

To read and write

With seeds sown since the first days in a cradle.

The Wise Man and The Little Man

(E.N.S 2002)


Talking and talking about

The on-going little man’s lab box:

Is it a free, Olympic center?

Or a doomed, rigid, shepherded pattern?

A bearded-wise man advises the little man:

“Be all ears, kid, nothing but ears

And do what I say…”

“What a lie!” Interrupted a well-dressed wise man

“What a lie! It’s all a matter of drill.

Be patient, kid, and you’ll get it all.”

A loud voice bombed the old box

“Hey! That’s again another lie!

To squeeze it all into a parrot way,

Communicate, kid, and let your birds fly.

At each time, each minute you want

Paddle your canoe in your own way.

It’s you the guest here as well the host.

The little man, caught in the trap

Of vagueness and fear, is reluctant to face it.

At home, sitting calmly near his dear TV set,

He solves it all:

“I’m gonna get the instruction

Despite the wise man’s amazing contradiction.”

What a Life!

What a life!

To be surrounded by lonely, sad walls

Of one-room house in nowhere,

Thinking of nothing but still thinking.

Stifled emotions and thoughts building up inside.

What a life!

To be split into two hated halves:

One, spoiled and restless.

The other becoming, blurred and upset.

The horse is ready for a long gallop

To the unknown, to the bush.

Piaget, after a long way down the road,

Has a short nap in the first set of the saddle,

Dreaming of seeing a new paradise in the sand.

Had he known, he’d have surely screamed:

“It’s not for there! That’s not what I meant

That’s not what I meant at all!”

Brunner, consciously, is wondering about

What to tell and what to show;

To ride or to burn it all.

Maslow is striding so slow,

Sympathising and supporting: “Be a caring fellow.”

The Net is neatly squeezed in

As a decorative spanner of the next game.

Blindly, the horse headed forward,

Aware he will need another saddle over there.

This is just to say

I have eaten

The figs,

God,

Those were

On the tree

And which

You are probably

Saving

For the unrighteous

Forgive me

I am repentant

So fearful

And so sinful.

History

Exhausted, fake,

Inventing so-called facts,

So useless to my story,

Feelings,

Dear, changing

Is what I really care about?

So dear that I dare to read,

Mystory,

Though some day

It may

Be a fragment in history

But I, now at least, try

To dig a hole to bury

My little dear story

And her fleeting, forgotten story

In the fallible and fatherly history.

Confused !

Shall I do it? Shall I not?

Shall I put aside my real being and be in seeming?

Shall I look for a second coming?

Shall I fade away my old tics?

Shall I double my present worries

And get engaged to her?

No, it is not worth a faint thought.

A Sonnet

A burning fire lit inside

Each time, I have a quick glimpse.

I want to touch, to taste and

To squeeze the whole in my hands.

Shall  I compare thee to an African gazelle?

Though I’ve never seen one beside,

Nor have  I a faint desire to touch it as to thee.

Both have the sweet beauty of heaven.

Thin, long and beautiful legs going back and forth,

Short, soft and bright eyes escaping so forth,

Long, black hair to warm thoughts,
Red and long nails to blind envying eyes

Suddenly, I stop dwindling on how to act,

“Stop!”, morality, religion and the like burst out.

Final Immigration

Away from my daily, harsh routine

I seek another life far away

Though my conscience is dead against it,

I give it a try.

With a sharp knife, I cut my heart out

To flee away.

The nature is dry

Trees wrestling with winds,

Leaves leave trees naked.

Roses get yellow and sleepy.

I try to shake my legs

But they are heavy and cold.

Memories of my sad past

Make people wet on their naps.

Cold and red all around

I immigrate away.

Out of sympathy, all say

“Sleep well, my dear.”

I, with a smile on my lips,

Think it is a happy end.

A Noisy Parade

In a total isolation, I restart

Letting my selfish longing out.

Being like an old chaperone,

Keeping an eye on a blonde

Swimming with her in a luxury bed

That I have never seen.

I think I hear myself saying:

“That is not what I meant at all

That is not it, at all”

A golden pillow under my arm

Tempts me to go further and further.

Cheekily, the blonde stretches her hands around

But that is not what I meant at all,

That is not it at all.



I keep on swimming

'till a dearest company devastates the whole scene.

Sitting on my cold shoulder, he orders me

To feel the earth beneath my feet.

All around, shocking pictures of the past-present

And charred walls setting me apart

Near a cockroaches’parade.

I try to relive it,

But the parade’s noise is so loud

That I can’t hear myself think.



The long, slow, routine and gloomy day

Creeping forth once again.

I ‘m crying my eyes out.

Yes! I’m at times, almost a cult,

Almost, at times, the Fool

Who banks his dreams

On eagle’s wings that never land?