The story of those I've left behind.

Ah, some folks are so right. I should not appear to be angry because I am not angry. I mean, anger is nothing really but a response to powerlessness. Old news there.

Let me clarify what I am so that some of you can stop wasting your time trying to 'help' me out of my "abyss".

I am CONVINCED. I have CERTITUDE rather than merely faith be it negotiable or non negotiable. I am FEARFUL of the ignorants and their desperate attempts to explain how it is that they feel so paralysed in a situation such as this. One thing I know for sure is that the only thing worse than a person with the WRONG opinion, is a person with NO opinion. People with NO opinion are generally used by those with evil intentions in order to dissiminate chaos which is in turn used to produce agreement via silent acquiescence.

Who did I leave behind? I left behind a very large family who loved me and I them. I left behind a family who stood behind me regardless of the situation. I left behind innocent human beings whose only hope was to increase the solidarity of a family so that on Judgement Day, we all could be reunited.

Strangely enough, my increase in faith and ability to use words came to me only six months ago. It was a very rapid progression of tests, all of which, I seem to have passed. It was very rapid, it was witnessed by so many because lets face it, I'm a talker. And there is one thing I know, via our witnessing of events to other people, we record our data in their minds and hearts. Why is that? Because it isn't up to any individual who is 'chosen' for Islam. Allah chooses a person for that. Via witnessing to others, miracles can be seen for what they are. and our faith is validated. Things like faith are so hard to prove you know. It is unfortunate however that some people are so lacking in faith in the Creator that they misinterpret that information and take things personally when the going gets tough. They are afraid of being WRONG. Well, that is the problem with human logic and reason. It is faulty.

My miracles though were not a product of reason or logic. although my tremendous intellect has had a very important role in terms of researching the problems involved in the ME right now. In fact, as some of them were being carried out in front of me I was dazed and confused because sometimes, they appeared to be terrible things or things meant to hurt others. Not at all. I see how each and every thing I've said and done during my amazing religious ecstasy has its place in each of the individuals with whom I've communicated very personal data.

So, who did I leave behind as well? I left behind ONE unbeliever. A person whom I've always considered to be my very own brother. Mohamed and I go way back. I married his brother and prior to marrying his brother, I met Mohamed's stare in a college registration line. It was a long look. Very long. I was so surprised to discover him in my soon-to-be husband's dorm room and introduced to me. Our life story began to unfold right then and there. Mohamed was always there for me and we shared the same sense of humor I have, cynical. I'll never forget the time when he was planning on losing his virginity to a beautiful Indian girl (Navajo if I remember correctly) and he couldn't 'get it up'. I counselled him. Then, when I experienced troubles in my marriage early on, he was always there for me to offer me solace. He knew his brother and he knew how they were raised.

How were they raised? Well, last week when I was trapped inside of my Beirut digs with my sister in law who had fled from the impoverished neighborhoods of West Beirut, we spoke about so many things. So many. We had an intense coming together and shared what we had failed to share over the past 15 years since I met my husband's family. She told me about her grandfather and his abuse of her grandmother. You see, my husband was not raised by his parents but by his grandparents. Like most Lebanese, his parents were illiterate and poor and the only way they could be successful in life was to travel abroad to do business. So anyway, she told me a story about her grandfather that I'd never heard. Oh, I knew the old goat could be an ass but because of the respect that is due to a man in his position, my husband and his brother had never told me about some of the episodes that formed their character. She told me that once, the old man took his wife and placed a noose around her neck and prepared to hang her from the ledge inside the old house where she used to sit in order to make flat bread, out of the way of the many children in her care. As he placed the noose on her head, she went around the house in order to close the blinds in order that the neighbors not see her being put to death.

That is how they grew up. They grew up in the "OLD WORLD". When women were simply treated as they were treated in the days of ignorance, prior to Islam becoming such a big part of everyone's life. In those days, COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM ruled the day. It was the days of khaki as mentioned in a fine poem by Mahmoud Darwish. Post Ottoman oppression of the Shi'i. In your LINGO, they call that, a POWER VACUUM. When one oppressor leaves the house to another oppressor, it leaves one of those awful things behind.

So my brother Moe grew up in times like those and witnessed the emergence of Shi'ism. You see, Shi'ism has always been oppressed, not just by non muslims but more importantly, by the Sunni rulers and for a very good reason. That reason, what is that reason? Well, in the early days of Islam, the prophet was told by Allah to appoint a 'successor' who would not only memorize the Quran but a person who would also WITNESS the life of a very important person in world history.As well, Mohamed was told to also recite in the Quran this exact warning that Allah gave to HIM personally and that is, that if he DIDN'T state God's Will for a delegate who would serve in the absence of future prophets, he would have failed entirely as a prophet.. We all know how history is....written by the victors but the truth always lives in the hearts and minds of the victims of the oppressors. And so it was that this appointment resulted in the major split in Islam. Those who insisted that God's Will must be followed right down to the last period and those who thought they could 'consult' with one another and forego God's Will and make up their own plan.

The fact that he (my brother in law Moe) witnessed the birth of Shi'ism or rather, the re-emergence of it, created in him a sense of disbelief. We all know how human being get DESPERATE in times of chaos. Thing is, even when the chaos disappeared as Lebanon was rebuilt into one of the wonders of the modern world, Islam not only didn't disappear, it became stronger. It has spread throughout the ME and the rest of the planet like a wildfire. But for Mohamed, he remained unconvinced, and, lost as to what his future ought to be. How often humans are in that miserable trap. Every one of us.

Mohamed only arrived to Lebanon two months ago. He had been working in the Circus in the US selling souvenirs on a seasonal basis. Very lonely and unhappy journeys he has been on. Two years ago however, he met an honest girl. Her name is Dalal. Very pious and works in an orphanage near my Beirut apartment as a 'house parent'. You know what those are right? I mean, for some reason, many Americans think that muslims are from outer space and don't have real world concerns or societal problems like drugs, alcohol, poverty, etc. or the need for something like a 'house parent'.

So Mohamed was in Lebanon in order to consummate the marriage contract he had agreed to almost a year ago. He was there to have sexual relations with his new wife. Oh it was feisty alright. I bought her negligee and a heart necklace made of brushed gold. Still though, Mohamed was unconvinced of the existence of a Creator. Everyone else in our family though were and are, well on our way to Judgement Day with clean hearts. That is the ticket you see, you want to get rid of all the refuse in your soul before you die. Not only get rid of it, but UNDERSTAND it. Forgiveness isn't about a person dying on the cross to save you from your sins. That is just ridiculous.

Mohamed was left behind by the Creator in order that he receive the same crash course that I was treated to over the past months and years. His course however, clearly must be more powerful because he entered into it with a sense of agnosticism as opposed to me who only entered into it with the handicap of drinking, my belief was already secure six months ago when my very serious lesson plan of the soul began . He is the only one we have left on that side of the world who still requires convincing. Will it be successful?

I believe so. He is there now with his brilliant sense of humor. Where only three weeks ago he had no idea what to do in his life...to return to the Circus or start a business in war torn Liberia.
Very hard life in Liberia right now you know. Very hard. People have to haul their own water and have no electricity. One of my other 'brothers' is already there and has been for almost two years. One of his children, Hamoodi, has had Malaria twice already. So now, Mohamed doesn't have to choose. His choice was given to him by the Creator. He was given a pious, good wife and an opportunity for redemption. To serve his family as the only son able to remain behind because he was the only one already there. Fate. Destiny. The Will of Allah. Powerful.

The other brothers...well...my husband and his other two brothers...their wives, including me, were all stranded in Lebanon. We have all made it out. The other two women and their seven children made it into Syria. I'm good now that I know that they made it out. I am also glad that to one of them, I made ammends just a month ago when I apologized to her for condoning alcohol consumption and made her feel like a fool for opposing it. When I apologized to her (I was cleaning my bathroom and was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to go talk with her about what I suddenly realized I had done)..when I apologized to her (before the Israeli aggression) she just sobbed. I mean she SOBBED. She said, "But I didn't hold it against you."
Of course she didn't. She loves me and always has. I told her, "Well, it would have been better if you'd have hated me for it." And it is quite clear to each of these three men, my husband and his brothers TRAPPED outside of Lebanon while their wives were TRAPPED inside, that their faith was being negotiated to a higher level. None of them now are disappointed and not a single one doubt their creation or the creation of all things including the bad things we are all going through now in this world. All of us are folks. If you think you are not...well then you are nuts or mentally handicapped. Or perhaps, you think you are 'better' than the impoverished people of the world and for some reason, you don't have to suffer.

Now I still have four young women trapped in Lebanon, my husband's four younger sisters. One of them is in grave danger. The war is just over the hill from our village down there. One sister is hiding in that hospital that you may have seen on CNN. She is there with her four children and husband who is what we call, a Sayyed. Not an active member of any organization but just a hard working man who happens to trace his lineage to the immediate family of the prophet, a very, very large and extended family. A quiet and pious man. A tired man. A frustrated man whose only hope was to make life for my husband's sister and their children better. Oh, he has a story too. Don't they all! If only I can manage to tell their stories. If only I can.

So yes, I need to let you poor readers know that this isn't anger. This is CERTITUDE and it is also GRATEFULNESS that the Lord of the Worlds CHOSE ME to witness. Chose me to have the talent to write about it and most of all, CHOSE ME to be a muslim. That some of you are quite jealous of my faith, well, what can I say. If I knew someone like me and I was 'faithless', it would give me some pretty bad feelings of envy and jealousy inside. How it is. Especially for some of my fellow poets who think they know the real deal but have never experienced anything more than a bad mike at a reading.

Sadly for many of you, you stand no chance of being chosen.

The Jews though, are what we call "The Chosen". Well, chosen for what? And you know, we believe they are THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. Chosen is a funny word though and implies so many things. To some, it has implied PREFERRED. I think this is a misinterpretation. I think their role in the plan of Allah, this vast and sometimes chaotic, obscure plan of Allah, is something the knowledge of the meaning of it, is only with Allah.

For now though, we don't want to die. Nasrallah never said anything about the Shi'i WANTING to die. He only said that we are UNAFRAID of dying. And why are we unafraid of that?

Because a true Shi'i has been chosen for a very specific purpose and each one of them is given a path to purification via understanding their life story and the long history of Islam.

And you know what? THEIR story has never changed. Rain or shine, it has never once changed. And real Shi'i know what it means to be a Shi'i. It means patience and struggle. It means knowing an enemy from an ignorant. And when you finally understand Islam, be it Sunni or Shi'i (from this point on) you will successfully understand a very HUGE portion of the chaotic plan for this planet.

The Shi'i do not hate Americans. They love Americans and I am example of that. What they are actually is a people disgusted with HYPOCRISY. Worldwide hypocrisy and the disintegration of the Good.

And who isn't nowadays! But for some reason, some people in the world poisoned your minds against them. That is the job of the hypocrit. And we all know at least one of those!

I know perhaps a half dozen. And I also see them on TV by the hundreds. I also see many who are not hypocrits and now, their minds are at war with them. Especially the many uniformed soldiers of the US armed forces who I had the pleasure of meeting on my journey....guys like Quinty and others like that crazy lightweight kickboxer LeBron, a Puerto Rican with so much wit. He sat at our table and I was showing him my famous Leatherman Tool and he said, "If you spin the Leatherman, you can travel through time." Ah, some of us wish we could. I'd travel right back to about three weeks ago in South Lebanon, to a young boys birthday party, my darling Hassounah who is now safe in Syria. When that party concluded, I told my husband, "I'm so happy now. I'm safe with my family and my beliefs. I am finally at rest."

And you see, Americans are under the impression that they live in a peaceful country. How untrue!

THE MINDS OF AMERICA ARE AT WAR WITHIN THEIR VERY OWN CRANIUMS. RIGHT HEMISPHERE AGAINST LEFT HEMISPHERE. LOGIC VERSUS FAITH versus a whole lot of propaganda and in the midst of being trained by their own government to be Nazis.

Go figure how that could happen again. Go figure.

And with all my humble heart, I INVITE ALL JEWS TO ISLAM NOW. I MEAN IT. YOU ARE WELCOME AMONG US AS YOU ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

http://www.islamawareness.net/Persecution/Gujarat/

Remember the Gujarat?

The Indians burned almost 2,000 innocent muslims alive in the streets.

And America wants to do what? Sell them nuclear warheads now?

Why folks are you so stupid? Don't you remember anything? Too busy with the beer is it?
Or is it the porno. Or hey, professional wrestling. There is something to entertain you all in the Circus called the West, something for everyone. And that way, you just stop thinking about how the world is burning muslims alive left right and center. Ah, anyway, better to live without us and that way, when the world shakes, we don't have to watch you all go down.

Better that way if you ask me because I've no doubt that there's alot of folks I really would rather not see die that way. Truly.

What would you do if you had Hitler and his army staring you in the face and killing your children with glee?

And let me tell you, Hezbollah KNEW Israel was planning this and has already rounded up many Mossad spies in Lebanon along with their collaborators.

You see, Israel is a ROGUE STATE second only to Hitler's Germany.


And, we are not talking about Jews here. We are talking about the racist and corrupt ideology called Zionism. No more and no less.

You see? Nazism Zionism Racism

Islam.....no ISM because it isn't a human idea. It is God's word, and you see...it makes alot of sense but people are just too busy with this life to care about that silly old stuff.

NOT ANYMORE.

Tsunamis Come In All Shapes And Sizes

In that time, Allah threw buckets
of water all over us in Indonesia.
That is all it took, a few seconds
in which the Commander of All Waters
vanquished lies and lives, good and bad.
I say drink all my water, play with all
I own, cover it with your hungry fingers
jealous of what I know and own, that is
my soul and the histories of it recorded
in every hidden thing. Take it all
for yourselves. Enjoy your last suppers.

There is nothing but a plan, an immense
plan where the edges are as obscure
as the horizons of Columbus. His signs
and the signs of everyday, the mercies
of newborn horses walking within moments.

The brilliant paths cut into the sea
upon which the prophet walked as if
he were already in paradise where the goblets
of pure wines are served that leave no traces
of sin, no headaches and certainly, no stains.

I've sailed upon boats now full of moribund
survivors. It is what I must have asked for.

To The Courageous Israeli Soldier Who Posted Here

You see Israeli soldier, you never said you were a believing practicing Jew and I owe you no apologies. All my apologies are reserved for the few remaining believing ones who know their books. Oh, there are some but very few of them are willing to live on soil stained with the murderous blood of Zionist hatreds and jealousies and corruptions.

When and if you say you are a Jew I will comfort you with my knowledge of your story. The story of the real Jewish disseminations...the way Allah planted their seeds just as he is planting ours. You see, some of those Jews got angry at Allah as we all know. They sowed those kinds of seeds and bitter plants in other peoples. Some of them also spread seeds from the days of Solomon in which he was given the ability to speak with animals and insects...they spread astrologies and fake magics from the days of Moses. Some of them, very few, sowed seeds of true belief..they are my only concern. Not a uniformed murderer who works for a state agency. That is what you are and if you don't like it..well then change it but don't ask me to carry anger or disbelief in the word of Allah for YOUR sake. You are no one to me.

I saw a Hasidic Jew pass by me in Newark New Jersey. I could not hate him even if I tried because I don't know him. I could not kill him because he has not hurt me personally. Israel however has hurt me personally now and any good Jew will tell you all about eye for an eye.

Is a whole country equivalent to the imprisonment of two armed combatants who work for a state agency? Or seven dead? You tell me since you are so smart.

Israel very well may win this...in fact...I hope they do. I hope they get all the money and satisfaction they can possibly EAT in this life. I hope their pockets are FULL of dirty money and their fingerprints are all over it. I hope they occupy my house and finger all my possessions that I have lovingly collected to remember the years I've spent on this planet. All my documentations..they should read them, look at them, tear them up, deface them and spit on them. Especially that...we all know our DNA can be traced in our saliva.

I reserve my soul not for hatred but for witness to the crimes they commit and my signs now are all around them...at arm's reach.

I only feel impatient for the separations this causes...some maybe separations of death and some may only be long/short term physical separations depending on Allah's will for me and my person.

I don't even have anger anymore. This has finally cured me of that.

Kill me, dismember me, imprison me and take away everything I own. The more that is removed from me in this life, the bigger my reward in paradise.

Thing is...we don't all experience death via physical martyrdom. Some of us have a much more painful fate and that is watching the disbelievers in the world herd people like cattle across borders and make money providing SO CALLED aid...like Kofi Annan. Can't wait to see that one in hell. Like so many others like Olmert, the bloodthirsty cannibal and heathen that he is. Ever see him act like a believing Jew? Wear a marmaluke?

Nope. Because you see, as you all have informed us...most of the good Jews were already exterminated by Hitler. They are awaiting Judgement Day along with us all...living, dead, and whatever there is of those in the in between like Isa and Khizr.

We all get to Judgement Day at the same time.....short time from now if you compare the age of the earth to the span of time since the WARNINGS began.

This is in the phase of the last warnings...we've known that since Jesus (Isa, pbuh) told us exactly that:

SOON.

Better hurry up and figure out your creator's plan for you. You've not much time and it could even be five minutes from now or it could be, five hundred more years when your face is made white with fear because of your earthly choices which ALL have proof..fingerprints just all over the place. Newspapers, photos, bombs which are signed (coerced out of, that is) by young Israeli children.

Sadly, you will only see hatred when in fact I am doing you a favor.

Wake up pal. Wake up.

This is where this story ends for now. I hope all who get a chance to really read through some of the essays here will understand some of the big picture of Islam now. That it was never ever about Osama. You were just ignorant of it...to busy with the vanities in life to take the time to read what it says and connect the dots to history and the books of other religions. My work here is really all I have now save for a few bits and bobs.

Nevermind....poetry is temporary. This life is only a vanity.

What is more important is that I am now separated from my truly wonderful family in south Lebanon who are only a km or less away from the battles. All of them TRAPPED in a house...thirty or forty of them, mostly children with no escape. Israel already occupied our home for two years in 1982 but things were different then. There were still a few REAL believing Jews in their armies. What they now have in Israel as reported in the newspapers today is this:

85% Israelis AGREE WITH THIS ACTION
15% JUST SORT OF DISLIKE IT.

Wow. You've got to wonder what that old Jewish tradition is and what is WAS and what it is supposed to be. I'm relatively sure it isn't to murder and maim people who are simply fighting for their lives, their fellow muslims and truth.

Well, when I am asked about my bitter battles with the Silliman racist blog and with my own good friends who failed to be able to look up a word or two on their own (ZIONISM) by Allah...then this will be documented as well.

85% of all Israelis believe in SERIAL KILLING.

For whoever had the COURAGE to tell me that I ought to be 'careful' about what I say about the war criminals of Israel....

you too.



DIE IN YOUR RAGE


That, my friend, is from the Quran. Not me, from Allah. He knew what he created when he created us, them and people like you.

You see, we all return to Allah....dogs cats trees flowers people Jews athiests Buddhists...all returns to Allah and then Allah asks:

HERE ARE YOUR FINGERPRINTS ON THESE BOMBS, THESE GUNS
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT?

ALLAH WILL ALSO ASK ME AS A MUSLIM, IF I WROTE THESE POSTS AND MEANT THEM AND I WILL SAY YES. I DID.

I'M VERY SORRY YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD/ALLAH AND THE FACT THAT YOU WILL BE TRIED FOR THE CRIMES YOU HAVE COMMITTED. TOO BAD REALLY BECAUSE THIS LIFE IS SO SHORT AND IT IS MEANT TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO FIGURE THINGS OUT.

DO NOT ASK ME TO LIE FOR YOU. I HATE LYING AND MOST CERTAINLY, DON'T MAKE ME LIE FOR ISRAEL. THAT IS YOUR JOB AND THE JOB OF PEOPLE WHO HATE ALLAH AND HIS PROPHET MOHAMED AND HIS PROPHET ISA AND HIS PROPHET MUSA AND HIS PROPHET IBRAHIM WHOSE FIRST BORN SON IS THE REAL INHERITOR OF ISLAM WITH MOHOMED THE SUPREME MESSENGER WHO UNDERSTOOD ALL THAT WENT BEFORE HIM IN THE LINE OF PROPHETS.

SORRY YOU ASKED?

For whoever had the COURAGE to tell me that I ought to be 'careful' about what I say about the war criminals of Israel....

you too.



DIE IN YOUR RAGE


That, my friend, is from the Quran. Not me, from Allah. He knew what he created when he created us, them and people like you.

You see, we all return to Allah....dogs cats trees flowers people Jews athiests Buddhists...all returns to Allah and then Allah asks:

HERE ARE YOUR FINGERPRINTS ON THESE BOMBS, THESE GUNS
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT?

ALLAH WILL ALSO ASK ME AS A MUSLIM, IF I WROTE THESE POSTS AND MEANT THEM AND I WILL SAY YES. I DID.

I'M VERY SORRY YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD/ALLAH AND THE FACT THAT YOU WILL BE TRIED FOR THE CRIMES YOU HAVE COMMITTED. TOO BAD REALLY BECAUSE THIS LIFE IS SO SHORT AND IT IS MEANT TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO FIGURE THINGS OUT.

DO NOT ASK ME TO LIE FOR YOU. I HATE LYING AND MOST CERTAINLY, DON'T MAKE ME LIE FOR ISRAEL. THAT IS YOUR JOB AND THE JOB OF PEOPLE WHO HATE ALLAH AND HIS PROPHET MOHAMED AND HIS PROPHET ISA AND HIS PROPHET MUSA AND HIS PROPHET IBRAHIM WHOSE FIRST BORN SON IS THE REAL INHERITOR OF ISLAM WITH MOHOMED THE SUPREME MESSENGER WHO UNDERSTOOD ALL THAT WENT BEFORE HIM IN THE LINE OF PROPHETS.

SORRY YOU ASKED?

CRY AMEN

it all starts here
with the goodness of words
the feel of words
sound, taste of words
coming out of the mouth
the pen
coming out as new born babes
fighting breathing
all at once
release sliding out
sliding and sliding
laying still
gasping
goodness all around
eyes and more eyes
looking in, looking out
blinking
wet and finished
smothered in ink
blood tears
out at last
free,
no more aimless
floating in another's
sea, another's supply
no more silence
only words
coming out
fast and ripe
cry baby amen
cry allelujah
amen
hosannah in the highest
hey amen
this crib is a church
this cry is hunger
amen allelujah
this is for love
this for pain
cry all over
again
again
cry amen
try a little harder
make it a little broader
fill as much of this space
with cry amen.



Long Live The Resistance To Israeli TERRORISM


Israel INVENTED TERRORISM and their fingerprints are recorded at the scenes of all of their crimes against humanity and anyone who dares to question their authority.

NOW YOU KNOW WHY THE US/ZIONIST WAR MACHINE WANTED SYRIA OUT OF HERE AND MURDERED HARIRI AND BLAMED IT ON SYRIA. NOW YOU KNOW WHY.

When the Syrians disembarked from our planet a few months ago, I took it upon myself to visit a few of their installations I was so used to walking by with my eyes cast down. One in particular which sits next door to the lovely Mrs. Amar's house (she is a widow with 27 cats, two dogs (one, a gigantic Russian breed and very kind), some fowl and one Bengali male helper) is worth noting. It is the place I realized the idea that there is more than one way of seeing things. Of course, I was convinced of this before that fateful day but I didn't really believe it myself. My senses proved otherwise. We must trust those senses. And then we turn our head or stand on a different knoll, the sun is low on the horizon casting certain shadows, or it is noon and there are none at all. So we change our minds and realize our senses can't even be trusted! Nothing is as it seems yet it is, as it is, when we are there.

I usually view Beirut proper from a southerly direction with the northern line of sight ending in a steamy metropolis, full of human activity that I somehow know is there even though I can't see it from such a great distance. Between that view and myself is the giant sandy looking tarmac of modern Phoenician departure. It is new and within it is the memory of the old, the airport in which every corner praised Hafaz Assad and where I once spent one interminable day waiting for a flight back home. Home was something far more foreign than even this place. Home was Riyadh, a dizzy semi-circular void of streets without names and people who dressed uncannily the same, day after day after day. They dressed in reference to the Bible and all the other ancient things that we sometimes abhor and sometimes revere.
To the south of course, is the south. It appears to be a straight line from the metropolis, completely 180 degrees in the other direction, a direction that I often go when seeking peace in the form of a house in a rural area with a view into modern Israel and back into a Medieval castle. I'm almost certain sometimes, that there I can see serfs burning their garbage and the jackals carrying off bones and refuse from the day into their sullied dens.

Behind me is nothing in particular, just a bunch of hills and somewhere even behind that is Syria and behind that, something else too. I don't really know and like the old cave, I only contemplate my shadow not what actually makes it.

In front of me is the sea. Always the sea, always changing.

At the deserted Syrian installation near Mrs. Amar's house however, I realize that everything is generally in a different order. Roads that aren't parallel when they are driven on become twins with roads that ought not to be paired with the others because they course by entirely different realities. The freeway with its locked-in walls where one is isolated in a steady stream of coming and going. It runs alongside a brutal and poorly kept street that harbors fruit vendors and adolescent boys standing about and looking for something to do. The tarmac is far less significant in comparison and in that view.

The southern direction from the top of that knoll, standing just on the edge of a empty foxhole (which is held together by an old tire from a car) is no longer "to the south" and is no longer straight at all. It curves around behind me there, like a lengthy arm on the shoulder of a friend or a lover's around the waist of a lover. So it is, beside me and behind me.

In this orientation, the world is quite circular and the sea, although not directly in front of me is still the sea. The sea without direction, the sea of all changes. The sea which casts no shadow on anything at all but remains forever as it is without us knowing.

Dear One and All:

Well Tima already registered with the US State Department today. My friend, well, haha my friend is the warden for the south and she has no news about evactuations. Although I do not want to go out I guess I have to if the opportunity presents itself...to get Lynette's kids out (maybe) and my own.

Mel is happy now that I have agreed to go so that much is good. If I die tonight then at least he would have won his last battle. :)

Thank you for doing this for us...no one Radi has a sister like you :)

Right now they are threatening all the villages in the south. No roads to leave on so I guess they think they want people to walk out in the dead of night while they shoot them in the back. Just like they did to the Palestinians when they were stealing Palestine. They destroyed and exiled over 400 villages to create their "utopia". You know, the literal meaning of Zion is Utopia. Wow.

I think they have flown a team in to 'work' on the evacuation of over 25,000 citizens trapped here...many of them actually Lebanese US citizens so does that tell you anything about the rush they are in to do this Radi? Oh sure, there are a few crackers like me but not 25,000. :) So don't hold your breath and I've been in line with Lebanese at the bank and know that I'll probably wait until the closing credits to hop aboard the "air bridge" they are supposedly building. Meanwhile, the Aussies and French and Italians ALREADY EVACUATED. Oh funny isn't it?

I'm laughing sort of.

Mel's sister finally took me up on the offer and now she is with me with her two daughters. The neighborhoods around her are pretty much leveled. The ouzai was hit this afternoon and on the tellie here they were dragging small children out of the debris. So the body count is very inaccurate right now.

This is another JENIN lie in the making you know. Israel twisting all the rhetoric and trying to brainwash people into believing they are the good guys here.

Go to hell all of them and all who support their vile deeds against humanity. Send this letter to everyone and let them send it on and on and on.

All my love

Salaam wa alaikum and hope to write to you again in the a.m.

Meg

Ah, I woke up again. How nice. I did tell my husband last night on the phone that I loved him for all time, "just in case". Oh, we knew I'd wake up again...or did we? Well, who really knows when they go to sleep that they will wake up again anyway!

Poor sod. There he is, helpless in Riyadh. He spent four hours in the gym punishing his body so he wouldn't return to his apartment and watch his country and family go up in flames.

Oh well. Life is tough.

MUSLIMS are tougher. You see, God taught us to be tough. Gave us words of encouragement because the plan for this planet is much bigger than eighty martyrs or eighty thousand.

Much, much bigger.

I want to extend my personal gratitude to Zionists and their supporters for helping to unify two groups I never thought could unite.

The Sunni-Shi'i divide is closing.

Photo Exhibition of Past Israeli Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes, and basically, evidence suggests, crimes against their souls, crimes against the One God who created all twelve tribes (which, btw, includes the Ismaili tribe...or didn't they tell you our group was one of the ones which Moses split the rock open to pour out twelve streams of water to?) and just plain crimes agains the sanity of all peoples who are apparently quite insane or quite weak or quite enslaved to something which has enslaved or perhaps, just too plain ignorant to read news with a sense of morality and decency.

Israel on parade:

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/

And some very nice notes about the mistranslations of the Iranian president who refers to Shoah business for what it is.

War

Well, war is weird. Second time around is even more weird. You somehow think you never will do "that again" but there you go again. Bound to Happen is a poem about exactly that sort of thing and it can be found on this blog. Shadenfreude in the City is also here on this blog as are many of the all time greatest hits of my little war zone.

I was up at the store a little while ago, listening as I walked with my great big beautiful speckled German pointer dog, to Joni Mitchell's California on my wonderful little iPod that is quite useful to filter out the sounds of pounding Israeli missiles. And let's get this straight, Israel doesn't give a rat's arse about those two POWs we have. As is their usual, they were looking for an opportunity and baiting all the time. Over the past several months they have killed innocent people in the south who were out in their fields culling tobacco and recently abducted a Lebanese citizen. This has been going on for an ever you know (besides the CONSTANT violations of our airspace) but because you don't see pictures of Lebanese children laying in nicely appointed bomb shelters (like the ones you are seeing hopefully on CNN depicting the poor Israelis who are just "quaking" in their little boots) YOU just don't pay attention! The reason you don't see that is because the Lebanese are too poor to build bomb shelters. Their country is literally too poor to clean up its trash properly. Children here are often barefoot and hungry. While Israeli girls and boys sleep.

You people just don't care. That is obvious. America is one sad place if you ask me. New Orleans...to think I wanted to DONATE money to that disaster. And exactly what has New Orleans done for us over here?

Anyway, just rambling and thinking I best roll down the aluminum covers on the windows so they don't shatter. They've been pummelling the hell out of us this afternoon. Everything is on fire and the whole city smells as if it were a burnt match. So I went up to the store and saw this man that sells us "power" in the form of 10 amps/$50/month. It was so nice to have his services a few weeks back when the fourth motor I've had in a year bit the dust. I was SO relieved. He was just standing there at the little dekhena (tienda en espanol) and leaning on something, looking very Bogart like.

After he left, the shop keeper looked at me with her weary old eyes and said "50!" And I said, "Yes, and it will 'go up'" (of course I used the word 'itla' which is 'go up' instead of inflation since I don't know the word for inflation or the word for the black markets of war).

I just wanted to keep this as a note to remind myself to write his story and of listening to California....all the streets are filled with strangers....la dee da dee da...boom boom boom.

Israel. Horrible people who live there, work there and sleep there all nervous about the things they've done to others.

I hardly blame them.

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, GENIE AND THE ARABIAN FIGHTS

Well (redacted)..everything is for a 'reason' you know. Israel getting too big for its BREACHES OF HUMAN RIGHTS WITH THAT OLD WALL OF WARSAU THEY'VE BUILT TO REMIND THEM OF WHERE THEY CAME FROM and US sitting decoy in Iraq...do these people realize what kind of misery they've embarked upon?

Who knows. They say the Iwo Jima is going to try to dock close to Beirut but that is probably pie in the sky idealism hahaha to quell the bellyachers at the embassy. I don't want to go and in fact probably won't...worse comes to worse I'll stay behind and send off my genetic code and value system to the world beyond via Syria or somewhere else...seems a friend of mine that I lost touch with (had a nasty falling out with her over Islam and such...she was getting fanatical but she was right!)...anyway...she was part of my miracle six months ago and popped into our life again in the oddest way, a DAY after I said to my husband I needed to get in touch with her to 'solidify' our faith and friendship...well...she sent her three young boys here for the summer...her husband in Saudi with mine pooping their pants and no one to evacuate those little guys all under the age of ten. Well...if it must be, I'll use my three to evacuate her three as mine are practically adults. I'll do my best to stay behind and protect my property and mind my animals. You know, it is traditional that one family member MUST stay in the residence to avoid the squatter problem and this time...the buck stops with me.

Oh well. I'm READY to meet my maker. Willing and able. And I've got terrific first aid skills. I wish it wasn't so but you know (redacted)...we all know it is. We know Israel wasn't supposed to happen...go ask the fundamentalist Jews...they know it too and NEVER agreed to the formation of Israel. Go tell that to that yahoo Tim Smith who thinks Israel is so horribly beaten down. Let them all and I mean ALL burn in hell for all eternity. They deserve it and they have been promised exactly that in the Quran if they don't behave. And it seems, they haven't behaved for over 50 years locally and longer worldwide.

I tell them: TELL IT TO THE REAL JUDGE PALS and I'LL BE AT YOUR HEARING LAUGHING MY HEAVENLY ARSE OFF

All my best buddy....keep the faith.

I'm good.

Me

The Rogue State Of Israel and their "public service announcements"



BEIRUT: Israel carried out its most extensive attacks on Lebanon in at least a decade on Thursday, clamping a tight air and sea blockade and carrying out devastating air strikes in different parts of the country that killed at least 50 civilians a day after Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers. The Lebanese resistance group fired at least 80 rockets at around 20 northern Israeli towns, killing two and sending at least 43 people to hospital, many for "shock."

Israeli officials said Hizbullah also launched rockets at Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, which was considered as a "major, major escalation" by Israel's ambassador to the US.

Hizbullah denied having fired rockets at the Israeli seaport, but had earlier threatened to strike Haifa if Beirut or its southern suburbs were hit.

Israel intends to "break" Hizbullah, Defense Minister Amir Peretz announced late Thursday after at least one rocket landed in Haifa.

As The Daily Star went to press, Israel had begun attacks on Hizbullah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs. An AFP correspondent said at least four loud explosions had been heard in the area.

Israel, which has not ruled out ground operations in Lebanon, had warned its northern neighbor to evacuate all residents from the southern suburb area where Hizbullah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is believed to live.

Earlier in the day, Israel's justice minister suggested that Nasrallah was a target for assassination and said Hizbullah would be struck "wherever its members gather."

Late Thursday, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets across Lebanon warning residents to stay away from any areas where Hizbullah is active.

"Due to the terrorist activities carried out by Hizbullah, the Israeli Army will continue its work within Lebanese territories for as long as it deems fit to protect Israeli citizens," the leaflets read. "For your own safety and because we do not wish to cause any more civilian deaths, you are advised to avoid all places frequented by Hizbullah.

"You should know that the continuation of terrorist activities against Israel will be considered a double-edged sword for you and Lebanon."

The leaflets were signed "The State of Israel."

Meanwhile, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Hizbullah had nowhere to hide.

"Hizbullah is a target wherever it is located in Lebanon - in Tripoli, in Beirut, in every place it is a target," he said.

And Israel's army chief, Dan Halutz, refused to rule out any targets in Lebanon from attack, saying the military was prepared to continue its offensive for as long as necessary.

"Nothing is safe. It is as simple as that," he said. "Our field of action is very large and our actions diverse. We have the green light from the government."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

THE WEATHER REPORT

Israel says it will rain Tuesday so it will.
Here, the weather-girls are more about glamour,
because in Lebanon we know it will rain
sooner or later just don't know when
and want to look good when it does.
But Israel knows! They have balloons
up in the sky and yesterday, at the school
for retarded kids an F-16 signed
the bright, blue warm-front sky,
the surf was still a pretty mirror;
the waves hadn't conducted a weather report
of lapping generously at the kiln-y rocks
the ones DISplaced there without reason,
the disjointed buildings still disrepairing
to the sea and the sea wrecks
that must be there.The rebar girders
jut out of ocean front property of lichen
splotched war rubble, the smooth stones and trash,
all the salty modern shrapnel.
All of it there in a calm loaminess.
Tuesday, it will rain. We all agree on that one.

Rogue State Israel Continues Crimes Against All Humanity

Forget the USS Liberty. Oh yea, remember that one? When Israel dive bombed a US ship...oh, never mind that. After all, face it America, the Zionists OWN you. They've occupied your senate and your house. They control all of your presidents and have divided you against one another.

They OWN you. Wake up and smell the matzo.

Israel has literally built walls to imprison an entire population which they continue to starve, mutilate, humiliate, murder, rape, corrupt and torture on a DAILY basis. And what is America doing about it?

nothing. absolutely nothing.

What does America do when someone TRIES to do something about these horrendous thieves, murderers and criminals who call themselves Israel? Oh, well, they side with the bad guy who stole land over fifty years ago using terrorism, murder, rape and the creation of refugees.

Zionism is EVERYONE'S problem you see. Apartheid was part of it and apparently, Apartheid is in good health.

So check this out. They have three POWs in Arab hands. Well, they have THOUSANDS of Arab POWs but you see, the Zionists have convinced the entire world that THEY are the good guys and anyone who is against them is either a Nazi or a Terrorist.

How wonderful. Well, like the Quran says...you make your plans and God makes other plans.

Personally, I can't wait to see these people at the gates of HELL.









http://www.samirkuntar.org/english.html

Oriental Storms

I

What would be good here is to sleep through the hierarchy
let it rip open by itself and all alone in itself
without me to introduce it to my voice, the sleep one
which chatters into the nonsense of nonwaking, the miracle
of losing touch next to the boulder breathing, cat purring
the whizz of appliances at night, snap of the clocks each
per room divided into the drops of faucets and drains,
each passing unnoticed falls into the curvature of a steady building
on this precipice near the sea of hidden color.

II

buzz drip drop whizz galore
a symphonic clause of night
the cat bats around a piece of plastic
the wind rattles the big metal door
occasionally a jet removes itself
the anxious boarded people sit strapped
if only one could see them there
praying good lord praying
don't fall into the sea, don't drop
the wind rattles entire shackled tenements
runs in a river through the shafts
chimneys full of air until the glass
shakes like a fun house mirror
lightning over in the west
part of it from Istanbul some of it
having touched the Hagia Sofia
where the cistern serves water
to the dead, the big door arched
over one thousand kings and consorts
and the small side doors for the poor.
Cisterns and drains, the same.


III

Just back from Turkey eh?
Food was great. We spent Saturday waiting in the car
for the business men. Against the law she said
for covered women to enter the government buildings!
Yes I said, that was Kemal Ataturk's business.
We sat up in the hotel bar, we could see everything
but not the Bosphorus, stood near the double bridge
Asia and Europe, you did? Couldn't enter the mosque
because we'd just had sex at the hotel and a drink
but that is a tourist attraction anymore I said
she didn't know nor did she know
to buy a ticket to see St John's arm encased
in a golden jacket, absconded with by the Turks.
Five days of eating at restaurants.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

IV

buzz drip drop whizz galore
the whizz of appliances at night
the cistern talks to the bottom
of the catacomb
each eye closed for a time to the miracle
of losing touch
another jet to Istanbul on takeoff
the wind whips the big metal door
the heater off and cold
and out there, the sea without a color
under lightning, under these oriental storms.

The Tenuous Night of the Universe Recorded

The real animals know the time
as night falls into the right places.
The bats swoop, visionaries
to the universe outside the damp caves
they cling to in the daylight hours
where they seek the solace of the blind.
Wet lizards mimick the perpetual hymn
of the stars in the charm
of the dog's pleasant serenades at dusk.

This is the sound of the worlds'
random spins shining one upon the other.
Who knows how many days there make eons!

Long ago, the moon surpassed
the sun, overlapped
the generations of stars and starlight
near the prowl of the night kin
who tell their story so very well.

Ode To God Tricks

There we were with scraps
of dog and puddles of poodles,
Mike and Sassy, Maxi then Arrow.
Hunters and loiterers, one and all.
One for the pope and one for me
I used to say remember,
never eat the prey.
Never, never. Never eat the prey.
One for you and one for me.
Out you go, in you stay.
(Appalachian Trixie looked like Satan,
now it's Iblis and a place called Peyton.)
Under the table with a scowl and then
hunt with the birds, bounce real tall!
Pieces of hound on frocks and aprons,
Labrador was a yard up in heaven.
Evil flowers laughed at the experts
dragons and rabbits, morning glories, asters!
All chains and locks, gates with papers:
the Daily Review, a Mule Mountain
Observer. The postman stayed
where the postman should, next
to his boxes, his locks and his latches.
Everyone had one, Tiger and Lucky,
up in the back Sam and BeeBee.
Across the canyon and down
toward the court and knoll, everyone barking
for all the disappearing folk in that town.
Only the pooches knew the proper nouns.

**Ah yes. And how is it the Kennedy Assassination is still a crime scene but the tomb isn't?
I mean, you had a missing body and in another area, a guy turns up either hanged by his own hand or fallen down and eviscerated in a field he bought with thirty pieces of silver he earned by what, turning in his teacher? Now come on now! Treat the situation like a crime scene, as much as you would that knoll and read the gospels. You'll see what I mean.

So much for the Universal Observer theories of astrophysics! What good are those.

Consulting With Shell Oil, Wackenhut and the Fingerprints

[75:0] In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
[75:1] I swear by the Day of Resurrection.
[75:2] And I swear by the blaming soul.
[75:3] Does the human being think that we will not reconstruct his bones?

[75:4] Yes indeed; we are able to reconstruct his finger tip.

[75:5] But the human being tends to believe only what he sees in front of him.
[75:6] He doubts the Day of Resurrection!

[75:7] Once the vision is sharpened.

[75:8] And the moon is eclipsed.
[75:9] And the sun and the moon crash into one another.
[75:10] The human being will say on that day, "Where is the escape?"
[75:11] Absolutely, there is no escape.
[75:12] To your Lord, on that day, is the final destiny.
[75:13] The human being will be informed, on that day, of everything he did to advance himself, and everything he did to regress himself.
[75:14] The human being will be his own judge.

[75:15] No excuses will be accepted.

Muhammad Forbidden From Explaining the Quran

[75:16] Do not move your tongue to hasten it.
[75:17] It is we who will collect it into Quran.
[75:18] Once we recite it, you shall follow such a Quran.
[75:19] Then it is we who will explain it.

[75:20] Indeed, you love this fleeting life.
[75:21] While disregarding the Hereafter.
[75:22] Some faces, on that day, will be happy.
[75:23] Looking at their Lord.
[75:24] Other faces will be, on that day, miserable.
[75:25] Expecting the worst.
[75:26] Indeed, when (the soul) reaches the throat.
[75:27] And it is ordered: "Let go!"
[75:28] He knows it is the end.
[75:29] Each leg will lay motionless next to the other leg.
[75:30] To your Lord, on that day, is the summoning.
[75:31] For he observed neither the charity, nor the contact prayers (Salat).
[75:32] But he disbelieved and turned away.
[75:33] With his family, he acted arrogantly.
[75:34] You have deserved this.
[75:35] Indeed, you have deserved this.
[75:36] Does the human being think that he will go to nothing?
[75:37] Was he not a drop of ejected semen?
[75:38] Then He created an embryo out of it!
[75:39] He made it into male or female!
[75:40] Is He then unable to revive the dead?



*Circa: A very long time before the X Files, I'll tell you that. Round 1400 lunar years or so.

How is it that we are in the darkness really and the day is just a bit of short term light?

Forgiveness and Forgetfulness

Once it was that I stole the diary of a Job.
His case was interesting and the margins
held the most exciting parts of the problems.
Toward the end of his life his certainties
grew fainter than the ink in which
the best of it was written plus numerous
dialogues pertaining to the coma.
A very long time indeed he lay sleeping,
practically all of his life for sure.
At last there were possessions to be divvied
and spite to be had in the name
of his well known polygamies and infatuations.
This Job loved women or so he thought.
He loved books and movies, light and statues.
There was a fondness for food and temptation.
As a thief however, I cannot remain blameless
so I promised to write a dedication
to all that this Job might be or was.
Human. All too human and not the best prophet.


*Alas, it is sometimes a mystery where things go and where they come from. Mostly, they are not my own but come from the Sustainer and Creator but this one is definitely mine. I own it and know that some things and some people deserve the last chances even if it isn't me that needs to offer it to them. Those offers come from On High. Never too late to apply you know. It is hard I know, to understand this thing. It isn't meant for everyone. Allah knows though what lurks in the hearts of men and women...closer than your own jugular they say.

The Jealousy of Heavenly Bodies

The moon is not sacred anymore
because we touched her, brought her down;
put her in glass boxes and distrusted
her wise old ways. It wasn't enough
to struggle in her skin
nor to clothe her precious nudity
with the banner of our king.
Sure, it was all in good fun
but everyone knew it
might be the sun we were after
and the light from the darkest of seas.

from D. Whitehead, The Book of Warnings

Ought to appear next to this old thing:

What About Mars?

No more problems says the package
the cure came in, no more
warning labels and the price tag
no longer legible. It began
with flashy children and fast cars
then people started talking
about the remains
after the relocations,
wondered what would happen
to the crystal ball and Japanese flag.
Where to put Mars now?
Whose house next?

The Nightingales

You know, death follows me around like a wet mitten. My last death counseling sequence ended a month ago with the death of the comotase old lady who was injured by her neighbor's car while she bent down gardening. Oh, I tried with that family to just 'let her go' but they wouldn't. Okay then. Not my fault and then after she died, her granddaughter called me and gave me the best news: It was exactly as you said it would be.

There is no better compliment to a nurse. Nurses have the power to see into the future of death in many instances and chart the way through the final corridors because we traipse along through them so often carrying this and that and the other thing. Diapers to syringes, broths and electric paddles, and of course, marching orders called DNRs (Do Not Resusitate).

So I met my next guest about a month ago. Oh, we didn't know what was about to occur when we so gleefully set out to 'teach me' Arabic together (yes it was a cooperative effort as all teaching/learning cases are). It was all so innocent back then. Four weeks of pure bliss in which I did my homework on schedule and my teacher knew exactly what I needed next. There was absolute trust.

Then his wife got lung cancer. Oh, I knew right away it was a sign...but the teacher did not. He was in a fog of hope and illusion. "It can't be," to which I countered, "perhaps it is not." Then "It is," to which I countered "I know."

I reminded him yesterday about his hopes and refused the lesson he offered me. I knew he was not much of a teacher any more. More like a lost child and trying hard not to cry all the time. Anyway, for some crazy reason this man gave me the miracle I'd always hoped would come without any 'hard labor' in a matter of four weeks...and I can now read Arabic. Not perfectly but pretty damn good for a month old endeavor. I'm already more indebted to him that he can ever know because now I can actually see words written in the Quran in their truest forms. I can never pay him back for that, if only he knew!

So yesterday, I turned away our notebooks and told him that we needed to talk. You see, last month he had no Lord and told me he was a "scientologist". This month he yelped at the accusation of Lordlessness to which I said, "Good. I thought so." At the end of that lesson I went home feeling as if I had bruised his soul, caused more injury than good in taking the biggest of risks with this newest witness to 'great dying' as are all future widows and widowers. I had only done that in order to treat that which is untreatable: death. I only wanted him to go to her in the UK because I know that when one person dies, so do many, in their hearts. To treat a patient in one country and his counterpart in yet another is impossible. You see, my teacher hates death and doesn't want to see it and has sent his love to better climes to try to save the day. He voluntarily split up the patient. I knew why I finally had decided to learn Arabic after some twenty five years of living with it. It was because I will always need more opportunities to help someone out when at last they understand they need it.

The next day however, yesterday, my teacher called me. He cried and promised to reconsider rejoining his other half in order to give her her last rites, those of final important witnessing to their days together which are surely to come to an end very soon. Just as my teacher had decided suddenly to revive his belief in the afterlife, he decided to reconsider facing death by going to hold her hand in the UK while she waits to leave this life. That wait can be such a long one and isn't it for us all! Personally, I think they are lucky to have had the warning so that they could plan the steadier course. Not everyone gets that chance you know.

Why me? Why not me? I've been to death's door so many times now and know where they hide the keys, most of them anyway except perhaps, my own.

All nurses who are good at their jobs do this kind of thing day to day but all you hear about is the pain and suffering and bedpans. In truth, nurses are the best anchorites and never ever can you pay them enough for what it is they help another to carry. It is what I miss most about being a full time nurse. For now, I'm just lucky enough to once in a while be able to volunteer.

Crime Night

Ah, this week is a blogorama. You see, I’ve had some problems lately with my internet service. As is the usual, the service was bad. Home delivery awful and the pizza always cold. I had to go to the competition but it has taken a bit o' time to get my new receiver set up. So now I’m on an eating binge. I’ve been out reading all sorts of things and looking for a new home for my thoughts. Now that the JD is part of the past, I want to be somewhere else and don’t we all! A nice place. A place with smart folks. A place that allows freedom and encourages same. Just like the JD but not the JD. If such a place exists (which I don’t think it does but one never knows). All the while I’ve had this nagging question in the back of my mind….partly because I’ve been watching Crime Night on TV too much in lieu of logging into all the usual JD things.

Crime Night is on Discovery Channel and my daughter stays up way past her bedtime to watch it. Things like Forensic Detective peopled by folks who enjoy employment in such positions as “Blood Splatter Expert” and “Footprint Criminologist”. So many thoughts come to mind while I’m watching these shows. First and foremost is, Man…are people ever messed up! Luckily, here in the “Islamic” countries, we don’t have all that much senseless murder. Oh sure..there is the odd “Honor Killing” and once in a while we have an abduction of a teenage boy…but really…it cannot compare statistically to what I see happening in the West and in Europe. What we have is the frequent intersectarian crime or spy crimes and the all popular Syrian Beat Fests. And Syrian Murders in which unfortunate Syrians are bludgeoned just because some people resent the fact that Syrians have been enjoying way too much Lebanese Pie. You know..the Lebanese Pie can only be divided in so many ways. Sadly these guys are usually poor immigrant workers.

Back to my nagging question…..and an odd question it is. In Islam, there is this concept that when you go to “Judgement Day”, your hands and feet will “testify against you”. Now, back in the old days when I was just knee high to a gracehoper, my husband used to explain to me that any body part that was involved in committing a crime would actually be burnt in the fire of Hell and remain scorched even if you actually made it to Paradise as a whole. Now I got this idea of all these saints with eschar on them running around with their brocade robes and such up in heaven. Well….times have changed and it finally occurred to me the truth about what the Quran suggested in the seventh century of the Common Era…notably a time much before we ever imagined such things as serial killers and shows like America’s Most Wanted. Way before Louis Pasteur debunked “Germ Theory” and way before we knew that the male zygote is responsible for gender selection (which the Quran clearly states is the case for what it calles the male ‘nutfa’ or semen, the despicable fluid that contains the sperm cells).

How will our fingers and hands testify against us? Well, Crime Night tells you so often enough so I’ll just let you assume you understand the drift but I will give you one example of the notion of fingerprints and their absolute individuality as it occurs in the Quran (although there are many references I’ll just cite one):

Sura 36: Ya Seen, verse 12

Surely we give life to the dead,
And when we write down what they have sent
Before and their footprints?
And we have recorded everything in a clear writing.

Well…I’ll be. That is what that was all about. You know…there is never an end to the wonders of that book. Never an end to the tangents. And trust me...the theme of 'your body testifying against you' is a very, very strong one in the Quran and in the Hadith.

And guess what? Fourteenth century Persia. Fingerprints used because...well...because Allah said to use fingerprints. To be fair, the ancient art of 'palm reading' and using the hands to divine the nature of an individual's fate is also evident in ancient China and in India. The best can be said of those ancient technologies however is that they were akin to personal astrology and we all know how reliable those are! It was the Persians who stated that no two are the same and it was the Babylonians who used prints to conduct business transactions using this truly individualized 'signature'. Amen.

http://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html

And for some tidbits about the ancient Chinese/Indian techniques:

http://www.edcampbell.com/PalmD-History.htm

And finally, to the Conspiracy Theorists in us all.....Allah has a plan and "they" have a plan. One of those plans was to make you believe that the "State" was assigning you a personal ID number or a thing they could shoot into your neck to "finger you" in a crime against, of course, the state.
Well I got news for you. Allah already took care of that. He'd like credit now for that.

Can Leonard Gontarek write a bad poem? I mean, can he write something that one is unable to cherish? A poem that fails to amuse? One that slips up a bit in the diction? Or rather, can he please stop writing poems because it just ain't fair. People shouldn't be able to write poems like this. These poems that he has learned and shares are the poems of the ancients via the modern sensibilities called: media and the other five plus the heart and soul. That makes about eight and any poet with eight senses ought to be thrown out of town.

Here is an excerpt from a poem called

i w i l l r e a d a f e w o f t h e s e t o s e e i f t h e y e x i s t

...The revolution will be shown without sound.
The war is over so we protect the reasons for it.
Our dreams are troubled by murders from movies.
This revolution will come with more beautiful imagery.
I have answers to all your questions. Are you talking to me?
I was kicked out. It was quite a ceremony, solemn, stark:
bells, chants, roses in winter, incense, the door opening.
Creaking gate of Purgatory. The Master wiping away a small tear,
dust of centuries. My ass smarted for a week.
.....


Now, let me just tell you this, you could extract any line from just about any poem of his and find a *nougat in there. It isn't hard and one doesn't need to be a high falutin poetry priest to chew these delicacies and in fact, you don't even need teeth. Eyes help and I do wonder if poets ever think to have their chapbooks put into Braille for the less fortunate sightless peoples. I'll bet the blind love poetry more than those who can see.

Here for instance in the opening line of a poem called Life On Earth

"I was afraid the hearse passing would make you sad."

Now come on now...that is just so simple and pure isn't it? The poem itself is one of the weaker yet it still manages to grip at the neck and ask you, Isn't this what things look like? When Mr. Gontarek says in his poem Amnesty this:

Your ex-girlfriend leans over & kisses you in the coffin.

....you believe him. Amnesty goes on to say this too:

Two clean college kids “for Christ” banged on my door like angry mailmen.





You have the wrong house. I knew right away that was not the smart thing to say.





There are no wrong houses when it comes to Jesus.





I’m Buddhist. Christ accepts everyone.





I am not exactly depressed, just a little sad.





Trace the tattoo on your arm or leg, if you have an idea of what I’m talking about.





When the earth & snow is apricot for seconds & your dreams fall fast as water





Out the window, wouldn’t you say in the middle of that uncontestable joy, is sorrow,





Like a metal sliver? Wouldn’t you say a sign with a couple letters out





Makes you sad. You could say those women eating snow in a racy manner





Is sad, but you wouldn’t. I can’t explain. I follow the lovely wild horses





With my eyes. They become lost in the shadow of mountain & then, darkness.





I love the way that happens. But who can be certain, when it comes to imagery.

...so the poem becomes what we call, Self Conscious. Happy within itself, discussing itself as if itself was the whole reason the world revolved. Man this guy is good and if I lived in America, I'd buy each and every one of his books. I'd do that and al'ham'du'lillah for the internet. Where would I be without it?

You can find Mr. G at his own site here:

http://www.leafscape.org/LeonardGontarek/poetry.html

Today In The Real Third World

The city on fire
was traffically jammed,
cross circuits of humbled wires
over the intersections of
'used to be a war here'
and
'used to be a war here'.
Struggling their beefy little hearts
out to go on home to their steamy kitchens,
their lousy children and fat wives.
No one any more decent for the excuse
of it all including the rickety
rattan furniture on the balcons
to the beautiful sea on the right
or the left or the center.
Somewhere out there a prostitute wailed
and somewhere else a man spit into a urinal
and still somewhere else out there
was I. In the middle of it all,
chest nearly bleeding from contaminations
fresh from the instructor who hates funerals
(his wife dying in Britain now).
We all hate funerals and burying.
Everyone hates to be in a scene.
Cops are cartoons and stand there
waving this way and that way
so it looks like there are some.
They even wear white gloves!
Life is an illusion, can't you see it?
The real authorities are spies and run
around all day chasing the generalissimos
who aren't all that real either.
The army is a lot younger and unhappier now
in the beds of their jiggling trucks.
I love their smiles. So young. So fresh.
So out there it hurts. So very, very real.


*Of course, Life is an illusion, can't you see it? is from the Quran. I wrote that poem in response to one I read that was just plain awful (somewhere else). Now, it is okay to write poems that aren't that great technically speaking. A poet has to start somewhere you know. What was awful about the poem that I read were two things: the poem itself and one of the critics of the poem. The poem was just chock full of gratuitous and graphic violence. Now, violence is okay but I really hate a poem to get so violent with me it makes me sleepy and fatiqued which I am now, very. Sensationalism in poems however is just awful, especially when it involves so much killing and bloodying up of the set props. Messy. A poem can be violent you see without all the trouble of having to clean up once you've read it. A poem I believe should entertain the reader and entertain them in many ways. The reader ought to leave the poem feeling refreshed or illuminated (to his/her own self because lets face it, there are no new thoughts really under the sun rather, there is just better merchandising). Now, the critic said something truly awful. He said the poem was "Just great!" but that the poet shouldn't be surprised if no one "got it" and I guess I am going to assume that means they are going to say "this poem is awful". Now...as a critic...I would never make excuses for someone else's poem being horrific and lacking in all the things that make good poems good and full of all the things that make bad poems bad (which is usually a general lack of technique).

So I said...here...I'll write you a violent poem in a few minutes and you won't have to clean up after you read it. It might even make you sad enough that it makes you happy because you feel humanly related to it. I think that is the key to good poetry. Relating to another human something very human. Gore isn't human. Gore is taboo. It is just that the TV has made it a staple of the diet and everyone is so amazed at how much blood it takes to make a scene look bloody. I think mine is quite bloody without ever mentioning a shark, a knife, a gun or sheesh, a murderer or the murdered.

Bound and Gagged in a Palestinian Bistro

Now let's see. What is going on in the world of poetry! People taking their clothes off after readings, going from bar to bar to bistro as if that is where poetry comes from. Alas, and the Gaza is now without power or water because why? Oh, because the Palestinians are failing in their DUTY to their oppressor.

Hmm. That has always been the case hasn't it? The world BELIEVES that in the case of Israeli brutality, the oppressed have a duty to their oppressor to PLAY NICE. In fact recently, a friend of mine had the audacity to suggest that he hated religion because it promoted violence and in the same breath explained how he believed Israel always had a dickens of a time "defending" herself. Well sure pal. When you steal land from other people (or their cars or their wallets) and then you stand there slapping them for days on end, they are going to get so angry at you that they might smack you upside the head for your idiocy. Usually, thiefs run away with their prize but in this case, the thief simply chased the owners out of their house and locked the door so the owners couldn't get back in. They called it Israel.

For cryin out loud and poets going from bistro to bistro, trying to get famous as fast as they can.

It is going to take six to eight months to repair the damage to the electrical power plant in the Gaza, nevermind about all the dead that have been piling up without much ado from the American viewing public that is much distracted and now, completely apathetic to it ALL (Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria) because let's face it, Americans like naked poets better than they like to read history. Nevermind about the paraplegics and quadraplegics and blinded and burned humans piling up in the Ghettos of Gaza. Nevermind about the loss of some of the best intellect in the Arab world (Palestinians USED to have the highest per capita rate of people holding PhDs anywhere in the world! Bet that's changed now eh?)

Personally, I believe hostage taking (and treating them well) is part of war. It is expected that when you wage war against a population, they will fight back. Hezbollah defeated Israel doing exactly this. Is it any wonder why Israel is behaving so desperately now? Could it be that the Pals have finally found their calling? I hope so. And I hope they take very good care of their hostages as they must according to Islamic Law. That one hostage was already killed is no surprise.

Israel must have a death wish for itself. Let's be honest. What kind of peace will Israel ever have after all of this? You must be crazy to think that the muslims are ever going to forget this or Jenin or Acre or the fact that many "settlers" are transplants from places like Brooklyn and New Jersey.

I used to want to believe that I could defend Israel's right to exist but I am afraid that that aspect of my character is now just about dead. My apologies to the naked poets of Greenwich Village.

T-Bird at the Gila River


"Advice: learn poems so that you don't have to write them.
Strategies are useless testimonials."
- The Book of Warnings, D. Whitehead

This pretty life is death's comma
and we are between, constructing
the darkest layer in the top soils
over which the eagle flies
with the owl, as same as the bug.

Once I stood on a reservation
for our tribes and thought.
The wild wisdoms entered
like drugs with the cackle
of gypsies and caw of old birds
into the earth's big recorder.

When suddenly! Like that!
The newest grand canyon opened
her secret vaults to receive
the sound and reek of vomit from the throat
of a drunkard who turned in and then sped away.
Ah, the stories the rocks will tell!

Ah yes, Nietzsche.


Zarathustra's Flies

Part of the reason is the desire
to keep pace with the frantic show
of tomorrow, yesterday in the bin
swept toward the infinity of amnesias.
Everything is a deliberate parable,
the fly who drifts away
with his delicious meals, unretrievable -
that wiley thief -
to the great dreams we cannot recall.
Limbo! Oh paradise of purgatories
is the hell of the ancients, this sphere
a masterpiece of vain and partial speeches.
The people come and go, unaware, save a few.
They wipe their brows, carry bricks and lipsticks,
dance their jigs. Everyone is so familiar here
with marks on their foreheads to the tightening
of their ears. Smiles, sighs, puffings.

The sea is only a tremendous bucket swarming
with a few fish where currents are
mysterious maps under the most popular of orbits,
she keeps her gemstones there, near the edges
yet the divers want so much more,
want to see the habitats of the blind.

Limbo is this contiguous shore,
is the great divide between salt and drink,
is this mountain under this dome described
and traveled, such slight migrations to and fro.
We are the weakest birds who fall in April
to be found in those sad positions
without ceremony or feather.
They do die trying don't they.
Smile. They die trying.



*One should not read him until you read the other I thinks:

For the moment though lets shift focus to Islam again, and specifically the Quran. Anyone who has read the Quran will tell you (as I am about to do) that is quite non-linear, composed of independent chapters (or Suras) of incredible beauty which have complex interplays of themes and historical accounts that run through the entire book, and illuminate a topic, character, person, idea, or event in astonishing detail and clarity while preserving the wonder of the subject. Anyone reading a Nietzsche book will realize that there are some parallels between the format of his books and those of the Quran. The partitioning, the complex and intense treatment of subject matter, the multiple references across the text, and the independence of each unit are all striking similarities between these two texts that are separated by over a millenia.

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1163227

Recovery From 1999

To find you here
waist up naked
sentinel of this
worn out shrine
you call home
is the regular routine.
Tipped ashtrays
and open cupboards
spill out
the nothing of inside.
Beguiling you are,
the slope of your yellow stomach
bloated with the void of cold food.
There is nothing you can offer
but the posture at your door,
a precious teasing slump.
From below there
is the urge to reach
inside your gut
and straighten you out.

Open Letter to my One Very Careful Reader

Oh and my good (redacted)...don't worry if this makes you feel uncomfortable (and perhaps it doesn't but parts of it may). Once again, expected. For people who are not muslim, there is not much in the way of 'comforting' notions of 'turn the other cheek' (in the beginning). Those notions happen later once you get the other stuff out of the way. What other stuff? Well..things like the Geneva Conventions of God. Islam speaks directly to acts of war and oppression and establishes very, very clear rules regarding that (and many many muslims do not follow those conventions any more than the US gov or Europe follows the GC or Israel follows the conventions of basic human rights involved in the usurpation of individuals from their own property and the sequalae of all of that). There are many many other details of Islam as well that leave the first time visitor into its halls at a loss for words or leaves them in a position of 'defensiveness'. Like homosexuality, nudity, idolatry, adultery, gambling, drinking, usury, the devil, the hocus pocus of the world 'unseen'...many many things. All I can tell you is that when you fully understand it...you do. What is useful to know is that regarding any and all of these issues, comfort is provided in that a muslim does not have to 'openly' convey his distaste for anything (should he develop a distaste for something as miniscule as dishonesty to something as grand as Sodom and Gomorrha). What a muslim must do though is develop an internal dislike for unjust things and move on from there based on the notion of one God. One God plus an Arab prophet and that is where most people are derailed right away because the prejudice against the darker skinned peoples of the world was seeded long, long ago in our Western conscience. It isn't even our fault! After one gets over that giant hurdle though..there are dozens of others like, what happened to Jesus? Yea and why talk about Moses still? And what's this about marrying a young girl barely able to brush her own teeth (most people don't realize that the Virgin Mary wasn't a legal adult either and they'd prefer to keep their womanly notions of her intact it seems as well as their notions of Jesus being one of the few prophets with no mention of a wife (see Da Vinci Code there)). Well, I don't know if Jesus (pbuh) had a wife because Islam doesn't mention it but neither does Islam mention Chinese Foot Binding in relationship to violence against women who suffer the injustices of genital mutilation. What it does mention is that Africans who hoped to be muslims could indeed excise "just a tiny piece" of the clitoris if it meant that would help them to accept the Creator and his messenger a bit easier. It did not command it though. There are so many topics within it Ozy and I assure you...none of them is an easy trail to follow and the only way of following it is to start with the basic belief.

And I cannot condone people who cannot jump that hurdle. Surprisingly enough...I have discovered most people do believe in one God and were just never alerted to the issue of a prophet of darker skin being the pivotal means to an end "for all types of people and for all time". Not just for one ethnic majority.

That is why Islam has members from all over the world. They know what it is when they get there and we all pretty much agree on a few things but most importantly: you must stick to your guns and there will be alot of folks and devils trying to pull you down into their levels of disbelief. That much is for sure.

But for your sake (redacted)...don't worry if it makes you uncomfortable. That is entirely part of the process of understanding the bottom line of One God and the commandments issuing from same.


Embedded

I thought I was just pretending
all along, saying well, that's
bound to happen and it does and I say
well, that's bound to happen.
We all know that when we leave
the room, the room disappears,
we've perceived that since we were born
and sometimes we talk about it
with strangers knowing full well
that once the guy leaves
he takes your secrets with him
into the ether or
the dark same thing.
It is a strange statistic
and one I am fond of until
it comes to the war zones.

All is well and I hope all parties are well. Peaceful and happier without me than with.

Peace on those that deserve it.

Sorting wheat grains, 2005. Wheat season is once again, upon us.
Seven years fertile, seven fallow but not with environmental improvements like fertilizers and pesticides. This is my husbands granny and the younger chick is my beloved mother in law. Al hamdu'lillah, how many women can say that!

Chronologically

There is a crumpled bed,
two heat seeking cats,
storm clouds and a strange
pastel sea
puncuated by one small white boat


-

like that.


The day begins
over and over
in parenthesis
(containing footnotes)
one just like the other.

The static of a freeway
permeates our glass and stone.
People go to work
returning through the windows,
as they left,
one after another:
blue cars, black cars, big red trucks,
motorbikes and taxis,
city buses lunging next
to the waves of the great Phoenician Sea.

Their cups runneth over
and there is so much pushing.
Sleep becomes the hopeful journey
and ends with another day.

The Ark

It was certainly
a very dark day to leave
it all behind: the illusions
of trees, country and a son,
as the youth was swallowed
by the hungry waves
full of devils and soul assassins.
No Calypso or friend,
not even a father to save the day
from the notorious tragedies
of the sea, the lesser
known depths where the eyes
of fish gradually disappear.

"Green Green Grass Of Home"

The old home town looks the same as I step down from the train,
and there to meet me is my Mama and Papa.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
The old house is still standing tho' the paint is cracked and dry,
and there's that old oak tree I used to play on.

Down the lane I walk with my sweet Mary, hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.

[spoken:]

Then I awake and look around me, at four grey wall surround me
and I realize that I was only dreaming.
For there's a guard and there's a sad old padre -
arm in arm we'll walk at daybreak.
Again I touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to see me in the shade of that old oak tree
as they lay me neath the green, green grass of home.




We Saw The World, Stayed In The Best Hotels

It is hard to visit the newly dying,
those that feel the thrill
of the grave come suddenly near,
to listen to the confessions
and regrets while discussing
the attitudes of earth signs in June
and the charisma of Aquarians.
Michele hauls out the wedding photos
taken in London, Liz in a chinchilla,
stepping out of a cab, almost Cheever.
I am in the Green Rooms once again
with Tom Alvarez, the last time
I saw him and it was I know, the last time
I ever will. It was summer.
He showed me photos of his young Regina
using his one good arm, lifting one at a time,
turning it over and over again until she was upright.
The stink in his pants unmistakable, pure and so human.
Tom talked about deer hunting in the Whetstones and the war
while he struggled back and forth in his wheelchair
and spoke of her between his hearty sobs
as if he was caught in a terrible disaster,
as if it would never be over, the way we cry in dreams.

Now the dog groomer Liz has lung cancer
and will die and leave Michele behind
with his Arabic students, some old jewelry
and their star charts in his green rooms.
All their riches exhausted long ago
but never, ever their love.
His neighbors will come down and talk
about how things used to be when Liz
was around kissing dogs and running off
in taxicabs. Michele will still have his students
and neighbors, one of us a Scorpio in denial.
There will be no more empty bottles to throw out.
He'll continue to blame her death on the dogs
and begin to hate them for taking his lover away.
Michele will continue to smoke cigarettes
by holding one end between his pinkie
and ring finger while inhaling through the circle
he forms by bending his thumb. His lips
never touch the filter and no one
will comment on the ferocity of his inhalations.
He will want to leave the Church of Scientology
because the manual was all wrong. He might
make it for two more years
if the statistics don't lie about the widowers.


The Green Green Grass Of Home

The wall opposite held a population
of blue Virgins reaching out
and down gracefully with hands open.
He fumbled in the drawers to find Regina's portraits
as I peered into the bathroom from the locality
on the edge of the bed to witness
a commode chair, no rugs and the water heater.
He hoped to give me a reminder, a clear view.

When they were young and I was close to it all,
very inside of their home decorated
with stout Mexican ancestors' souls staring
from the walls, everything smelled green there:
Clorox and wood, the highly polished floors,
a cabinet full of gemstones taken from the mines.
I was just a child then and held no prejudice.
Our neighbor Regina rolled out tortillas
stirred something in the kitchen, always.
I used to be afraid to look into the room
where they slept. Something in it
would have been forbidden to look upon,
the holiest of places I’ve ever known.
I entered the verdure of their room
in Tom's last summer so we could cry,
we had to mourn the only way we could, in a hurry
and the graveyard just full of concretes anyway.
I’d come of age and passed the milestones, had come home
to join the ranks of those in passing to testify.
He told me she would have liked my visit
and began to sob again in the helpless way
a stroke victim out on the left sobs, a man
who had shed very few tears until the day his Regina died.
She never gave him any reasons for regret
and the two of them never violated a single vow.
Regina and Tom were good people, kept
our secrets, sat around our tables.
Regina waited for him during the war, she waited
for him after the hunts in the Whetstones and during
the long stints of western work that took him away
for months at a time during strikes and recessions.
She waited and cooked.
I was compelled to tell Tom that Regina waits for him still.

A Bright Movie* The saris go by me from the embassies. -The Woman at the Washington Zoo by Randall Jarrell Whilst gadding about and on the way back this long story started to end as it should in the middle. Stopped on a corner, saw the same one-legged old man there sitting on the curb. In a country like this no one has a sign: Will Work For Food because that would be just too crowded. It used to be that he'd stand on that one leg to collect alms for himself but now times are tough he has to wait to be called over. Not like the guy in the wheelchair on the East Side who gets out onto the macadam between twelve chaotic lanes, God Only Knows How (probably dropped off by a taxi, must be). Not like the kid up by the Phoenicia whose hands were burnt clean off who smiles and earns so much for that smile. His job is easy. But a one legged man has a different problem in a bad economy. Standing on one leg for hours isn't what you'd call easy. You don't do it for nothing. So I stopped and called him over, I'd passed him by at least five times in three months to avoid pissing off the guy in the rear view mirror. This time though I called him over to hand him a fiver. Five times one thousand equals roughly five thousand. It was good and I noticed the girl behind me doing the same, dragging coins out of the purse that must have been in her lap. It felt good. I knew that if I hadn't stopped she wouldn't have either. I lost her near the airport tunnel. You know how it is in the subterranean tunnel that goes right under the Hariri International tarmac. I was just about to enter when I saw everyone coming out the other way, HCE. Turn around. Lucky today it seems because once you get in that tunnel and there is an accident, you are in there. Full of exhaust and exhaustion, pushing and shoving until two lanes turn into four. You smoke three cigarettes that you didn't need. You get tired of listening to the Eagles sing about Winslow Arizona ONE MORE TIME. You get out and head back up the wrong way on an exit ramp but that's okay, in Lebanon everyone knows what you're doing. They would do the same. Like yesterday's fender bender in the Ouzai. Not paying attention and wham! Right into the back of a taxi. The driver gets out and he's mad. I'm ready to fight it, to say he is a taxi driver and I'm ready to do that when a thirty kg kid squeezes between me and the city bus. "What are you doing there kid? Move away, you are going to get hit." He was just trying to help. In Lebanon the kids settle disasters too, they've seen so much and damn if they don't have the audacity to tell you how to handle a fender bender. The boy did what I told him to do and seemed rather pleased that I'd thought enough of him to tell him to get out from between me and the bus. The taxi driver is there at my window. I just ask him, instead of fighting it all, "What do you want from me? Is twenty bucks okay?" Sure is. I know once I drive away he would have settled for ten and he knows too, he could have asked for thirty. A deal is a deal though and we drive away pleased. Some poor man leans in my window and says, "Hamdu'la sah'lahme" which to me sounds an awful lot like Thanks for the salami. But it means, Thank God you weren't hurt. I agree and he reminds me, "Haram, he is a taxi driver." Means that twenty bucks is like thirty customers and worth a bit of bent chrome. I left the scene of the accident feeling pretty good. Today as I avoided the tunnel wondering about the bodies that might have been there, the ones I could have seen had I had the time for the Eagles and three more cancer sticks, I cruised through the old airport road that starts right by Fadallah's Mobil station, a station that gives everything to orphans (reminded myself to go there next time to buy gas) . I enjoyed the following like popcorn at the show: carcasses of sheeps and goats and cows still bleeding into the gutters plastic balls in net bags voluptuous Shia girls some covered and some not taxis stopping every few meters letting out little old men and haggard old women muffler shops and bread stores until finally I saw what it was I was after. A sign that read: The School of Opulent Knowledge, a little run down but all the same, extravagantly fufilling. **This poem suffered under a horrible name. This weekend while in South Lebanon I watched the movie Syriana with old what's his name...from Ocean's Seven....and boy! What a bunch of plotless bullshit. And the parts about Beirut...so out of context. Since the movie takes place now...post 9/11 and in the Era of so-called "Oil Wars" how is it that in Beirut the stage is set with Freedom Fighters on buildings with machine guns? Now...back in the early to mid eighties there were a few of those but mid to late 90's? Nope. But that is the point of propaganda......to make you confused. Never was there a more beautiful depiction of confusion. But the great part is the hero (in the end) just goes home like Bilbo Baggins with some kind of 'knowledge' ring...we are supposed to believe and that knowledge is that there is no POINT to these things that people do in the Middle East to each other. It's just sort of a crazy game played by oil tycoons. ZIONISM mentioned in the plot? Oh sure...I guess you could call it that "protocols of zion" type of thing and they flash on some old newsreel of the Rockafellers.....right in the beginning. And that's it. Nary a mention of the single most IMPORTANT cause of the crisis in the MIDDLE EAST. A type of racism and bigotry and all out HATRED of a large number of people called: ZIONISM. There you have it. And yes...see the movie. It is worth a scratch on the head and perhaps one in the crotch. (You know Arab men are always scratching their crotches and thank the Lord this is never portrayed in movies...God only knows what devastation that might provoke in the 'civilized' nations...you know the ones...like American that support Zionism and Christian Zionism to the tune of several billions of dollars yearly).

What About Mars?

No more problems says the package
the cure came in, no more
warning labels and the price tag
no longer legible. It began
with flashy children and fast cars
then people started talking
about the leftover stuff
after the move out,
wondered what would happen
to the crystal ball and Japanese flag.
Where to put Mars now?
Whose house next?

Promises promises promises. Yes...Francie's story is not over. She was the Maid of Honor (and I mean honor) at my famous wedding. There were few witnesses that day. Before that point is achieved however we must venture some into the tales of the Lebanese community of Douglas and the flash point that became so many other things involving the court system, the Civil War in Lebanon (and just WHO came up with that misnomer! a Civil war...what kind of war is that!) and on and on like that. Just like the old days when you'd wait for the end of the story and Paul Harvey wouldn't give it to you. One of my favorite Paul Harvey's is the one about the guy who disables a nuclear disaster...a young man. Who, at The End Of The Story turns out to be?

Jimmy Carter.

It is that kind of story but the story is Neverending...so it seems. And the wait is truly long. I usually tell it so fast that the important tangents are missed and I do not want to skip a beat this time. Not a single one. Francie, where are you? You were there that day 25 years ago...yes. You were there.

Damn Fine Poetry Blog...very no nonsense and low key Midwestern.....yet, yet....absolutely unusual. Go here:

http://atticofficewritings.blogspot.com/

Backgammon in Byblos, The Baalbek Valley

Backgammom in Byblos
Originally uploaded by radiann.

More virtual tourism by Radical Ann.

It is only TOO bad she doesn't want to come back here. I keep asking and asking and asking...

...there ain't no war here. Come on over! That's just a lot of talk...er...well...I think it is anyway.

The juice man

The juice man
Originally uploaded by radiann.

A juicer in the southern Lebanese City of Sidon...or Saida as we call it...a beautiful woman.

Image stolen from Radical Ann.
Because I can.
I'm her biggest fan.
We've a great big plan.
We are going to go
to old Mexico
to see the Aztec ruins
some monumental hewin'
the size of the WTC
or the Pentagon in DC.