Tuesday, December 03, 2019

SONG (re)CYCLE 2019: Lebanese Revolution Edition

As Sylvia Plath wrote:
"I have done it again.   
One year in every ten   
I manage it——"
Well, maybe not every ten, but every few years it seems to happen. Something momentous happens (in the Middle East) that I feel the need to respond to. But since my words have not been serving me as well in recent years, I've resorted to this poem recycling.. I resumed this edition without planning, a reaction, a need to borrow words from my past self to respond too current events. Thus Absolution appeared in Kalam Thawra. I'd left the previous cycle unfinished a couple of years ago. So I thought I'd continue where I left off, auspiciously I'd like to think, towards the end of grief and beginning of hope. So let's hope..


Monday, December 02, 2019

Perduto

“You’ll never be great,” he said.
“And I am fine with that,
“But you are not.”

I sleep
But wake up like I haven’t
The skyline looks at me
Grey and cold
The same green windows
That soon won’t be there

I sit
I stare
I breathe deep
And suffocate
A beam, check where it is
Erase
Damn, it’s gone
Irretrievable

Songs rush through my head
In tiny white tubes
I am numb
Numb is good

I revolt
Against good
Against beautiful
Against my own ill-defined self
But I don’t have the energy
So I let it be

Perduto…”
She sings in my head
Like memories of our life there
Like the train tracks we waited in front of
And the night wrapped us with a dream
Flavored of hazelnut gelato

On it goes
We laugh together again
It is snowing
I can’t wait to be home
With you

(Originally posted on January 20, 2005)