ما أفعله بدلاً من كتابة أطروحتي

قبل المغيب، ترى أضواء المدينة قد أفاقت من قيلولة النهار

نحيب النوارس يبدو كترنيمة نسجت من زغب الحنين

 وهي تقطع عباب السماء عرضاً

باتجاه الغد

يستيقظ  الطفل بداخلي أيضاً وينظر باتجاه المغرب

حيث ينحسر الأفق إلى نقطة قبل ان تتزوج السماء بالبحر
ويولد القمرعلى عجل

 ل يسلي الأناسي ريثما تأخذ الشمس غفوتها هي الأخرى

 بعد سنوات ، هل سأعود بذاكرتي إلى هذه الغرفة

كبيرة النوافذ ، عديمة الستار؟

زجاجة من الرمال وأصداف كثيرة قد جابت العالم

 قبل ان تستقر على رفّي المكسو بالغبار

كتب مبعثرة في أرجاء المكان

قرأت نصف نصفها، والبقية متدثرة بغطاء هزيل من الإهمال

عناوينها لم تكن مثيرة

في إحدى الأركان بالونة زرقاء

 أخذتها من حفل عيد مولد

اشتريت له هدية، ذاك الفتى الوسيم

لا اذكر اسمه ، لكنني 

لمحته بالأمس ،محض غريب
 في بحر من الغرباء

كمنجة مقطوعة الوتر قابعة على الأريكة

تندب فقدها الجسيم
بصمت 

آلمتني وخزات الخيبة عندما عوقتها، فقد كانت عندي أثيرة

لكن ما أوجعني بصدق أنني
بكل حرص كنت أدوزن الوتر الخطأ

لم ألاحظ من قبل كم أن هذه الغرفة تمثلني

كل ما فيّ و كل ما أريد أن أكون
الزمن متوقف بين هذه الجدران
كحوض من زجاج يعزل الأصوات جميعاً
في لجة من السكون

قبيل الغروب حتى الطيور تأوي إلى مهاجعها
بانتظار الغد

في شتاء العام الماضي أخبرني احدهم ان بطئ الغسق مزعج جداً

 كنا على ذلك الشاطئ نرسم أحلامنا 

 خلسة على صفحات الرمال عندما يغيض الموج

ونضحك هنيهات عندما تتلاشى 

مع تقدم الفوج

لص بغيض، ترسانة من الملح والماء

يسكتثر على الأطفال فينا محض أوهام

في ذلك الحين
لم نكن نقدّر بطئ الكون كثيراً

"في قلبي" كانت "صدامات كونية" ،وعواصف من الإرتياع

بوادر من التخبط والضياع مطبوعة على محياي

و بواقٍ من حطام ذاتي الفتية
 تسري من الصدوع في صدري
كلما جفلت مقهقهة 

كنت مشغولة بـ "العيش", غافلة عن لحظية الحياة
وفجاءة الزوال

لم تكن حطاماً، تلك البضيعات التي تنسل من داخلي
بل حبيبات تنساب من الشقوق في ساعتي الرملية

و الغسق العجوز كان يأخذ وقته في تذكيرنا بأن ذلك اليوم
قد لملم سرابيله
بلا رجعة

أجبت بأن "جمال المشهد يكمن في سرمديته"
و ضحكنا كثيراً على تلك الترهات الشعرية
ربما كان الشعر يتسرب من داخلي أيضاً، كلما ضحكت وبكى داخلي كمداً
لم نعلم بأننا سنكبر سريعاً خلال عام

كبرنا سريعاً، وبتنا نود لو أن يطول الغسق أكثر
أن يمشي الزمن الهوينى
أن يأخذ الغد وقته في القدوم

كبرنا سريعاً وأدركنا بتوجس أن ساعاتنا
 قد شارفت على التوقف

وأننا لن نستعيد سويعات السلام التي لم نضحك فيها

أو لم نبك عليها قط

أننا سنهدر ما تبقى من أعمارنا نحسب حبات الرمال الصامدة

تتشبث عبثاً قبل السقوط الى دهاليز الِهرم

الغسق لم يكن دهراً، على نقيض ما ظننا

قبل عام
الغسق استمر وهلة

للحظة تجاوز الأفق حدود الزمان والمكان

لغمضة عين

ظننا أن الخلود ممكن، لبضع ثوان

لكن لحظات السعادة تمضي قبل أن ندركها 

ونحن نعبر خضم الحياة في مركب من العجلة

بعد عام من الغفلة

وانا انظر من خلال نافذتي

أدركت ان نصف ساعة من السكون شيء ثمين

في نصف ساعة قبل أن يلملم النهارمتاعه ويهم بالرحيل

 تبدو بوادر القمر على استحياء من بين أسدال العتمة
وتأخذ السماء لوناً أرجوانياً قاتماً
في غضون نصف ساعة ستشتعل تلك المنارة عند الساحل
 قبساً يهدي الهائمين
بينما ترنو أعمدة الإنارة على مد الخليج في سباق تتابع
هكذا ملحمة لا ينبغي استعجالها

في نصف ساعة سألف شريط محادثاتنا على ذلك المقعد 

وأستمع إليها مراراً تحت نور النجوم
بعد ان استيقظت في تذمر
مطلة على شرفة الماضي، وفي يدي

 كأس من التدبر

مزدان بروح من الطمأنينة
أرشفه ببطئ ، متدفئة بأنفاس المساء

في نصف ساعة من الصمت المطبق في داخلي
حواسي النعسى ستستيقظ من خمولها
وتحفظ تفاصيل ما حولها
صخب المدينة
بقعتنا المفضلة في تلك الحديقة
غناء جاري النشاز
وأصوات ضحك و صراخ من تلفاز
عقد الهُيام الغارق في قعر الخليج
قرقعة الزوارق على الشاطئ القريب
هذه الغرفة ، فارغة و ملأى في آن
بصدى دقات قلبي المتباطئة
و آخر ذرة من الرمل في ساعتي

صامدة في استنفار على حافة الوهد

وبعد انقضاء تلك اللحظة
التي تستمر قرناً من الزمان
سأرحل مع بقية النور وفضلة النهار

راضية 

نحو الغد

A Benediction

I'm sorry if you stumbled upon this by chance one day, but I shan't erase it
Because every bit of it stems from a genuine place, and i can't hide this part of me
From you

We sit, awkwardly, at the edge of our nuptial bed on our wedding night
This chamber is perfumed with fresh blessings and faint traces of Surrateya
I wiped my make up, and you took off your glasses

Ours is a typical story, you tell your mamma that you have grown too old to crash on her lap

So she declares that it's time to find you a mate; and she's got just the right maiden
Her younger duplicate; you see, pretty; with a touch of grace
Picks the right customary phrase while greeting the aunties
Makes all the witty remarks, and serves the best tea

She points her out to her son on a wedding tape

And moves on to enquire and charm the girl's mom

Arab mothers are so quick at arranging things, while men only sit to talk roots and figures
Is his blood pure? Are his roots obscure?
How much can he pay ? Does he regularly pray?
And the little princess classically peers behind a cracked door
Trying to steal a glance of the knight with the lance that has come to snatch her away

Her dad he says she will be conferred with, but he knows his daughter obeys his command
And she knows her daddy knows best, of course, but ,see, her daddy doesn't know her at all
"We shouldn't stall the gentleman long", he says
"We only wish to see you in a happy nest", her mother throws
What's new ? there is no apparent fault with the boy, that's of course beyond the ones
She could teach herself to love and the few she could try to change when push comes to shove
She said yes, still wondering what the fuss was all about

Her past joys, her graduation, finding a job, such cleared stages called for as big a celebration

As if becoming someone's wife outweighed her entire life

They must be talking about the wedding part of marriage
The glittering armor of gold, and the white celestial dress
Makes you wonder if that's the only reason girls ever say yes
And she said yes, true, but under her breath she would vaguely whisper
I could take on a storm, but I wouldn't handle the quiet reign of uncertainty

What if our celebrated togetherness brought the worst in each ?

What if we crumbled beneath the weight of passive repulsion
What if he gives up trying ? What if he blows out the candle on his own ?

What if he finds it easier to walk away ? What if it turns out less painful to be alone ?

It should be easy, they said : We bury our seed in a haven of trust
I could be the rain drops and you could be the rays
And I'm to try my best to cater for your needs and gratify your lust

But I, as you place my shivering hands in yours, and I look into your eyes
I know in my bones that turmoil will rise and swell from the friction of our grits
And the belly of this grave silence bears the child of our fate

What are you thinking about, right now, Vulcan ?

Soliloquy II

When you say that i'm not supposed to forget when i'm young and careless 

You don't know that I lull myself to oblivion just to get some rest

By a puddle somewhere in the realm of my mind, I stood and flung three stones
The tangled web of surges reaching to my feet didn't look like the waves they've been
But I could still tell their origins by the graces of habit
They whispered in different tones, what i knew by heart already

I've read somewhere that you could only make it
If you manage to block all the distractions trying to invade your wake
All but the one call that drives you to where you need to be
Arguably, i'm going to say that need to be, and want to be aren't always the same
But that is gonna have to wait for another time
I used to be able to do that when I was younger, listen to the lucid hymn within
In moments of extended peace I'd mute the world and have a conversation
With the echos inside my soul
So vivid and gleeful an interaction, when the biggest of my worries was a homework

And tomorrow didn't matter until it came

But lately, it has been ...so noisy
Everywhere, but inside my head mainly
It steals my sleep away; and my alertness during the day

Lots of voices colliding and mixing
Sinking and re-emerging to the surface of my grasp
Continual exposure to this self-inflicted angst is bad for the health so I tried
Talking to living folks loudly just to shush the ones in my head
And for a day or two they did
They would go away and leave me to regain my wits
But come back again, louder and clearer deep in the night
Working to keep me awake ,and feeble enough, so they could prevail
Thinking that I'm that frail
They vehemently drill through my brain during the gleam of the day, while I dwell in melancholy
I know they are getting close to the core of my sanity for
I often hear a piercing buzz of a broken mic
So vicious, the sneers I perceive as my foes strike a gong somewhere

Then stillness reigns

What is happening to me ?


What is happening to me ?



Psst, stop trying to do good
You ain't good
I merely do so to be remembered
Nobody cares

You need to smash more

Burn things ; REBEL !
Why ?
"Why?"
Thou don't dare, do you ?
You worry. A lot
I have to
BURN
Get along !
SMASH
Did ya know that worrywarts die young? 
And so very miserable
More importantly, alone
Those who seize the moment.
DESTROY.
Are trapped in a Mobius loop.
Of nonsensicality .
See it's all nonsense
It feels good to be trivial though
Ding dong : Reality check.
Life is a battle.
Then I'm unarmed.
No, life is a bottle.
WRECK !
And she's a Jinni.
You need to get out victorious .
No she needs to break free.
I want to be free.
It's not worth the trouble, believe me.
Stop denying it.
What ?
You are crazy about him.
He found him while drilling around here
Well camouflaged 
Don't stray off the subject.
Fine. Remind me,

What was clawing at your heart ?




I don't know.



They keep leaving, don't they
With little pieces of you
And you just realized it,
Didn't you?

You are next.

I know.
Never forget.
I won't.
Your pronounced insignificance.
Why are you still trying ?
Your bones will turn to dust as soon
And you messed up so bad.
They got real mad this time.
Good for nothing.
Silence.
Walking disappointment. 
I'm not.
You need to stop f*cking shit up.
I'm trying
Cluster of failure.
Let me be
It feels great to let go
Of pain ?
Of your reason.
Sleazy ruffian
Let go.
It's been hurting your palms isn't it ?
And slipping is so easy.
So easy.
Just let go.
Lose control.
Run rogue , they all do.

You are a beautiful soul.

Your vanity is legit.
You think you deserve this.
Love thyself and all, child.
My carcass.
I love myself though.
He is in love with you too.
He is mad about you
Yet you torment him so
Impressive
No, he can't be. 
Because he never said it out loud ? 
You are more evil than i raised you to be
But right ? how dare he ?
BREAK HIM.
He could't have handled you anyway.
Oh, look, you messed up again.
Hahaha you won't ever make it out there
You ain't as smart.
It ain't about smarts.
And you will die alone.
It's not a competition.
But it is. Against your weakness.

Why do you feel the need to prove a point to someone?



I don't.

To whom, do you need to prove that point though?
No one.
Come, to whom ?
No one.
To whom ?
LOOK AT ME, 
TO WHOM 
DO YOU NEED
TO PROVE
THE WRETCHED POINT ?

He won't ever acknowledge you.

Mother

Ever since i was little i would wonder
What makes mothers so warm
And vast
I mean, I could bury my head in mother's chest and live there
Revel in the warmth and safeness as she brushes my hair
And her calm heartbeats a tender lullaby to my senses
I used to ponder; will I ever grow up to be someone's home
Like mother's embrace was my universe?
Would I ever master the craft of healing ?
Hear the muffled breezes of ache in someone's voice
As loud and crisp as if it was whispered through my ears
Would I ever be able to stand against time refusing to kneel
When my precious is shivering in fear behind me
Would I ever bear and give birth to little angels
That I'd love to infinity, beyond the sun and stars
That i'd raise on strength and affinity
That would leave when their spines harden enough
To steer the ploughs of their own lives
To fall and rise
Tread on, by grit or surmise
Accept with dignity, and give
Love and forgive
Then come back to me when the sun sits on their youth
To rest their heads on my lap
Lay their hearts in my hand
And their foolish botches at my feet
So i'd stroke their bald blotches, and trace the wrinkles
That life inflicted on their brows
Hidden to the world, blind and heedless to their existence
But visibly protrusive to my eyes alone

Would my children wish they would rather die before me 
So they don't die along 
When I leave them behind ?

Soliloquy

Nocturne, Op.55, No.1

Forgetting, is such a curious notion
Can't entirely grasp how it works;

They say time heals; and it does
But it cannot paint over scars
It just mars the memory; to be less painful
I guess we don't truly bury the pain under piles of neglect
Merely, the mechanism that translates recollections to ache
Dulls with time
You know how a fresh cut wouldn't hurt for the first few minutes
Then it burns for days after reality hits your brain
Until the flesh is healed

But the seam remains
Oh it remains

It's still there; always will be
It could fade a bit if you scrub with little joys and laughter
And you could let drapes of cloth and linen fall upon it
When you take a stroll under the sun
But it is still there. You'd need a new suit of skin if ya can't bear with the marks of time
The same way you'd need a new heart, young and spotless
To efface the eschars within

Sadly, humans don't come with spare parts
Perhaps it's what makes us humans, all too human

Though gleams of faces obscure,
Of people alive and breathing no more
Would still flicker in the canopy of your vigil
Venus of remembrance would shine ablaze beyond the haze of your daily struggles
Every once in a while
And the film of your grief would play on repeat in sleepless nights
As you lay amused at how it used to agonize your marrows;
To bob and sway your limbs to the foreign rhythm of oblivion
And the throbs of anguish climbing up and down your spine
As the needles of refusal are pulled from your strait nerves
Strangely, so it seems
When enough years had gone by so one could look back on them
You wouldn't holler as loud when the screen goes blank at the end
The beat of silence played on their memorial has been engraved on the inside of your eardrums
It no longer provokes the collapse of your calm

The memory of loss would no longer conquer

But instead, relapse and shrink, glancing from a door left ajar
Occasionally
A tear drop or two might trickle down your cheek
A spontaneous reaction, abridged and meek
Like a demulcent drizzle in spring
Followed by a faint smile, self-condoling
Painful it is not; reminiscence,
When you look at your closed wounds as battle scars
Mementos from the beloved beneath the eart
And remember that to forget is not to erase
It is but to make peace with the existence of sorrow
Making it some room among the residents of your heart.

Je Suis Human

He said,
"No man is an island, entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent, 

A part of the main. 

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less "

He said,
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, 

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee."

His name was John Donne, he wrote Meditations

Dear Sir,
Darling,
Allow me a moment to say that if you could ever come back to life
And venture to take a stroll among the living
If you stumbled into a typical household of this century
Or attended a gathering of any coterie
You'd surely take back your noble statement
When you see how every single one of us is living on their own island
And I'm pretty sure you'd realize the extent of your naivety
For elevating the human nature to your high standards of goodness and decency

I say, perhaps folks hastened to give, and hurried to feel

In the old times, when a believer was willing to share his bread with his 7th neighbor 

But today, my good sir
We keep human bonding to the bare minimum advised by social norms 

Only mourn for a stranger when our civil depection is at stake

And this is quite evident in its simplest forms
At بيت العزا (a funeral)
My good sir, ever been in this situation where a distant relation passes away
And your household receives flocks of mourners offering their condolences?

You are just standing in a corner
Unable to shed the tears expected of you
Because you can't fathom the extent of your loss
And it's just so overwhelming how all these strangers sound more bereft than you do
How you'd hear the whines and see the tears but when you look closer
Their gazes would hit you as dull and austere
And you try to appreciate their nice gestures but deep down you'd feel pestered
Because you can't divine whether these good folks are here because they are genuinely sorry for you
Or whether they are just too good at pretending to be clement
And if it isn't so, why would they ever feel the need to display a sentiment
That isn't real
Nay, at such moments of great peril,

Why would you take the time to evaluate someone else's sincerity of emotions

When you can't even fake a squeal ?

It so appears, we are an apathetic generation
We would rather send a text than call a friend on their birthday
Yet we venture to transcend situational boundaries
By displaying our protest to an unjust fatality half way around the globe
When sometimes
We don't even care to know the names of the casualties
And we can sleep content at night
Because we think we've paid our dues to humanity
When we've made a sympathetic Hashtag trend
That we've fulfilled our share of charity
When we've unified our display pictures in support of some cause
Or when we liked a philanthropic page on facebook
We all agree that technology has made displays of solicitude so commonplace

Except that the dead don't mind how many retweets their bloody photos get

We can only pretend to care when it's not our skin that is cut

We only dare to communicate our deepest emotions ,share our brimful compassion
With a bunch of strangers that can't judge us aught
Don't we all pretend to sympathize with fellow humans we haven't met
When we aren't even able to connect with folks dining with us at the same table?
So with all due respect ,Sir Donne
You are a big fool
And it pains me to differ
But every man IS a continent of its own
We don't actually feel deprived when some sorry soul in Europe is diminished
In reality, a little goblin is growing pests at the back of everyone's mind

"You don't know them, therefore they don't matter"

And the funny part is ,we don't even realize the absurdity of it all
When we grab a newspaper ,only to find that Kim Kardashian's behind took over the front page
While the massacre of a few innocent souls was pushed way to the back
Though you may argue that the logic here is to keep people entertained first
And informed next
Because looking at a body ain't appealing
When it's not naked
But look, I'm not here to criticize, ladies a gents
We are all humans in the end, with built-in flaws and dents
Convicted of the same crime
Of basically living our lives in selective oblivion
I'm just here to ask you whether it is really so gruesome
To live happily, ignorantly, basely, contently,
When we know that someone else is suffering in another part of this vast world ?
And that perhaps this happiness is built on someone else's misfortunes
Someone else's tears, and sweat
Someone else's time and blood
Someone else squalor and twit ?
While we keep living, and breathing,
Preaching our fake humanitarian slogans
As we cower behind the excuse that it isn't our fault
The way this world is wretched and unfair

And it's true; ain't nobody's fault that the other side of the moon is so drear

So dear sisters and brothers of the human race, this is a cordial invitation :

Not To Behead the last buds of our virtue
But to embrace our Gnostical Turpitude;

To shamelessly cover our eyes, and plug our ears

So we won't hear of the morbidity of our reality
I invite you all

To be ignorant human beings, without a spec of indignity 

The Expats

We, in the land of expatriation

Just like dandelion seeds

Have bid our motherland farewell, when her veins could no longer bleed

Scattered by the gale, trampled and crushed by the trials of time

But as they say back home, "Akl Al A'aish Jabbar" 

We don't join the chants on independence days, "what has mother done for us ?"

We whisper in shame ,having fled the ship before it sunk

We, in the land of expatriation, spend our youth looking for a place to belong

Those who have wandered for long, realize, quite languid and old

That a homeland, unlike a plot of earth, cannot be bought with silver and gold

That acting like Romans while in Rome did not eventually make them Romans

And for years, while drenched in drudgery, longing seeps from their skin

Mixes with their sweat, drips across their temples  

That old man with sunken eyes, silken gowns and apparent wealth?

Must have spent his youth collecting dimes in a trunk of patience

Dug in another man's junk and took what's usable

Kissed shoes and committed many a crime he found excusable  

Only carried through with the thought of his mother in his heart

Her scent as she embraced him at the door

"Ya Waladi Lalob Baladna Wala Tamr Alnas" 

You were right, mother, we were poor when we left,

But we're back, much poorer

Mother, we have docked our Dhows at your shore to spend our old age

Threw our heavy sacks of fortune on your dry soil

But mother, we are still expats at home

Our stranger children, our abandoned brothers, their faces recounting stories of toil

Meet us at the door with packed cases, and the ones that remained behind, stand in line

To collect the dues that they think we owe them

Back home, we are the bad seed with an alien culture, the enlightened breed

That tramples on the norms, and makes amends that no one asked for

Lo, for a reason obscure we so believe that our heaven on earth lies beyond the borders

Far away, where we can't remember the smell of the sprinkled clay of the Hoash

The petrichor after a drizzle, washing the sky, and the ashen faces of the homeless

Filling the cracks on their palms,

Stretched to the windows of foreign cars at the signal stop, begging for alms

Far away where we can't hear the grunts of helpless fathers, the coos of careworn wives

The squeals of abandoned foundlings, the sighs of Settat Al Shai

Somewhere beneath a void trunk of Tabaldi, in a barren outskirt of Tangasi

One of us dug their tomb, and tucked their heart in, while Mother wept bitterly 

A resentful existence that devoured her children, trying to get them back inside her womb.

Prelude, Op. 28, No.4, in E Minor

A Eulogy 

I'm not accustomed to crying ,which is why, it seems,
My body isn't accustomed to the aftermath of a crying fit
It has gotten so bad recently that my vision blurs for a while
And the headache lasts for a few days..
I dare say this year i cried more than I did in my entire life;
Excluding my few years of infancy

Yesterday, though, i could't breath.

I couldn't see, i couldn't speak, was shivering alone, weak
Gasping for breath in a side parking, holding my phone

News of sudden death hit you hard.

And your instances of contact with the deceased
That have been slowly reducing start to loop in your head
And then come the cycling pangs of guilt and denial
Then a few seconds of regained composure followed by another crumble
Of dementia

I know now ,more than ever
That life is truly too short
To not lay your heart on the table.
And we, humans, are way too weak.
Too weak
Under the hammer of quietus
I wish i stayed in touch, i wish i made the effort;
I wish we talked more, i wish i didn't think of trivialities like prestige and formalities,
I wish i took you up on that offer, instead of playing hard to get
I wish i've been there for you, i wish i dropped by at the hospital
When i was there by chance
I wish i knew..
I wish i got to tell you ,before i brushed it off by saying
"i'm usually weird like that at first encounters";
How I was so jealous of your agleam person,
And your casual jest, and the easiness by which
You could slide into someone's comfort zone

I wish I got to tell you what color your vibe was

I wish i saw through, when you spoke of the simple joys of life
Instead of shrugging your shoulders like the rest of us do
Spreading good vibes and light humor
When i did exactly the opposite because I thought that
My life was the epitome of misery
I wish
I was half as strong and proud as you
Were
Still are
In our memories
In my memory
You said my poetry was beautiful
But it was you; it was you who had a beautiful soul
That could spot grace in pain and revel in it

I wish you could read this

It would have had the least bits of meaning
Had I actually gave you a good piece of my mind instead of
Convincing myself that everything turns out better taking its right pace
That we could take our time to find each other
When the tides have calmed and the clouds in my head have cleared
But you had none
You were leaving
There is no more of you now

And these lines echo constantly in one breath ; too late

Too late.

Too late.
Too late.

I wish you could read this
Or at least that I had the audacity to recite it out loud
In your memory
But i don't think my broken voice and shredded gist would be audible
And it's not my place; there are people that knew you better
And longer
Though it still hurts, I will pray for you instead
Because tears could never condole the dead
November second, 2015, is a celebration of your life, my friend
Not a commemoration of your departure
And may Allah grant you mercy and peace
And the grace of cleansing your soul of mundane sins
The constancy at The Question
And to ever lighten your grave
The way your heart was

I will remember you, mate