PASSAGE UNKNOWN

(the following bit of writing is from a peice I wrote a couple of years ago,
it is part of an epic that will continue to expand and evolve.
The style and structure is an extensive divergence from my other works. any questions?)


Passage Unknown

‘06
Steady jagged edge
Treachery treks down my suited ship.
Boasting episodes of troubled seas spend it whole
The rut’s rot infests prestigious planks and she is compromised
What is the charge for the passage home
To compose her conservation before the sink
And row
And row
To charge my contemplation after the fall
What is the fault with the mounted grief
The gut’s glut plagues exalted minds and spells out our demise.
Ranting mourners for anxious relieve spend me whole
Trading tears near my sinking ship.
Stop journey’s dead

‘73
They came for me in the darkness cast by doubt
Placed me here among the rusted stacks smoking
They took me in the toddling innocent state
Cast me here helpless, life without a spear
I’m losing this bout
No one to hear my raving
I looked east and saw nothing
I lived west and am nothing
My mind grows wearily old with time’s torrid pace
Always running from and toward my passage unknown
I’ve labored the return through washed out bridges
Sinking in the rapids, drowning by the fear
I’m losing this race
In the end, I’m alone

‘00
I drank my dose of reconcile
As they pleaded me do
At gun point
Execute
Intoxicate
I lose my sights
As they need me be
Blind, I no longer inquire

‘83
But for this flight I have been rendered crisp and normal
My conscience drives the reason
And I myself trail my trekking mind
Ever searching truth as illusions lead its elusion
Ever searching passage as it was flushed in a flash
And my passage was lost, too heavy for the journey
My soul’s pestering plea drives me further
But for this fight I am beaten, turned conventional

‘89
I’m searching the Passage Unknown
Not for now, the journey doesn’t end
I am still looking
It draws near to my shoulder resting a cold hand
Caressing my carcass, my skin, pale with decay
Carelessly tugging at the soul it‘s seeking
Its smile turns grim drawing out my faith
I’m not leaving
Not as now the end is nearing
Death waits no longer and I relent
I’ve lost unrealized the Passage Unknown

‘04
Upon my ancient steps on idle streets
The asphalt warmth into me did seep
The mind burdened absent as I trek deep
Into villages reeking of vile concrete
What lay ahead for me lay dead
And my anthology behind for lament
What worlds did you pass for this
To set me free into a void abyss
To weep of longing, misery and ill-fate
Shall I thank you for the freedom served
Without responsibility it is deserved
Is this your land teaching myself to hate
Dreams of promise yet bring my peace
But first a ransom of your life’s deeds
What people made you die for this
Do you believe their ignorance is bliss

And the Winner is......

Me!

I received five Telly Awards this year.

Feels good to be recognized. My department won 19 altogether ( I was involved in all)

My son is now a blogger (i feel old)

Is that good or bad? I can't tell yet, but it meant I had to give him an email. I'm not sure if this opens up the evil of technology or the benefit, either way, it had to be done. I'll just keep a close eye. (it also means I'm older than i thought i was)

Anyway check out his blog and post something nice (he's only a kid).
he love math games and riddles.

www.bibosite.blogspot.com

and calls himself the mathmagician.

"The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." - W.S.

There was this lingering image of happiness, now lost...

I loved going to the Fox Theater with my father to catch the latest Kung Fu film. The days you thought you'd have forever and take for granted are gone. Now it will host Nancy 3jram (but i appreceite them re-modeling)

I miss the Pandora theater, before cable or satelitte when they showed an Arabic film, that made the immigrant collective laugh from joy and cry from longing. ( I loved watching Ghawar, even if I couldn't understand him and remember my father and his friends talking about the "good ole days". Now it's an office building.)

I hate my friend for turning my childhood movie house into a grocery store. (bastard, sorry J...yeah, I know people gotta live) The Camelot was a bit of heavenly escape that was just down the street. Watched my first Bruce Lee flick there, got into my first fight after such flick.

Can't even remember the name of the dirty, smoke-filled dive in Lebanon that I was told was destroyed in the war. I film on the 3eid for khams 2roush was a delight.

I saw my first horror film at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In (this one is still there, it even expanded)

A Little Spring Cleaning

This post is about getting some lingering thoughts out of my head and onto this blog. there is no rhyme or reason nor relation or relevence to these thoughts. The random order is required.


#1. Have you seen the living conditions in Iraq? Have you seen the occupiers teasing the people? it makes Lebanon look like a garden party.

#2. Hunker Down Emiraties! Haliburton is moving into your little patch of glitter filled desert. This makes me worry that the Apocalypse is days away.

#3. The owner of one of my favorite sports teams (Detroit Pistons) is a major doner to Izrael. Well it always has been a bit of hipocracy paying taxes and living in a land that hates you and supports your killers.

#4. The film "300" supports my propaganda theory. Iran has condemned the film as being a slanderous portrail of Persians. Hollywood did not disagree.

#5. Olmert admits that Izrael has been planning the war on Lebanon as the resistance has stated. Where is the outcry? Where is the appology to the Hizb? Where is the...never mind. (sidenote: Japan had already surrendered before the attack on Hiroshima, Truman bombed them anyway, and then again)

#6. Izraeli companies are selling property and housing in settlements stolen from Palestinians. They are selling in New Jersey. more info: http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=3067

#7. Passing for Normal posted a pic of a clothing label that included an appology for having Bush as the president. I wonder how long that company will last.

#8. I heard that the US is passing a law that would guarantee the Izraeli right to Return to Arab countries. What??? Who has this info? Where can I read it?

#9. The state of the world today makes me think that the Apocalypse is right around the corner, the signs are there. But perhaps we ignore it. When was the last time there was Peace on Earth? Has that ever happened?

#10. Children in Lebanon are still being blown up by Izraeli bombs. Remember they sprayed the country with tens of thousands of grenades before leaving.

#10. I'm sure you've seen this pic before, but it seems like Lebanon has gone through several states of love and hate in this past year or so. What a volatile country with a schizophrenic identity that you can't help but love.

#12. Sure i know this is trivial but Blogger hates me. It will not let me switch to the new blogger and I always have trouble leaving comments among other issues.

#13. I received a rejection letter for my poetry that was submitted for an Arab anthology. OK so my stuff is not great, but to get that in a formal letter is painful.

#14. Why do I have 1,000 visits from the Manitoba area but no comments? Why do I have comments from places that do not exist?

#15. Why is everyone moving to Dubai? For some reason, I feel like if I try it I'd turn into a pillar of salt.

#16. There are about 376 more thoughts to clear out, some more important than the ones i got to, but I've run out of time.

Ignore this post

Twisting thoughts ransacked my mind through the night.
Six a.m. not a wink was batted.
Struggling passions tatter my heart and soul in their fight.
Next day no work mattered.
“I hate you!” to both you and you, I cried.
Make me choose between passion and peace.
By you the truth was told, I lied.
Take my chances with poverty and pain.

Peculated passion I steal
Progressive pain I sooth
Peaceful pandemonium I skill
Prosperous possibilities I see
Pity politics I sneak
Paralyzed pansy I subsist
Peaceful poverty I suture
Pious pessimism I swear
Pathetic pondering I surmise
Putrid potential I save
Pampered pardon I salvage
Partisan pacts I sell
Parental pageantry I seek
Pale panache I show
Parlayed pendulum I slave
Pacified perception I stick
Personal perdition I seize
Pestering pestilence I sense

And I sleep with death’s final call

serving up the night

Hunched over bistro tables rolling the cigarette about in a dance of deceitful defiance, convincing my cup to remain full of coffee, I reach for another match.

They walk in with a traditionally late strut, nodding their greeting. I didn’t care to move as their usual demeanor of artist’s arrogance didn’t move me. They sat after an emphatic plop of their pens and notes and I was to read every last one.

Somewhere along the night interest waned, passing by the black silken mud infested with a creamy swirl, an insistence of those too timid to venture.

Again another night ends its reign at the coffee house, this time there are people I’ve never seen and Abbas. He smokes his damned clove cigarettes that clog your senses with a musky stench that bullies the finest of sweet fragrances into submission.

I’ve drunk maybe five cups of my usual ghastly drug, before their arrival, my mind wrestles with beans and memories. Then she came to fill their cups. Before I could motion the waitress “I’ve had my fill”, my cup is filled again as I reach for another match in a cyclical habit that is regretfully undying. The clove scent just dissipated by the charm of the aroma she drew along, moving my loss of thought. They noticed her. I noticed her. My reasons were not as obvious. Although my appreciation for beauty is intact, I found her approach uneven for her position. She was in need of something not found at an all-night café. I knew her. Not by name but by stance.

Just as my thoughts shifted to her presence she stopped, retracting the pot in a slow manner careful not to scold and looked.
Feeling the stare, I looked up, she knew I had the answers but knew I couldn’t help. And she returned to her uncomfortable routine.

Then I began to read the notes of failed writers and the moves of an unfortunate woman. Sometime before she landed here, her cascading black Bedouin hair brushed her shoulder a time too many and identified her all too often. She couldn’t hack at it with enough haste.

That gave her limits notice and she began her journey. Her approach to our table was a unique variance to her exit. Coming, she was confident, charged, and powerfully live. Leaving she was morbidly tame.

Her walk wore her down as the tally of the night and the weight of those ancient accessories took their toll. That tired smile ventured on in spite of the challenges befallen her. The read was shorter than I anticipated; that stance didn’t have the legs for long stories.

Her one attempt to escape was cut short, a guilt-ridden run-away from home. Delicately worn hands showed me the timeline. It was painful, but just a mild step on the road to come. Her days were ahead as she realizes there was power in the attempt. After her shift she gathers notes on napkins to merge into stories.

She will be the writer she had always hoped to be. As for those who infest their coffee, those days may never come.

An anomaly, an apparition, and another abnormality

I'm packing my bags and moving to the Jabal. I will make films of absurd meaningless visions that I project on the barks of neglected trees for me and the animals to see. Each morning I will rise with my daily primordial scream of pain mixed ecstasy as the bites of large insects blood-let my putrid whitened body and I will be darkened by the revolving suns and by dried blood and will be smirking happy expressions to pass the day till the night lets me project again those ominous yet trivial cells that inlet curious or accidental passer being into the dreary soul of a trite and out of focus man.





I'm packing my bags and moving to the Nahur. I will sculpt monstrous reflections of demonized memories to let stand as dams for the neighboring constructionist mammals. Each night I will give to slumber by the warmth of the drying clay that plasters its weight upon me and sooth my doubt with membrance of the cuddled days I spent on the moon and will pass this night by the water's conversing rise and fall adding rhythm to my dreams until the morning crashes of dying trees unearthing clay to sculpt into the shapes of idols lost by a trite and shapeless man.





I'm packing my bags and moving to the Wadi... I will sketch sarcastic shadows that darken the passing clouds casting memories on my captive hills to use as barriers. Each new moon I will sacrifice another dream as a child of my past regretfully wanders the tomb of hope carved from the mountain by enslaved lost hands that I stare with apathy as the last drop takes with it the last breath and there is no turning back for a trite and putrid man.

Massari

watch the video, leave a comment on the state of the world today or don't, at this point i don't give a damn!

Steven Wright comedy

for those who need a laugh just about now. (turn off music on bottom of page first)