the task I have given myself

-angels & ghosts-

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

The ghosts of tomorrow are sleeping in our stomachs.

We live in a money factory, and the machines roar night and day, grinding out the pennies, printing up the dollars.

We use some teeth more than others, and one or two are just in the way.

Every now and then the Dalai Lama gets a pimple on his tush, just like anyone else; it isn't all that spiritual. Does he pop it? Who knows?

We can pray when we want to pray, and laugh when we want to laugh. The police have nothing to do with it, and neither do the wealthy.

The ghosts of tomorrow are sleeping in our stomachs. In the money factory, they work the second shift, and soon, we will, too.

What goes around, comes around. And don't you forget it.

jobe

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Our feet are planted in the real world, but we dance with angels and ghosts.

John Cameron Mitchell

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A poem by Nazik al-Mala’ika:

New Year

New Year, don’t come to our homes, for we are wanderers
from a ghost-world, denied by man.
Night flees from us, fate has deserted us
We live as wandering spirits
with no memory
no dreams, no longings, no hopes.
The horizons of our eyes have grown ashen
the gray of a still lake,
like our silent brows,
pulseless, heatless,
denuded of poetry.
We live not knowing life.

New Year, move on. There is the path
to lead your footsteps.
Ours are veins of hard reed,
and we know not of sadness.
We wish to be dead, and refused by the graves.
We wish to write history by the years
If only we knew what it is to be bound to a place
If only snow could bring us winter
to wrap our faces in darkness
If only memory, or hope, or regret
could one day block our country from its path
If only we feared madness
If only our lives could be disturbed by travel
or shock,
or the sadness of an impossible love.
If only we could die like other people.

Nazik al-Mala’ika 1923-2007

Nazik al-Malaika was an Iraqi poet, noted for being among the first Arabic poets to use free verse. I only recently learned of her and read her work. Click on her name just below the poem for complete information.

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The highway that you hoped for.

The prints of the fingers are a tiny highway with a high toll, lined by flowers and the sounds of children playing in a courtyard.

Say something. Say toll booth. Say tag, you're it.

This highway is far longer than your finger, and your dreams are more expensive than any toll.

A hawk sits naked in a cedar tree, waiting for you. Beneath this tree the earth overlaps with the noise of your humanity, the sounds of you living your own life.

Say something. Say naked. Say your own life.

Your fingers are clenched in a fist and the children have fallen silent.

This isn't the highway that you had hoped for, but friend, this is damn well the highway that you are on.

jobe