You Wear Hippie Clothes...

         ~91~

 

You wear hippie clothes
Hang flowers in your hair,
you wear bells around your neck
And read the sayings of Mao,
All the books on the cultural revolution.
You participate in long marches
Raising the banners of revolution
Demanding that the students rule the world
That the walls of the ancient world be broken.

 

*
 

When love attacks you
Like a beast with blue fangs
You shiver like a terrified mouse.
You throw the picture of Mao on the floor
And the banner of revolution 

That you raised,

You run crying

To your grandmother's bosom

And marry

According to your grandmother's way.

Nizar Kabbani, Arabian Love Poems

Fulani Woman

(Picture Source: Google)

Good Morning, Uzbekistan!

It's great to be here.

We'll name our new military airport

after your most famous son,

the great mathematician

Muhammad al-Khwarizmi,

who lived in the ninth century

of the Christian era --

sorry, the Common Era.

We'll build Firebase Algorithm,

a word derived from his last name.

The book he wrote, Kitab Al-Jabr,

christened the field of algebra.

Whoops! We should have said

Al-Jabr was its basis.

We'll add a lot more bases.

Your social problems might multiply

as we search for X, then Y, then Z,

the unknown quantities,

the solutions to our problem,

but we're grateful for your support,

glad that al-Khwarizmi

developed the “calculus of two errors.”

It will help us differentiate

terror from infinite justice --

make that “enduring freedom.”

We give thanks that al-Khwarizmi

launched the decimal system,

so we can keep easy body counts,

flash results on television,

and when the Great Game ends

post the scores in Arabic numerals:

Muslims, zero. Christians, zero.

Civilization, zero.

 

by Peter Desmond

Pretty Things !

(Picture Source: Google)

Rain Dance

The rain was pouring down hard. The cold wind made her shiver. Her clothes clung to her body and her hair dripped into the puddles she was standing in. She had handed him his bag and leaned into the half closed car door to kiss him. He had barely responded. She stood there as the car pulled slowly away hoping that he would turn just once, that he would acknowledge her presence or maybe even smile… there was nothing. And as the car drove out of sight she realised that she was shaking.

As she walked upstairs trying her best to fight back the tears she replayed the last 6 days in her mind. They had been the best days that they had shared in the last 9 months and they had been almost good.

Was this worth it? Was he worth it?

If realisation was tangible it would look like lightning – there was nothing as clear against a night sky – Yes,  lightning was brief but it was strong and definite and there was no doubting it.

Fulani Woman Of Niger

(picture source: google)

What do you see?

We saw: an illegal occupation, a war against the defenseless

They saw: militants trying to holocaust them

We saw: ethnic cleansing, brutal annihilation of men, women and children

They saw: desert barbarians, philistines, pests that needed to be eradicated

We saw: Helicopters, snipers, militarised naval forces and warships on the offensive

They saw: one Yemeni with a khanjar and cried Al Qaeda

We saw: A peacful humanitarian mission, carrying aid to besieged people – prisoners in their own land

They saw: terrorists threatening to break a blockade

We saw: an act of piracy – brutal murder of innocents – crime in international waters

They saw: harmless IDF soldiers defending themselves

We saw: the State of Israel conducting Piracy on the high seas in the Mediterreanean to bring an end to Gaza

They were blind!