Between the Mountains and the Sea

The mid-afternoon sun beats down on the sheets

covering the cars, parked half way on the streets

and halfway on the sidewalk between the feats

of Khalil Gibran Khalil and Arab treats.

So sweet with honey-

Lebanon does not need Arab money,

or anything in the cents

of Americans envisioning tents,

or mansions paid by oil rents

when Lebanon is not Palestine

and when Lebnan is not Kuwait,

and where Lebnan cannot be mine

and Lebanon spreads her sectorial state,

still if she were a girl she would be my date,

a marriage made in love and hate

and one thing sure about our fate,

that we shall live forever to mate

those fractions of us that won’t stay

longer together than a day,

but come together as if to say

truly in Lebnan only the mountains can exist-

three cities and towns betwixt-

the sea blue and the cedar green,

love is cruel, love is mean,

 

love is Lebnan, in between.

South Sudan

My brush begins to paint a story

Bristling black, green and red gore,

Tents as far as the eye can see,

Blood as deep as red can bleed,

Bruises as deep as black can be,

The wind batters tents against burnt grass

An armored jeep prevents a pass,

A child cries, a mother dies,

Free at last, free at last

Free from hands so calloused they don’t heal,

Free from peace so brutal they can’t feel,

Bashir signs a treaty, and then violates the deal,

Makes a move for the land,

While the people weakened, can’t stand

Up to the homicidal maniac,

Employing child soldiers, cuts filled with crack-

Burning farms so there’s no back

To the food and water they lack

And legs so weak

They can’t stay on their feet.

Qurayshi

Ar’rabs grab sandstorms,

placing their open mouths on the hole,

A bousay- soft to your first born,

roll it over al-naar, string sand to glass.

Chords strung out
like praise to yarub.

Sand beats like a drum on dune-swallowed tents.

Tightly-tuned ouadan
burning notes in the night.

Poets string words as blowers stitch sand to glass.

This is Quraysh.

Tribe of Mohammad.

Children of sand.

For Brailey

The fireworks whistled

Red, green and orange

against pitch black.

Some spinned, some crackled.

Yours shot high,

Starlit,

Into the sky.

(In Remembrance: 1988-2005)

The Rose that Grew from the Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?

Provin nature's laws wrong it learned how to walk without havin feet

Funny it seems but, by keepin its dreams

it, learned to breathe FRESH air

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else even cared

No one else even cared..

-by Tupac Shakur (1971-1996)