It is an ancient look,
ignorant of ignorance.
I can sense the lack of words
in the Island of Battles
and airy dreams
and in the minds of sailors
to the East of Oil.
****
Out in the world,
the sky applauds hypocrisy
and earth is damaged
by the wars of democratizing
‘Midnight’s Children.’
****
Down in the tomb of the earth
hearts move
from illusions
to the hells of nakedness,
from words
to windows
with curtains
closing the eyes of the night.
****
Under the ice of my eyelids,
like frozen butterflies
trapped in a sleepless city,
life is no dream,
no soft sand on the Mediterranean's cheek.
****
There is no crop in the field.
Let us pass through the ash
where Eve left her hands
and Adam drunk his bitterness.
I know by heart
the ceremony of secrecy,
the alphabet of tiredness,
the letters of failure,
the lines of escape,
the tattoos on the farmers' skins,
the citizens of the subways,
the flowers of sadness,
the wheat, the ants.
But I also know
the wrinkles in the river left by boats,
the gestures of muddy thoughts
and the attitude of a prime suspect
towards the lies of what is called: democracy…
****
I want to cry,
the way I like to cry.
Not like the cries of poets
or Prime Ministers
but the way children cry -
We children
who emigrated to learn
the principles of democracy
while cleaning the underground.
****
I want to say my name the way I feel it
falling from my lips.
I want to spell it, not the way it is spelled
but the way it collapses on the first pile of sand.
****
I want to dress the wind
with the colours of ash,
that agony rooted
in the snoring of endless days,
the blood of the veins,
these veins of fog.
Agony,
that mistress of hearts,
path of hope,
remedy of the poets
and their screams.
There are pyramids of nights
for the citizens of trees.
Agony…
Agony….
****
To uproot the nights
they were all moved from place to place,
hung over a cliff
at the edge of sadness
and thrown in the face of the wind.
They carried their jugs of emptiness
and poured out the blood of their dreams.
Those who were recognized
as the strings of the empire,
the subjects of its interests,
were allowed to stay around
within the limits of their cells,
under the eyebrows of the sky,
celebrating their protection
from the whips of their ‘Country of Origin’
and subjected to the whips of this new country
of Acts and Bills.
Oh, Belmarsh,
our fake Bay,
the anti-terror acts,
the wars for fading glories
and a few barrels of oily lies,
what can we tell
of the glorious wishes
of being removed
from the bars of prisons
to ‘house arrests’?
How can we describe
the ribs of the illusion?
Belmarsh -
the bargains of the system
which made us
cheaper than the Irish potato.
Belmarsh hangs on the shoulders
of the designers of the 21st century's
last sip of hope,
last hint of light,
last sign of peace.
Here or there,
in London or Darfur,
the map of killing
is colourfully drawn
with pencils made
by the masters of industry
and fast-made plans.
There, they kill bodies.
Here, they kill souls
and throw the remains
in the middle of the Thames
on a very muddy day………
Yes, it is an ancient look.
London 24/02/05
