Sand Smoke and Mirrors

As we sit in the middle of this terrible sand storm which originated in Iraq and Syria we can only be forced to pay attention to the omens. The way of clarity is certainly not available at this time. We are still in the churning of chaos. At times like these it is is wise to retreat. Words are precious and must not be wasted in fruitless dialogues that seek only to appropriate and neuter the emergence of change. The popular revolt being expressed in Lebanon is being fought against from all sides, including accusations of external sponsorship, and now even the weather is conspiring to make the quest harder. The popular swell in its gravity and spontaneity forced reluctant Lebanese politicians to the table after a year of sulking and boycotting each other. However, did they come to the table to resolve their differences or to unite against a common enemy that threatens them? The revolution must go on...


As for me, sometimes only poetry can express the level of my dismay. Prose is too limiting, because it is in the gaps of the unsaid that the play of truth can emerge long enough to remind us of the things that need to be expressed. These are my thoughts this week.


"In the purgatory of delay
Lebanese politicians play
They maneuver to safeguard 
Their habitual charade
While the storm of sand
Uniformly covers the land
Angry citizens flail and fail
Public rage and political deceit 
Compete noisily on the street
In spontaneous demonstrations
And some other fabrications
But the stench of incompetence
Lies in garbage of big pretense 
Our Lebanon is made ill
Turned into a horrid landfill
Toxic smoke fills our struggling lungs
Replacing the sound of smoke guns
Rats roam and the plague nears
As every solution disappears
Because of the stupidity
Of the selfish and greedy 
Lebanon stares now at a calamity.
Will the people succeed?
Do the young have to bleed?
Is non-violence the way?
To get change underway? 
Through screams and tears
Or shots fired and angry jeers?
How can one even budge
The lords of waste and sludge
Who robed the nation
For their own glorification
With a sickening smile 
And pretending all the while
To be serving the weak 
When it is subservience they seek
Keeping people like sheep
Grateful for their token kindness
Confused by flattery and blindness
They rate their magnitude
By the volume of servitude 
These old power merchants 
Are paradises’ resident serpents
They should be held accountable
For ensuring that poverty is profitable
These flamboyant thieves 
Must be forced to leave
Only their names to remain 
A vestige of their corrupt reign 
In a dark corner of history
That is their failed failed legacy.


I still have to believe 
That though we cry -
The phoenix can still fly…"