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Wail From My Exile
(1991)
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I.
Arabia Drunk
Abandoned me, a child
At the cavemouth of doubt
When I was nine
I hovered
On severed wings
With the sparrows
Above the warm rooftops of Beirut
Until my father’s fears
Went with us
Atop the safe wings of a silver bird
Down to the abyss
To the severe night that is the Western streets
In the Crevice I slept, between Earth and asphalt
A fragment of the banished hordes
And the sun became my hope
A second exile for another delusion
My arms bound by my name in my exile
My legs lay lame
In may exile
The wilderness in me dies tame
In my exile
My journey assassinated midway
In the cold steel urban labyrinth where I crouch
Now I sit unexpressed
On this colossal Turtle Island
Silently it reeks of forgotten Indian slaughters
The stagnant death swimming to surround me
It maintains on the whitewashed breath of my landlord
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I add my tears to an infinite salted sea
And wash a crucified Indian
To lay him in tattered Muhammedean shrouds
On a dusty dark plain
Dropping my senses,
I flee this world of pretensions
That exhausted my father
And ate his dreams
Like a raw, sacrificed child
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II.
Love
Gloom
Sin
Hastened was history
Hastened the future tragedy
Suddenly Arabia committed suicide
At the feet of subservience
And I was furiously running in the pit of the Western streets
Building a formless night, void of name
Laboring a superfluous labor
Laughing at my tasteless coffee
Today I tasted the death of Arabia on the dark morning mist
Today in Jerusalem
Geronimo sank beneath a burning rubble
That he could not resist against
Today, Che surrendered Beirut
Today Malcolm fumbled for a warm breeze
Through the Cairo alleyways
Today is the drunk Arabian poet’s harvest
Today they crawl back into caves,
Beating their women
Today I pulled out every one of my hairs and felt no pain
Today my soul was carved
Today came too early,
Silent
Bland
Horrific
Today Armageddon
Today Palestine was sacrificed
On her own ancient Arab altar
And silently eaten raw
Like my father’s dreams
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III.
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My exile is a wasp, as it stings and dies
I reclaim the bloodied darks of my eyes
My slaughtered name fragments as it cries
OUT, over the vast, scorched Earth:
"The sun shall be my second exile!"
Sun sounds its silence
I search for the Sun at night
Through the ambiguity of abandon
I’m infinitely running towards her
The dancing Sun of my daze
Sun burns warm circles in our outstretched palms
And we become branded
And the land becomes mapped
Dazed, I swim towards the Sun
On a sea of wasted years and answerless questions
The Sun awaiting me eternally far
Sitting in a picture frame in the desert
Hiding behind steel trees in my city
She laughs
She mocks me
She cries
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IV.
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Ancient Fathers, innocently sleeping
The hot, primitive winds of the desert
Still slap against my bony cheek
I often wake in the middle of my
Cold Michigan winter hibernation
And taste on my tongue
The sands of Arabia
My questions swim in her mirage, non-diluting red stains
My soul has been made jagged
One rock against her endless dunes
Her wind mixes in me to return one day
And resound
Loud as the screech of an angered hawk, searching
In the empty stolen skies of Arabia
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V.
Arabia Drunk
Abandoned me, a child
At the cavemouth of doubt
Forever away, I nursed from the whiskey milk of her sorrow
Caressed her petals ‘till they toppled one by one
Nameless dreams of passion
Red banners waving on the surface of the Sun
The memory of her sound brands its cruelty onto my long past
I gouged out my tired eyes
That tasted the bitter dance of the passing days of men
Where do the forest shadows lose the words I send?
I search under their toppled leaves for the fallen wind
I chase myself, longing hollow
Behind a ghastly Detroit alley wall​​
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