1:1
Stop. Who’s there? Tis clock strikes twelve,
brings thy Horatio to seek tis specter from hell,
In Denmark, something is rotting in thy state,
In Norway, unimprovèd mettle hot and full awaits,
Tis specter arrives to arouse confusion and fear,
but to treat it violence and majestic threat,
thy specter departs as the cock’s crow drew near,  
leaving the blows of malicious mockery to regret.
And for Hamlet may speak to the wandering soul,
Tis morning to Hamlet must the three a’go.


1:2
Claudius, thy Uncle, is crowned King a’last,
Gertrude, thy Mother, hastily marries a’fast.
With duties done, Laertes to France adieu,
Hamlet griefs thy Father’s death and thy Mother’s dine,
for once a Hyperion to now a satyr is Uncle to Father a’new,
is but now a little more than kin and less than kind.
Horatio brings poor Hamlet the fatherly news,
that King Hamlet’s specter is now a’loose.
The joyous Hamlet is but joyous to see,
the two month father, dead and decease,
but for he calls that foul deeds will foully arise.
He hurries to the heavenly site prior sunrise.


1:3
Laertes to Ophelia, a brother to sister, he warns,
that Hamlet is but a fiery lover and to love he sworn,
but to love now is but not the future,
for Hamlet’s fire may, thy mind unpure,
for his lovely vows are not to believe,
he is but a man of deception to conceive.
For when Laertes departs, Polonius rants,
that Hamlet’s love, Ophelia must recant
for his affections and fashions are but false wows,
for when blood burns, lends the tongue false vows.




1:4
Shrewdly the air bites, nipping and eager,
at Horatio and Hamlet thy specter nears.
To speak alone, it beckons so,
But Horatio to Hamlet speaks no,
for may it draw thy madness and strip thy reason,
but to thee specter does Hamlet go,
for thy life is but a’lacking living reason.
Aback do they hold him most,
but Hamlet, his sword he wields
Fate has brought him here, he feels
To hold him back is but to turn a’ghost


1:5
Revenge, does his heavenly father speak,
of tis horrid murder of unnatural feat.
For the orchard’s snake, wears thy father’s crown
and whored thy gracious Queen, whose now evil abound.
With dignity and devotion she loved me so,
but tis sinful murder, Hamlet, you must’a know!
Through my ears, a venomous potion he drew,
thy fair Uncle, Claudius that potion he brew.
Abed, my life he ended this night,
And to my crown and Queen took he a’flight.
For thy dearest father, revenge must thy draw
upon thy villainous head, Claudius must fall
And to thy sword thou dearest friends must swear,
to tell not the occasions of this night we bear,
And to madness Hamlet must falsely seek,
to discover the truth of horrid deed beneath.


2:1
Reynaldo to Laertes, Claudius a’spies,
to Paris, Reynaldo goes with a’plan devised,
to seek the situation of Laertes in foreign hoods,
with bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
Ophelia then enters, with her father she shares,
"Oh, father, father, I’ve just had such a scare!"
In her sewing room, it is Hamlet she sees,
with no hat, nor buttons, nor stable knees
For he stared and stared to let out a final sigh,
Love mad he may be, a’to King we must a’by.


2:2
With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
Directly or indirectly will Claudius learn,
of Hamlet’s matters they are to return.
Polonius, with news of Hamlet, he waits,
for thee Ambassador, to inform that Denmark Gates,
Are to be opened for young Fortinbra’s Polack defeat,
Polonius to Claudius, reveals thy madness roots,
For Hamlet is but love crazy for the fairest fruits,
of dearest Ophelia, who a letter he wrote,
Proclaims the fairness of her upon tis note.
And to test the truth, their confrontation, must’e spy,
Behind the arras to view thy love-mad side.
Is but our hastily marriage and his father’s death,
thy Mother, aware, are but the means of his mad breath.
Polonius then to Hamlet, speaks of witty words,
A fishmonger he calls, but one of two is misheard,
For when Polonius humbly takes a’leave,
He is but to take anything, but his life, shall he not receive.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, enter to Hamlet, they chat,
but Hamlet to quickly find the two are but a King’s scat,
Only sent to spy on a dearest friend,
And to human’s name do they offend,
Only to betray a dearest friend in honor of the King.
And so Players arrived at Denmark grounds,
for they, the best in the world, Polonius sounds.
And then for Jephthah, witty Hamlet chants,
the song of a foolish man who accidently grants,
the sacrifice of his beloved daughter.
Pyrrhus, do they perform for dearest Hamlet,
His sword is a’air, but a’air it sets,
for he hesitates to swing thy sword,
And with this, Hamlet hopes to store,
the strength to kill the horrid Lord.
Though he is but ashamed, for upon false emotions can Players act,
And in himself upon truths, strength can he not extract.
So a play for the King’s conscience does Hamlet devise,
for the heavenly ghost may be false in his advice.


3:1
To be or not to be; that is the question,
For Hamlet to be nobler or to a’take action,
Shall he withdraw with bloody self slaughter,
But shall’st never may see thy fairest daughter,
To die, but to sleep for a mere dream,
But in sleep shall fair or foul be unseen?
Now Polonius and Claudius awaits,
for Hamlet’s arranged meet with a’bait.
Hamlet to Ophelia, his love recants,
For honesty and beauty are but Someone’s grants,
Once did he love her, but now a’figured,
that women are but corrupt and impured,
For one’s honestly and beauty can and shall be taint,
For if God given thou one face, dear not another by paint.
For honestly and beauty has God falsely bred,
All but one, shall women unwed.
All but one, shall women be nun.
Hence this marriage is over, and to a nunnery at once,


3:2
Let this mousetrap be named and this play a’set,
Shall capture thy horrid mouse or thy Uncle of Hamlet.
Polonius to Hamlet, the theater he knows,
For a Caesar death died he at thee Capitol.
Upon the lap of fair Ophelia, does Hamlet, lie,
Only to think of country matters and nothing (he implies).
And the play begins, with a prologue so brief,
Like a woman’s love, was Hamlet’s belief.
The King and Queen, a loving bond they share,
But the King by a mystic potion envenomed beware.
Thee action to kill, a murderous scene it was,
Leaving Claudius to regret the murderous act abuzz,
He arises to say: Let there be light! Let there be light!
And to the joy of Hamlet to see tis joyous sight,
For the words of thy heavenly father was but right.
Now shall the minute parts of truth ignite.
And to his Mother he shall speak daggers wield none,
for shall his tongue speak of the cruelties undone.


3:3
With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to England a’go,
Should insane Hamlet know not a hawk from a crow,
And behind the arras, Polonius will again spy,
the taxation of Hamlet and his Mother’s cry.
Polonius departs to spy upon the Mother and the Insane,
Only to leave Claudius to regret thy hideous Mark of Cain,
Shall he pray the Heavens to forgive him his actions,
For thy stripped thy Brother of life, throne, and attractions.
As Claudius is never to withdraw his stripped token,
Divine forgiveness shall never then be unspoken.
Hamlet can kill not his murderous Uncle in praying stance,
For a hideous monster shall not a’go Heaven by chance.


3:4
So behind the arras dearest Polonius stays,
to view the idle and wicked tongue arrays,
Thou’st the Queen, Thy Husband’s Brother’s wife!
But to hear a rat, shall Hamlet for a ducat its life.
Oh, but death ‘neath the arras, may it the King?
A horrid act? To kill and wear thy brother’s ring?
Oh, King it be not, but be a wretched, rash fool,
And now shall Hamlet tell thy Myth a’Ghoul.
For thy murderer has slain thy Heavenly mate,
And only now by natural law does he abate.
Upon these portraits shall ring a’clear,
That from thy Heavenly father is he nowhere near,
A murderer, a villain, a horrid fiend,
He is but a devilish murderer yield unclean,
No way can one drop from THIS to THAT,
And shall by this scene, the specterous soul attract,
Dear not be untenderly to thy Mother it speaks,
And shall this revenge soon awake its peak,
Hamlet appears a’mad to thy watching Mother,
but to his mother he warns, abed not another,
For two mouths should speak of none,
of this revenge that will soon be done.
And again, abed let not him seduce you so,
For now, apart to English must’e a’go.


4:1
Gertrude to Claudius, she continues to reveal,
Of Polonius’s murder and his arras squeal,
"A rat! A rat!" A’mad Hamlet is,
Brandished, to rapier the life of his.
And now where’s thou Hamlet still?
To draw apart the body he hath killed.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is but yet called again,
With discord and dismay, are they to seek that thou slain.


4:2
The two seek to Hamlet, for the body’s lair,
Compounded with dust now does it wear,
And a sponge, does Hamlet call them so,
for the King to squeeze them dry and thorough,
"A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear."
The body a’by a’King, but a’King, the body unnear.
And so, Hamlet to the King premiere.


4:3
And to Claudius does Hamlet call,
That Polonius now rests at a dining hall,
‘til a conference of worms devours him all
He shall eat not, but they eat so,
‘tis our fate despite status quo.
And upon the lobby stairs a corpse may lay,
One of dearest Polonius, slain to heaven or hell
Now to English death must Hamlet pay,
To one mother does he give two farewells.


4:4
With a Captain does Hamlet now proceed,
Who tells of young Fortinbras of Norway accede,
The Norway prince through Denmark he leads,
to seize a’minute Polack patch must’e receive.
A worthless land, must many die for one,
But true greatness acts not from fair reason,
But for the sake of the mind when honor is won.
And has Someone granted the reasoning mind,
For man to hesitate so cowardly inside,
For thy deed to act, must we rid the mind bind,
And act on instinct and be not wise.
And from the reasoning state must Hamlet now leave,
for honor he shall act, and his emotions he’ll believe.

4:5
False sanity is but false no more,
For fair Ophelia’s reason be not restore.
A’now sings of thy premature stone a’foot thy father’s grave,
and the departure of Hamlet for thy wed depraved.
Claudius is but to blame for thee rotting state,
For Polonius, a proper ceremony he not awaits,
For poor Ophelia, stripped from her reasonous state,
For Laertes aback from France, by thy father’s death, irate.
And Laertes enters, with thy support for king,
For the murderer, vengeful death shall he bring,
So Claudius to Laertes, says he is not to blame,
but thy father’s murderer is but another name.
And enters Ophelia, with figurative flowers to give,
But those of Faithfulness have ceased to live.
Alive are but for Thoughts, for Remembrance,
for Adultery, for Repentance, and for False Romance.
For his sister’s sanity is but another to blame,
Laertes, a vengeance mind, is but now aflame.


4:6
Horatio, a letter from Hamlet he receives,
that upon a Pirate ship has Hamlet board,
And that shall with speed would’st fly a’breathe.
Meet to hear the story Hamlet has a’stored.


4:7
Claudius to Laertes, he speak of innocence,
for by public appearance, the truth may bent,
For the public count loves Hamlet so,
And to thy fair Mother, Claudius a’beau.
Thy noble faster lost and sister insane,
The murderous filth of Hamlet is to blame.
At this, a loyal messenger approaches,
to deliver the news that but Hamlet reproached,
An English death did Hamlet face not,
For now his destined death are they to plot,
Naked and alone, will he return to Denmark a’learn,
Of the honorable fence-match, he shall earn,
Against Laertes, whose fatherly love nor illusion,
Shall the death of Hamlet draw conclusion.
Even a’church will Hamlet, Laertes slay,
Death by no bounds, must Hamlet pay.
Envenomed rapier and wine shall prepare,
the faithful death of murderous Hamlet a’near.
Gertrude then enters with Ophelia’s news a’share,
For sorrows comes not in singles but in greater pairs,
Upon muddy death has Ophelia drowned,
for now another death has but profound,


5:1
Two Gravediggers upon one grave they create,
for to the death of thy Graveowner do they relate,
To die by self slaughter or to die by not,
the attention of passing Hamlet have they caught.
With Hamlet does one of thee two chat,
for once a woman, shall this grave be buried at,
A quick digger for Hamlet to his surprise,
Revealed that to England is mad Hamlet to advise.
For a corpse to live for eight or nine,
Thy dearest Yorick’s skull is to find,
Thy a corpse to date three and twenty,
Leaves Hamlet to recall thy memories a’plenty,
And to think Alexander, o’buried alike.
Here comes the King, Laertes and the Queen,
And upon the burial grounds is Ophelia seen,
His dearest sister does Laertes mourn,
But to Hamlet, her death, his heart a’torn.
Laertes to Hamlet, must’e not compare,
the death of one is a little more foul than fair,
For forty thousand brothers can sum not his love,
For the death of the fairest maiden beloved.
Claudius to Laertes, must Hamlet pay thy debt,
the plot of night prior shall’st not forget.


5:2
Hamlet to Horatio, does his truths trust,
Of thy wretched King and his unjust,
Of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern English death they meet,
With sacrifice and thy seal was thou to spare self defeat.
Now’st Osric enters to Hamlet a’chat,
For’st not hot, nor cold, nor sultry at.
And a’wish to court, with thy Laertes of excellence,
For Hamlet’s head does thee King expense.
With six French rapiers and poniards assign,
For by fate’s determination, shall this court incline,
For a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,
Can we do not, but abide by fate a’follow.
Trumpets and drums, now’st the fence begins,
For Hamlet and Laertes hand and hand therein.
Pardon he begs, Hamlet to thy brother,
For in him is but foil Hamlet yet another,
And so they fence for honor and fence for life,
Two of two leads Hamlet the strife.
The King, to Hamlet he drinks,
Tis pearl shall he the cup he sinks,
And unwounded for two, Hamlet prevails,
But Queen, the dearest Mother, so faithfully frail,
For she drinks thy cup of heavenly pearl,
For heavenly it be not, as thy malicious plot unfurl,
The cup! The cup! A poisonous potion,
Cause yet another by venomous commotion.
A distracting cause, for Hamlet to bear,
For Laertes envenomed blade must’e beware,
Now envenomed blood shall Hamlet shed,
Shall he hold thy rapier of Laertes instead,
to shed thy venomous blood of thy venomous mind,
For now thy murderous plot shall unwind,
At the honorable death of brother Laertes,
Shall the death of Claudius be a’seized.
The King’s to blame for the death of all,
And tis day shall he see his destined fall.
With thy venomous blade held a’hand,
Let the doors be locked and the evils banned,
For Hamlet wounds thy treacherous soul,
And shall horrid Claudius pay his destined toll,
For Hamlet forces to drink thy murderous potion,
And shall he too die of venomous commotion.
The death of four and tis bloody scene,
Shall Horatio tell to those unseen.
Shall he speak of murderous truths embark,
for Fortinbras shall now throne Denmark,
For in Fortinbras does his admiration lay,
For does Hamlet trust thou’st fiery ambitious way,
And tis now concludes thy Hamlet’s life,
For death and death thou’st all alike,

Be gracious to me, O God.
in the measure of your faithfulness
in the measure of your great mercy
erase my transgressions
Wash me through and through outside
and purify me inside.
Verily I acknowledge my cruelties
and am ever mindful of my offenses
against you have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight
..........
Indeed you desire truth in the hidden parts
Teach me wisdom of secret things.

I come back and see I have facebook friends I don't even know
and now they're loaded in my phone
and there's way too much information at my fingertips
and I may slip up and find something I don't want know
and what were my dreams trying to warm me about
and how can I find peace between my ears?
i didn't have a good childhood so now I imagine one
back in my home town with the parent I never had and
feeling loved and warm throughout the day, and not
looking out the window and wondering what I did wrong to cause my mother
to leave and realizing, knowing now after 500 years of therapy that it was about
her and not me, and my boss is not my mother and after 500 years of therapy
you'd think I'd know that but it's hard sometimes...
what we have to do is come back to what we know to be true
past all the chatter and shoulds and inner cruelties
you may have to obey someone but you don't have to respect him
inside although you play act at meetings and all
A lot of staying sane seems to be, knowing what you know
when you are really in your true self and being able to hang on
to that, you know, that is hard but not as hard
as all the chatter and self recriminations
so it is worth it, my friend, it is very worth it.

It was written in the beginning,
in the beginning, before Britain,
before folklore, gore and war.
That in the beginning,

the lords created, decorated
and separated the night,
and also the bright light.
Therefore, a delight!

In the beginning, creating the seven
ways of days and the rays.
The birth of earth, the black ravens,
the havens and the heavens.

In the beginning, I deem a clean slate.  
Let’s not debate! An ending with fate,
an ending with no date? This seems great!
In the beginning, a beginning,

that bends defends and depends,
pretends and never ends!
A beginning of Pharaohs,
their arrows and the sparrows.

An ending of sorrow,
borrowed from our tomorrow.
Let’s turn a page past the
basked the masked and vast.

The elapsed and relapsed perhaps.
The mishaps destruction and corruption.
A bold world foretold I say,
with no task or instruction.

A fold past the cages that enrage,
rage, wage and old age. A beginning
and ending that was betrayed
and strayed in the month of May.

Long before many of us were to play.
Stories of cities, glories and their pities,
starving nations and Haitians,
while others take expensive,

vacations with their relations.
Heaven’s specialties, hell’s cruelties!
Governments and their restraints,
positive and negative strengths.

As I blink and wink sadly and
badly I think, of the petty fights
and plights, the detained delights.
Why can’t we each unite?

Reunite forever stop this harm
and fight, fly into the night
together with our almightily
arms and mighty charms.

Ultimately, in the ending let us not
to negatively but to basically,
positively and primarily amend!
Children, men and women amen.

you sing on and on (and on) in the foreground as
the meter aches and constricts; with its power, beauty, antipathy
searing distances between us, hearing the becomings of null somethings

we reunite with the blankness
of pristine white passages
to break free from inertia


I cannot describe my infatuation with a split second
the embrace, the longing of wordless writers
and their unacknowledged cruelties

grieving over all this birthing
objecting to their own last words
the fresh blood of teething &
the prodding of our sores

“Why are you so evil?”

The words hung in the air, a condemning bell tone across the dark room.

Shock.  It’s the only way to describe how the limbs seize up and remain frozen in their place, how all of a sudden the blood feels colder as it circulates through the veins, carrying the virus phrase along with its stream.
Why are you so evil?

It was nothing, a mere teasing among siblings, a red rubber ball that had been promised back as long as it no longer held any interest, it couldn't have been possessed for more than a minute before the whining began, and it wasn't going to be long until it was returned, but was it really worthy of such a question?
  Why are you so evil?

No, certainly not.

However those blue irises still bore the same intensity, a mouth, nearly a thin line that hung open in an odd mix between an ugly scowl and gritted teeth. Dyed thinning blonde hair pulled back in a greasy pony tail hid no wrinkles that caved their way into the corners of those eyes, or upon the center of the brow, and yet within these creases it’s still echoing;
Why are you so evil?

How dare you.

What do you know of evil? Alone and frightened, left to face the monsters with nothing but bare tiny fingers that linger in the darkness at the furthest edge of the room.  Startled and panicked, while being a passenger and taken on a ride to who knows where with every question answered with nothing but blank stares and confused expressions, as if speaking Gaelic to the deaf and blind.  Exhausted and irritated, because it’s ridiculous to be expected to care for this mess of a child when a stool must still be used to reach the faucet.  And even still;
Why are you so evil?

Laughter. It’s the only sound to drown out that god forsaken question ringing in the air, and yet the repulsive thing still echoes in the depth of the so called damned soul. It’s the only thing that keeps your sight away from the fact that the tremors have nothing to do with the raspy sound leaving the lungs.
Anguish. It’s the only thing flooding the system now. Because how many times has that question been asked after every mistake? After every lie? After every argument that pride refuses to allow proper apologies into the picture?  

Of course, that must be it. Everything makes sense. Every let down, every heart ache, every instance of life’s cruelties have become clearer than the tears flooding behind the eyes.

And still, the question still remains;

Why am I so evil?

PASSION PLAY

Ayad Gharbawi




Location: Desert Shore, Bitterly Cold Night, next to strong waves from the ocean.
Characters: Man ((M) and his Lover, a Woman (W).

----------------------------------------


W: “Search as I forever do, in manifold ways unknown, I seek but to love thee, and the meagre goodness from Life, with steely ardour - my armour faithful.”
M: “Alone I may be, and still, yes I love thee; these days heavy are and beset I am by burdensome trivialities, but I remain trusting, though my corner so narrow remain.”
W: “My Love! Your speech I hear aloud and thine lips I live within and yet, my Love, all Solitude I am. Man! I am unaided! In this journey of sinful thorns, my love, in this unforgiving journey, this blurred odyssey, I stand alone”.
M: “This trial you speak of, but I do know of it well; so, listen then: within the strength of trusted togetherness we can plough on, though everlasting harm shall do its spiteful tricks, warm to our united truth shall we remain.”
W: (Surprised) “O! My love! This thought I cannot hear! My life, my destiny, is but mine. And all have their own solitary roads of jagged rocks to embrace, like it we or not. We heartbreaking earthly sad beasts, either fiercely clutch at integrity, or we do let it go to perish away.”
M: (Confused) “My Love! I do hear, I do hear. But when Times decide on burdening us, what then can we achieve? To face Reality within the frail arms of solitude is to ignore, to refuse the severe threats of repulsive grins.”
(Silence)
M: (Passionately) “O! My sweet! Only in us, can we envelope, through joined, clasped warmth can we be as one united! The screams that so truly are meant to slice us off, only we, our Unity, can destroy. For mine eyes can only find sleep in your ears, and it is so - for otherwise nothing and no one can be.”
W: (Angry) “My Passion too is bubbling for thine bewildered ears. Am I not your soul? Do we not suffer as one? Do we not reflect as one? Am I not your lover true? Is not our warmth not weighty to our fickle bones?”
(Silence)
W: (Passionate) “But, Lover, this much ought I to formally declare unto thee: For our eyes, and all eyes, envision unequally at one another. Till eternity, in its casual, indifferent flicker, snatches at us all wretched mortals, the gazes from lords to paupers remain veritably mismatched. O my passion! My woeful heart! These words I thunder forth defines love unfeigned, and what mine eyes do pour out unto thine ears is authenticity true.
(Silence)
W: (Passionately) “What joined mem’ries you choose to caress may possess thee, but your exactness for what love is to you, doth not dwell in mine mind. What tears, what weepings you do, fall stormily upon thine own soul’s wildernesses. You choose to be chained by changing visions and indefinite sentiments of light weight – though so poignant at the moment they veritably are?”
M: (Inquiring) “My love! I cherish thee; where hast thou been in thine mind, for now ye talk of that truth you relate to in your heart. Your pronouncements, what depths I do feel! Can it perchance be that my passion has strayed our winds far from me?”
W: “No, my love! Why is anger, I feel, lush on thine tongue?”
M: (Surprised and Frightened) “Anger! I am too distant from that affliction! But yes, I feel my words make only for unstable murmurs in my breath.”
W: (Quietly) “Then, do tell me, lover, who do your murmurs betray - myself or yourself then?”
M: (Quietly) “Perhaps so, perhaps so. But my anxiety wilfully demands of me to eradicate your vision.”
W: (Firmly) “You answer naught from my undemanding question. Or, are mine meanings too violent for you? What aches thee?”
M: (Passionately) “My sweet! In so many moments, I created mysterious planets for thee! Bizarre worlds of contrasts and opposites and musical words of antiquity and sensual ravines. My love! I, my soul, my life, my inner deepest breath, tempted as I am by Fates’ inscrutable cruelties to ashamedly yield, I have yet always expressed to mine eyes’ heart, though they be in bleak darkness, to faithfully fight without pause all shades of vice and still yet - with loving integrity; I have stood with arms of righteousness and love for thee up and never down! Yes, sincere good and venal ill remain joined in life for all to feel, but you knew it was not for me to disentangle them. And so, I pronounce unto thee, still, and yet ever and ever more, my love for thee, though still beholding a thousand mountains before me, I remain sturdy for thee; I remain undisturbed by burly laws, and by exotic dictums, I stand fierce and unhurt, save in your absence.”
W: (With Sadness) “My beloved, your vivid voice stabs the falsehoods for thee, and I say unto thee, unto thee your excessive and unreasonable chains, and for myself my unreasonable and extreme chains remain.”
M: (Shocked) “But I burden thee with no steely chains, nor verbal fetters! For naught I produce for thee save grace, passion and freedom to love for us both to be in Unity Sacred! Dost thou embrace my visions as ‘shackles’, then ‘tis better we agree to class that which we are as but madness! Hear me, for my tears now must truly change their colours!”
W: (Determined) “Your feverish hands clutch only upon mine erratic wings!”
M: (Anger) “Never! Never! For I clutch only to destroy all malevolence; as for thee, Lady of the purest, untouched, guarded, secluded Ponds, I seek to unshackle for you the scattered, scared shadows that yearn for thine sovereignty. And what is this ‘sovereignty’ but our Sacred Union? What curse deemest you I impose? Do you equal my purest passions with atrocities? Murmur unto mine ears, your clearest love for me.”
W: “Ah! You enquire of me my ‘sincerity’ for thee? What demands!”
(Silence)
M: “I see naught but heaving forests of love betwixt us, and yet, you discover my words being ‘demanding’?”
W: (Drily) “Perchance, your visions are indistinct and ever more blurred, through these years cannot be ignored.”
M: (Begging) “My love! All mine life, though it be lengthy, I fought most venal tyranny, and for this moment, you question my righteousness?”
W: (Indignantly) “I have been plunged into seas hostile and I have plunged in a thousand miles of inert minds troubled beyond conceivable comprehension and I have yet to have my Right for my own greedy, ravenous flesh to be vigorously and forcefully embraced by sensuality and serenity. Yes, I do love thee, and yet in our union, as in all unions, I have been adorned with naught, save snickering, gossiping scenes of festive balls, games, chatter and farewells, themselves festooned within silly and sincerely stupid smiles and frowns, and shallow tears and never ending ludicrous chatter unworthy of monkeys conversing. I have met programmed rows of pats, respect and all other so-called decent intents and gestures, but, where, lover that you are of mine, where does my personal heart, throb and manically vibrate, save in your heavenly imaginations?”
(Silence)
W: (Quietly but Determinedly) “My love! I truly thee love and with passions, I tell you, of proportions of precise exactitudes; in your eyes I have witnessed symphonies of exquisiteness; and, I of thee ask: where dwelleth your own love for myself in thine body?”
(Silence)
W: (Passionate) “Do you recognise the changing structures that form this, that I name ‘My Love’? In my solitude eternal, I do evermore and always do pause, and be pensive, and be thinking of questions, such as ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘when’ ‘how’, and ‘which’ should be my path; I am forever and ever more searching, seeking the heavens of every corner, and the irritable tempests, within my changing self as they themselves do try to seek me, and we forever, through inconceivable murkiness, do try to assemble the everlasting entirety of these disorganized puzzles into some measure of comprehensible cohesion that ‘I’ am. That is how the ‘I’ you love is forever changing and thereby formulating itself, and within all these meandering passions, and endless errors, where am I to feel thee? Where? And where do you seek me? In which land? In which forest? You trivialise my beingness as you focus upon my lands as being that which so effortless to find, and yet, you are much too distant from an understanding of my conflicting, emerging civilisations.”
(Silence)
W: (Passionate) If the utterance ‘Never’ is pathetic for thee, then allow me to introduce you to my latest heart: for it screams out that single, protracted utterance! Never! My love, these winds of raging wraths, both within and outside by flesh, must and can only be annihilated by mine own sincerities – were I not to play against my own self. My uncontrolled desires and, yes, thirsty manic passions can only be tempered and thoroughly satiated to the utter brim, by mine own loving, sources of pleasure, my own uncontrollable ecstasies. As for the rest of bodily pleasures, my own erroneous words, speeches and utterances can only be severed and sliced by my tranquillity.”
M: (Resigned) “I hear thine words. Do not abandon me. Do not destroy our civilisation of justice.”
W: “What we share, the bonds, are enjoyment. Listen though to mine lips: enjoyment is what - when it is to be compared with convulsive ecstatic quivers of satisfaction?”
M: (Puzzled) “And what of all our journeys to attain that unity? For all that, is it to be of mere insignificance? And if that be your truth, for what then did we toil and labour for unity of minds and bodies?”
W: (Laughing) “Did you understand from Life itself, that here it was, grandly to proclaim its furtive faces unto thine own awaiting face?! “
M: (Baffled) “It was so far too plain and vastly clear unto me these sceneries we faced before our loving bodies.”
W: “Yes, and I too, did see them with thee. Our four eyes, did see unity for that flicker of time. How true you speak! But, time clocked on, I saw you as you stood there, moving nowhere, unawares that it was your duty to squash onwards whatever vile breaths faced us.”
M: (Desperate) “And did I not? Did I abandon thee in these crushing paths?”
W: (Accusing) “No, you did not. Never, once did you abandon me. I ask of thee; for what sense do we feel a need for a continuation of these gruelling marches? For unity? For love? Or, is love unity? Was that and is this our reason for us to carry on with these shackles?”
M: “For assuredly, yes, and more yes, I tell thee! Toil and gruelling dawns, and unbearable evenings and the whitest of nights are all for the sacred attainment of that heavenly summit of joy I name as blessed ‘Love’.”
W: (Assured) “And, Sire, what if my nerves, blood and bodily hunger tell thee in truth that we, all of us, need no longer, and need never in truth, to undertake these paths, for we find naught that nourishes us at the blessed summit of your definition of what ‘Love’ is?”
M: (Confused & Sad) “So, I falter here and now upon understanding your speech; do I reason from thee that our loving days in unity are frivolously bygone now?”
W: (Calmly & Gracefully) “Do the wandering birds, and do the blind bats, and do the reckless storms, and do the blindly, raging waves and do the supremely arrogant oceans eternally march on in but one direction only with the savage passage of time within their particular lives? You did pronounce that you built planets for our unity; well then, did you not view how planets endlessly revolve along the same path?”
(Pause)
W: (Calmly & with Dignity) “For, Sire, I am not as a Planet - could you not feel that throughout our journeys? You endlessly query and question ‘who’ it is that ‘I’ am? Well, I speak this much on myself; I am as the birds, and the bats, and the storms and the waves and the oceans.”  
M: (Angry) “Woman! I can only then tell of thee that you are naught but feuding clutter and violent disarray!”
W: (Unconcerned) “Those are your words. Not mine. Speak for what you wish, Sire.”
M: (Angry) “And I stand here, before thee, in anger – nay, more, more! In fury!”
W: (Laughing) “For what? For the deeds that created but sticky, and grimy grains of sand for the undoubted pleasure our eyes?”
M: “And so you label our truths, our love so much! Fair indeed, you speak, Woman of Justice.”
W: (Arrogantly) “Man! Express your delights for your own delights. And, alas, there the circle and reality ends – and it ends only for you. That is one morsel of truth for you to ponder. What we ‘created’ and what we ‘loved’ was never and never, ever be the same for you as it is for me. Are you a sincere believer that your personal vision is the same sight all other seeing creatures envision?”
M: (Angry) “Woman, you enrage me! Your arrogance is drenching thine rags.”
W: (Sarcastic) “Tis the Man with no reason who allows his breath and words to be a veritable cesspool of fuming stenches!”
M: “But I, that I am, no longer can define your contours?”
W: (Pointedly) “Precisely, Man, precisely. Perhaps, now you have come closer to the vulnerable shores of reality!”
M: (Confused) “Do you express that you are ever varying and so for that reason there is not a one unified you?”
W: (Calmly) “For we are all ‘varying’, to borrow your word – if you do so allow me, Sire. There was never ‘unity’ of soul, nor mind, nor self, nor of any one personality. This, I desire, that you may understand.”
M: (Aghast) “Then if that be your truth and then, are we naught but multitudes of ever changing confusions, Lady of the Desert?”
W: (Calmly) “Yes and no! For those who are muscular and full of fertile vigour in their flesh, and in their intellects, and those that are severely and strictly scholastic, then they do need and they can succeed in time, in their never ending struggle to bring together the mutually antagonistic factions of that which constitutes our beingness. And, as for the dense brained soulless beings, then, it is equally veritably true that, a descent into madness can be rapidly produced, since from their erratic constituents, they cannot attract together these antagonistic and mutually-hating emotions in some vision of cohesion, and thus mayhem can be fashioned.”
(Silence)
M: (Calmly) “So, pray do tell me, where does Love and Justice and Truth and Morality stand in your universe?”
W: (Serenely) “That has been mine desire to hear the words being produced from your lips, Man!”
(Pause)
W: “So, now perhaps, your sight may be getting clearer, for your question is certainly apt. Foremost, we pathetic mortals, we the be are forever slimy specks of sand that  crumbles, must necessarily seek to survive and flourish within whatever forest, desert, meadow we find ourselves cast upon.”
M: (Startled) “At what cost, Woman? At the expense of Morality?”
W: (Rapidly) “Yes and no.”
M: (Shocked) “Horrendous! How can you spout out such filth?”
W: (Quietly) “Restrain your stupidities, and give more room to your intelligence, Sire.”
(Silence)
W: (Gracefully) “In times of trouble, what can Man do when he be forced to embrace evil, even though he finds the act of the embrace loathsome, but he does what he does for the truth of his vital existence to continue. Only when he need never embrace vile, and then allows himself to commit the act, then he is for certainty to incur the everlasting wrath of God. Evil is thus never one truth to be utterly rejected, perchance you may now see. ”
M: (Calm but Tired) “I follow your words and their ideas therein.”
W: (Gracefully) “When you talk to me on Man and everlasting, conflicting changes within that self-same creature, I tell you with all the earnestness that I possess, of what God has scattered and endowed upon me; for this beast, we all call in unity Man, this creature has far too many a numberless number of mutually self-contradicting, distrusting, loving, hating, inspiring and a never ending number of feelings and emotions that are in constant flow and change – as in any rapid river descending unto its eventual destination, which in its case, is the sea, while in our case, it is Death itself for sure.”
M: (Despair) “And how can this beast ‘love’ anyone within this welter of confusion?”
W: (Rapidly) “He cannot!”
M: (Rapidly, Begging) “But Man and Woman do love with bristling passions! Do you deny that, Woman?!”
W: (Calmly, eyes downwards looking) “Yes, and no. Since the beast has needs, based on his vastly intricate constituents, to ‘love’ his fellow beast, he imagines and believes in his imagination that he is really in a situation of ‘love’ and that – as you put it, is ‘bristling with passion’.”
M: (Softly) “So, Woman, it all but illusions, you speak?”
W: (Sorrowfully) “Yes, and no. I tell you that as far the ‘loving’ beast, since he genuinely believes that this is ‘love’, then it truly becomes ‘love’ for him. But, as far as the wider truth of reality expresses itself in its manifold manners, we sadly know that he is nowhere near ‘love’ and that he is being but his mere self – which is to say, being typically delusional!”
M: (Exasperated) “My Lord! Everything for you is “yes and no”; you are yourself nothing but energy that is contradictory. I mean to ask you, as per my last question - is Man in love or is he not in love and yet, before me, here, I see you produce yet ever more paradoxically senseless answers! Have you nothing that lies purely straight before thine eyes and mind?”
W: (Impatient) “Alas, you Man, if your mind is not as endowed as it may need to be, then the fault is surely not to be mine, is it? That is a question for you to ask our dear God upon your particular meeting with Him.”
M: (Angry) “Are you daring to speak that I am daft, you foolish Woman?”
W: (Amused) “Precisely. Well, actually not precisely. Far more than ‘daft’.”
M: (Sarcastic) “Anyone who does not agree with you is dim?”
W: (Laughing sarcastically) “Man, what a senseless fool you indeed are. I never have spoken words that anyone who is in ‘disagreement’ with me must be dim. However, and this sentence is certainly for you: I do say that if Man is incapable of understanding my words, then he must be not dissimilar to our cousins, the apes.”
M: (Pleading) “Woman! I ask you, can Love be - or can it not be?”
W: (Subdued) “Permit me, Man, how do you explain unto me what ‘Love’ is?”
M: (In anger and pride) “What is Love? You ask that of me? I, a warrior all my decades, fighting furiously and fighting passionately against all oppressors, against all evil-doers, and you say to me what is ‘Love’?”
W: (Inquisitive) “You have expressed to me that you have fought all your brief life against injustice, and that is noble by all standards. But where is it that I am meant to witness you finding this Love of thine?”
M: “Love is the struggle itself against tyranny itself, do you happen to see naught but veils and mists and fogs?”
W: (Sarcastic) “So, if I choose to fight against tyrannical rulers, then I produce ‘Love’ from my actions?”
M: (Frantic) “If you choose to fight the tyrannical ruler for the single purpose of removing that vile ruler in the hope of liberating the people of land, then, that is one form of love indeed. Then there is the other kind of love, Woman, which I desperately, terribly seek you to understand my mind. For, Woman, when Lover seeks to fight tyranny in order for the purpose of liberating his particular Love of his life, then that, I tell you in all earnestness then that too is also a noble form and sacred type of Love. Do you find my words sensible?”
W: (Bored) “And, pray, if you wish to please my sensibility, how does your Lover know that he knows his Lover? Wherefrom does he get that certainty?”
M: (Excited & Speaking Rapidly) “He has that knowledge from Love itself! The energy of Love itself informs the Lover who to ‘love’ - and what he or she must do in order to achieve union with the chosen opposite lover. You see how blessed and powerful Love is for us mere mortals? It is an intelligent form of energy, Lady, think of my words. How do atoms know where to go and what to do? They just ‘know’. Maybe, ‘tis God that tells them. Here too, I speak to you, perchance God directs this exemplary ‘Energy’ called Love, to inform Lover to approach his or her Lover and that is why they fight injustice, sacrifice, and bleed tears of blood, till they truly one day, some day, join in flesh and mind!”
W: “And what of the changes that Man and Woman do undergo – how does Lover continue to relate to his or her opposite?”
M: “Again, for your beautiful question, I tell you this: only for the Lover who has been blessed with Love from our Lord Himself, then, no matter what changes exist within his opposite, the Lover will still, and for eternity love his Woman! That is the meaning of Love, Woman! You ask me, what is the definition of Love? I answer you truly, that is the meaning: that I, your Lover, will fight liars, and jesters, and hypocrites, and cruel deceivers for Your Sacred Cause and – hear me here – and even if you should die, the Man who loves, will fight still and forever even after your expiration! Never, ever to capitulate! Do you feel the boiling energy of furious rage that will not and never, ever accept the rule of the hypocrites and oppressors who oppressed my Lover?”
W: “What is your meaning of ‘Sacred Cause’?”
M: “You missed a crucial vital, life producing word: ‘Your’.”
W: (Puzzled) “’Your’ - And what?”
M: “Woman of Endless Beauties! The Sacred Cause can mean nothing when in the absence of the word ‘Your’. So, listen now: the Lover will fight unto brutal, painful death, only for Your Sacred Cause. That Sacred Cause is for your Lover to do for eternity to fight for your, and only for your dignity, and only for your liberation, and only for your freedom, and only for your joy, and only for your prosperity, and only for your joy. The ‘Sacred Cause’ speaks to me who the Lovers love. And ‘Your Sacred Cause’ means your Lover will fight forever in order to give unto you and only you, your joy, your mirth, your pleasure, your comfort and all the beauties of our miserable existence.”
W: (Bored) “But why take unto your already sun-drenched, parched and burdened body all these arduous tasks?”
M: (Surprised) “What? You still do not comprehend nor words, nor ideas and nothing for all that matters?!”
W: “No, unto you is to be an answer that needs be forthcoming. Speak for me, why should we beasts undertake all these blood-drenched battles and all for the attainment of the ‘Love’ of a Woman?”
M: “For sure! Indeed! That is a the beauty and reality and the truth of Love, for just as Life itself a never ending life and death struggle for existence, so too, is then, Love, for to attain Love, Man and Woman, or ‘beasts’ as you choose to call us, must necessarily and seek to ceaselessly struggle against death, and gloom, and despair to possess that holy union between flesh and mind between Man and Woman.”
(Silence)
M: “To me, I believe that you feel Union is not that so necessary for Man and Woman?”
W: (Surprised) “On the precise opposite! Union is a need of all beasts, for it is a fundamental instinct within our starving bosoms. But your definition of what that ‘Union’ is meant to be, differs from your vision.”
(Silence)
W: “Love is the Union of mind and flesh. That we all agree upon.”
M: “Indeed.”
W: “But in my planet, beasts, Man and Woman, ever change in their visions and in their feelings and in their needs and in their appetites and in their desires so that what Man originally ‘loved’ is no longer the same Woman that he once did love. And so how can you ‘love’ that which has utterly and completely altered into another being. That is truly a contradiction that defines nonsense; so, now – what say you?”
M: (Baffled): “Well, even though we do change with time, experiences and events and the effects of powerful memories, real Love will simply overcome all these difficulties and soon Flesh will reroute its way back to its Lover’s Flesh and Mind will re-unite with his Lover’s Mind. And should the two humans fail to reunite then all that can be said is that it was never Sacred Love in the first place.”
W: “Yes, Man, but why crucify yourself for that Union? Union can be achieved through much easier means and paths.”
M: (Shocked) “Why do you underrate the power of the eternal Union?”
W: (Laughing) “I’ve answered you already, dear Man. For what you so call ‘Love’ and ‘Sacred’ and ‘Union’ are all true to me – but they can all be achieved by much simpler ways than from your tortuous journeys – and you describe the struggle to achieve Union of flesh and mind as being like a life and death struggle. Well, listen to me, ye mortal Man, for you have overburdened yourself when I assuredly tell you, there are easier paths.”
(Pause)
W: “Maybe not as intense, pleasure-wise, as your struggles, but as for the truth that God has allowed us only a brief moment in life wherein we are breathing, I can say this much: it is much better to follow the path I have chosen.”
M: “But did you not before, unto may speak, telling me that your path for the Sacred Union of Flesh and Mind was exceedingly more pleasurable?”
W: “Conversing is the need to be as the tide. I can tell you this much: pleasure and its ferocious, unyielding intensities can only be experienced and defined by the receiver and so – unto you I say, perchance yours are weightier than mine.”
M: “And so now what, Fair Lady?”
W: “And for now, either dream on or think on - in the paths you shall have to necessarily endure.”
M: “And then?”
W: “Senseless questions requires of me none to be replied to.”
M: (Confused) “I ask thee, do we be on this fiery planet, for the sake of sufferance only?”
W: “Yes, and no. I tell you that what is ‘north’ is unto thee, is true. Is it not. You see ‘north’ is the direction that only you and your constituents see,  and, perhaps we ought to all applaud you and pat you and concede that you do indeed see the ‘north’ direction. But, then, for another creature, who sees from a southern angle, they will speak unto us, ‘By Christ, we say, we see naught but a southerly direction!’ Do we then disregard them?”
(Pause)
M: “So who speaks Truth then?”
W: (Patiently) “Both do, Man. For the creature who is from the northern angle, then what he does see, is a northern angle, and so for him, the ‘north’ is ‘his’ truth. And, as for the creature who locates himself in the southern location, then as for himself, his vision can only speak to him truthfully, that their vision is a southerly directed vision.”
M: “So Truth has and have contradictory dualities that mutually oppose each other, and yet at the same moment, co-exist?”
W: “Correct, Man, for perhaps, you do now see some burning light, amidst this fiery blackness of this dead night of blackness?”

FINIS

PASSION PLAY

Ayad Gharbawi




Location: Desert Shore, Bitterly Cold Night, next to strong waves from the ocean.
Characters: Man ((M) and his Lover, a Woman (W).

----------------------------------------



W: “Search as I forever do, in manifold ways unknown, I seek but to love thee, and the meagre goodness from Life, with steely ardour - my armour faithful.”
M: “Alone I may be, and still, yes I love thee; these days heavy are and beset I am by burdensome trivialities, but I remain trusting, though my corner so narrow remain.”
W: “My Love! Your speech I hear aloud and thine lips I live within and yet, my Love, all Solitude I am. Man! I am unaided! In this journey of sinful thorns, my love, in this unforgiving journey, this blurred odyssey, I stand alone”.
M: “This trial you speak of, but I do know of it well; so, listen then: within the strength of trusted togetherness we can plough on, though everlasting harm shall do its spiteful tricks, warm to our united truth shall we remain.”
W: (Surprised) “O! My love! This thought I cannot hear! My life, my destiny, is but mine. And all have their own solitary roads of jagged rocks to embrace, like it we or not. We heartbreaking earthly sad beasts, either fiercely clutch at integrity, or we do let it go to perish away.”
M: (Confused) “My Love! I do hear, I do hear. But when Times decide on burdening us, what then can we achieve? To face Reality within the frail arms of solitude is to ignore, to refuse the severe threats of repulsive grins.”
(Silence)
M: (Passionately) “O! My sweet! Only in us, can we envelope, through joined, clasped warmth can we be as one united! The screams that so truly are meant to slice us off, only we, our Unity, can destroy. For mine eyes can only find sleep in your ears, and it is so - for otherwise nothing and no one can be.”
W: (Angry) “My Passion too is bubbling for thine bewildered ears. Am I not your soul? Do we not suffer as one? Do we not reflect as one? Am I not your lover true? Is not our warmth not weighty to our fickle bones?”
(Silence)
W: (Passionate) “But, Lover, this much ought I to formally declare unto thee: For our eyes, and all eyes, envision unequally at one another. Till eternity, in its casual, indifferent flicker, snatches at us all wretched mortals, the gazes from lords to paupers remain veritably mismatched. O my passion! My woeful heart! These words I thunder forth defines love unfeigned, and what mine eyes do pour out unto thine ears is authenticity true.
(Silence)
W: (Passionately) “What joined mem’ries you choose to caress may possess thee, but your exactness for what love is to you, doth not dwell in mine mind. What tears, what weepings you do, fall stormily upon thine own soul’s wildernesses. You choose to be chained by changing visions and indefinite sentiments of light weight – though so poignant at the moment they veritably are?”
M: (Inquiring) “My love! I cherish thee; where hast thou been in thine mind, for now ye talk of that truth you relate to in your heart. Your pronouncements, what depths I do feel! Can it perchance be that my passion has strayed our winds far from me?”
W: “No, my love! Why is anger, I feel, lush on thine tongue?”
M: (Surprised and Frightened) “Anger! I am too distant from that affliction! But yes, I feel my words make only for unstable murmurs in my breath.”
W: (Quietly) “Then, do tell me, lover, who do your murmurs betray - myself or yourself then?”
M: (Quietly) “Perhaps so, perhaps so. But my anxiety wilfully demands of me to eradicate your vision.”
W: (Firmly) “You answer naught from my undemanding question. Or, are mine meanings too violent for you? What aches thee?”
M: (Passionately) “My sweet! In so many moments, I created mysterious planets for thee! Bizarre worlds of contrasts and opposites and musical words of antiquity and sensual ravines. My love! I, my soul, my life, my inner deepest breath, tempted as I am by Fates’ inscrutable cruelties to ashamedly yield, I have yet always expressed to mine eyes’ heart, though they be in bleak darkness, to faithfully fight without pause all shades of vice and still yet - with loving integrity; I have stood with arms of righteousness and love for thee up and never down! Yes, sincere good and venal ill remain joined in life for all to feel, but you knew it was not for me to disentangle them. And so, I pronounce unto thee, still, and yet ever and ever more, my love for thee, though still beholding a thousand mountains before me, I remain sturdy for thee; I remain undisturbed by burly laws, and by exotic dictums, I stand fierce and unhurt, save in your absence.”
W: (With Sadness) “My beloved, your vivid voice stabs the falsehoods for thee, and I say unto thee, unto thee your excessive and unreasonable chains, and for myself my unreasonable and extreme chains remain.”
M: (Shocked) “But I burden thee with no steely chains, nor verbal fetters! For naught I produce for thee save grace, passion and freedom to love for us both to be in Unity Sacred! Dost thou embrace my visions as ‘shackles’, then ‘tis better we agree to class that which we are as but madness! Hear me, for my tears now must truly change their colours!”
W: (Determined) “Your feverish hands clutch only upon mine erratic wings!”
M: (Anger) “Never! Never! For I clutch only to destroy all malevolence; as for thee, Lady of the purest, untouched, guarded, secluded Ponds, I seek to unshackle for you the scattered, scared shadows that yearn for thine sovereignty. And what is this ‘sovereignty’ but our Sacred Union? What curse deemest you I impose? Do you equal my purest passions with atrocities? Murmur unto mine ears, your clearest love for me.”
W: “Ah! You enquire of me my ‘sincerity’ for thee? What demands!”
(Silence)
M: “I see naught but heaving forests of love betwixt us, and yet, you discover my words being ‘demanding’?”
W: (Drily) “Perchance, your visions are indistinct and ever more blurred, through these years cannot be ignored.”
M: (Begging) “My love! All mine life, though it be lengthy, I fought most venal tyranny, and for this moment, you question my righteousness?”
W: (Indignantly) “I have been plunged into seas hostile and I have plunged in a thousand miles of inert minds troubled beyond conceivable comprehension and I have yet to have my Right for my own greedy, ravenous flesh to be vigorously and forcefully embraced by sensuality and serenity. Yes, I do love thee, and yet in our union, as in all unions, I have been adorned with naught, save snickering, gossiping scenes of festive balls, games, chatter and farewells, themselves festooned within silly and sincerely stupid smiles and frowns, and shallow tears and never ending ludicrous chatter unworthy of monkeys conversing. I have met programmed rows of pats, respect and all other so-called decent intents and gestures, but, where, lover that you are of mine, where does my personal heart, throb and manically vibrate, save in your heavenly imaginations?”
(Silence)
W: (Quietly but Determinedly) “My love! I truly thee love and with passions, I tell you, of proportions of precise exactitudes; in your eyes I have witnessed symphonies of exquisiteness; and, I of thee ask: where dwelleth your own love for myself in thine body?”
(Silence)
W: (Passionate) “Do you recognise the changing structures that form this, that I name ‘My Love’? In my solitude eternal, I do evermore and always do pause, and be pensive, and be thinking of questions, such as ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘when’ ‘how’, and ‘which’ should be my path; I am forever and ever more searching, seeking the heavens of every corner, and the irritable tempests, within my changing self as they themselves do try to seek me, and we forever, through inconceivable murkiness, do try to assemble the everlasting entirety of these disorganized puzzles into some measure of comprehensible cohesion that ‘I’ am. That is how the ‘I’ you love is forever changing and thereby formulating itself, and within all these meandering passions, and endless errors, where am I to feel thee? Where? And where do you seek me? In which land? In which forest? You trivialise my beingness as you focus upon my lands as being that which so effortless to find, and yet, you are much too distant from an understanding of my conflicting, emerging civilisations.”
(Silence)
W: (Passionate) If the utterance ‘Never’ is pathetic for thee, then allow me to introduce you to my latest heart: for it screams out that single, protracted utterance! Never! My love, these winds of raging wraths, both within and outside by flesh, must and can only be annihilated by mine own sincerities – were I not to play against my own self. My uncontrolled desires and, yes, thirsty manic passions can only be tempered and thoroughly satiated to the utter brim, by mine own loving, sources of pleasure, my own uncontrollable ecstasies. As for the rest of bodily pleasures, my own erroneous words, speeches and utterances can only be severed and sliced by my tranquillity.”
M: (Resigned) “I hear thine words. Do not abandon me. Do not destroy our civilisation of justice.”
W: “What we share, the bonds, are enjoyment. Listen though to mine lips: enjoyment is what - when it is to be compared with convulsive ecstatic quivers of satisfaction?”
M: (Puzzled) “And what of all our journeys to attain that unity? For all that, is it to be of mere insignificance? And if that be your truth, for what then did we toil and labour for unity of minds and bodies?”
W: (Laughing) “Did you understand from Life itself, that here it was, grandly to proclaim its furtive faces unto thine own awaiting face?! “
M: (Baffled) “It was so far too plain and vastly clear unto me these sceneries we faced before our loving bodies.”
W: “Yes, and I too, did see them with thee. Our four eyes, did see unity for that flicker of time. How true you speak! But, time clocked on, I saw you as you stood there, moving nowhere, unawares that it was your duty to squash onwards whatever vile breaths faced us.”
M: (Desperate) “And did I not? Did I abandon thee in these crushing paths?”
W: (Accusing) “No, you did not. Never, once did you abandon me. I ask of thee; for what sense do we feel a need for a continuation of these gruelling marches? For unity? For love? Or, is love unity? Was that and is this our reason for us to carry on with these shackles?”
M: “For assuredly, yes, and more yes, I tell thee! Toil and gruelling dawns, and unbearable evenings and the whitest of nights are all for the sacred attainment of that heavenly summit of joy I name as blessed ‘Love’.”
W: (Assured) “And, Sire, what if my nerves, blood and bodily hunger tell thee in truth that we, all of us, need no longer, and need never in truth, to undertake these paths, for we find naught that nourishes us at the blessed summit of your definition of what ‘Love’ is?”
M: (Confused & Sad) “So, I falter here and now upon understanding your speech; do I reason from thee that our loving days in unity are frivolously bygone now?”
W: (Calmly & Gracefully) “Do the wandering birds, and do the blind bats, and do the reckless storms, and do the blindly, raging waves and do the supremely arrogant oceans eternally march on in but one direction only with the savage passage of time within their particular lives? You did pronounce that you built planets for our unity; well then, did you not view how planets endlessly revolve along the same path?”
(Pause)
W: (Calmly & with Dignity) “For, Sire, I am not as a Planet - could you not feel that throughout our journeys? You endlessly query and question ‘who’ it is that ‘I’ am? Well, I speak this much on myself; I am as the birds, and the bats, and the storms and the waves and the oceans.”  
M: (Angry) “Woman! I can only then tell of thee that you are naught but feuding clutter and violent disarray!”
W: (Unconcerned) “Those are your words. Not mine. Speak for what you wish, Sire.”
M: (Angry) “And I stand here, before thee, in anger – nay, more, more! In fury!”
W: (Laughing) “For what? For the deeds that created but sticky, and grimy grains of sand for the undoubted pleasure our eyes?”
M: “And so you label our truths, our love so much! Fair indeed, you speak, Woman of Justice.”
W: (Arrogantly) “Man! Express your delights for your own delights. And, alas, there the circle and reality ends – and it ends only for you. That is one morsel of truth for you to ponder. What we ‘created’ and what we ‘loved’ was never and never, ever be the same for you as it is for me. Are you a sincere believer that your personal vision is the same sight all other seeing creatures envision?”
M: (Angry) “Woman, you enrage me! Your arrogance is drenching thine rags.”
W: (Sarcastic) “Tis the Man with no reason who allows his breath and words to be a veritable cesspool of fuming stenches!”
M: “But I, that I am, no longer can define your contours?”
W: (Pointedly) “Precisely, Man, precisely. Perhaps, now you have come closer to the vulnerable shores of reality!”
M: (Confused) “Do you express that you are ever varying and so for that reason there is not a one unified you?”
W: (Calmly) “For we are all ‘varying’, to borrow your word – if you do so allow me, Sire. There was never ‘unity’ of soul, nor mind, nor self, nor of any one personality. This, I desire, that you may understand.”
M: (Aghast) “Then if that be your truth and then, are we naught but multitudes of ever changing confusions, Lady of the Desert?”
W: (Calmly) “Yes and no! For those who are muscular and full of fertile vigour in their flesh, and in their intellects, and those that are severely and strictly scholastic, then they do need and they can succeed in time, in their never ending struggle to bring together the mutually antagonistic factions of that which constitutes our beingness. And, as for the dense brained soulless beings, then, it is equally veritably true that, a descent into madness can be rapidly produced, since from their erratic constituents, they cannot attract together these antagonistic and mutually-hating emotions in some vision of cohesion, and thus mayhem can be fashioned.”
(Silence)
M: (Calmly) “So, pray do tell me, where does Love and Justice and Truth and Morality stand in your universe?”
W: (Serenely) “That has been mine desire to hear the words being produced from your lips, Man!”
(Pause)
W: “So, now perhaps, your sight may be getting clearer, for your question is certainly apt. Foremost, we pathetic mortals, we the be are forever slimy specks of sand that  crumbles, must necessarily seek to survive and flourish within whatever forest, desert, meadow we find ourselves cast upon.”
M: (Startled) “At what cost, Woman? At the expense of Morality?”
W: (Rapidly) “Yes and no.”
M: (Shocked) “Horrendous! How can you spout out such filth?”
W: (Quietly) “Restrain your stupidities, and give more room to your intelligence, Sire.”
(Silence)
W: (Gracefully) “In times of trouble, what can Man do when he be forced to embrace evil, even though he finds the act of the embrace loathsome, but he does what he does for the truth of his vital existence to continue. Only when he need never embrace vile, and then allows himself to commit the act, then he is for certainty to incur the everlasting wrath of God. Evil is thus never one truth to be utterly rejected, perchance you may now see. ”
M: (Calm but Tired) “I follow your words and their ideas therein.”
W: (Gracefully) “When you talk to me on Man and everlasting, conflicting changes within that self-same creature, I tell you with all the earnestness that I possess, of what God has scattered and endowed upon me; for this beast, we all call in unity Man, this creature has far too many a numberless number of mutually self-contradicting, distrusting, loving, hating, inspiring and a never ending number of feelings and emotions that are in constant flow and change – as in any rapid river descending unto its eventual destination, which in its case, is the sea, while in our case, it is Death itself for sure.”
M: (Despair) “And how can this beast ‘love’ anyone within this welter of confusion?”
W: (Rapidly) “He cannot!”
M: (Rapidly, Begging) “But Man and Woman do love with bristling passions! Do you deny that, Woman?!”
W: (Calmly, eyes downwards looking) “Yes, and no. Since the beast has needs, based on his vastly intricate constituents, to ‘love’ his fellow beast, he imagines and believes in his imagination that he is really in a situation of ‘love’ and that – as you put it, is ‘bristling with passion’.”
M: (Softly) “So, Woman, it all but illusions, you speak?”
W: (Sorrowfully) “Yes, and no. I tell you that as far the ‘loving’ beast, since he genuinely believes that this is ‘love’, then it truly becomes ‘love’ for him. But, as far as the wider truth of reality expresses itself in its manifold manners, we sadly know that he is nowhere near ‘love’ and that he is being but his mere self – which is to say, being typically delusional!”
M: (Exasperated) “My Lord! Everything for you is “yes and no”; you are yourself nothing but energy that is contradictory. I mean to ask you, as per my last question - is Man in love or is he not in love and yet, before me, here, I see you produce yet ever more paradoxically senseless answers! Have you nothing that lies purely straight before thine eyes and mind?”
W: (Impatient) “Alas, you Man, if your mind is not as endowed as it may need to be, then the fault is surely not to be mine, is it? That is a question for you to ask our dear God upon your particular meeting with Him.”
M: (Angry) “Are you daring to speak that I am daft, you foolish Woman?”
W: (Amused) “Precisely. Well, actually not precisely. Far more than ‘daft’.”
M: (Sarcastic) “Anyone who does not agree with you is dim?”
W: (Laughing sarcastically) “Man, what a senseless fool you indeed are. I never have spoken words that anyone who is in ‘disagreement’ with me must be dim. However, and this sentence is certainly for you: I do say that if Man is incapable of understanding my words, then he must be not dissimilar to our cousins, the apes.”
M: (Pleading) “Woman! I ask you, can Love be - or can it not be?”
W: (Subdued) “Permit me, Man, how do you explain unto me what ‘Love’ is?”
M: (In anger and pride) “What is Love? You ask that of me? I, a warrior all my decades, fighting furiously and fighting passionately against all oppressors, against all evil-doers, and you say to me what is ‘Love’?”
W: (Inquisitive) “You have expressed to me that you have fought all your brief life against injustice, and that is noble by all standards. But where is it that I am meant to witness you finding this Love of thine?”
M: “Love is the struggle itself against tyranny itself, do you happen to see naught but veils and mists and fogs?”
W: (Sarcastic) “So, if I choose to fight against tyrannical rulers, then I produce ‘Love’ from my actions?”
M: (Frantic) “If you choose to fight the tyrannical ruler for the single purpose of removing that vile ruler in the hope of liberating the people of land, then, that is one form of love indeed. Then there is the other kind of love, Woman, which I desperately, terribly seek you to understand my mind. For, Woman, when Lover seeks to fight tyranny in order for the purpose of liberating his particular Love of his life, then that, I tell you in all earnestness then that too is also a noble form and sacred type of Love. Do you find my words sensible?”
W: (Bored) “And, pray, if you wish to please my sensibility, how does your Lover know that he knows his Lover? Wherefrom does he get that certainty?”
M: (Excited & Speaking Rapidly) “He has that knowledge from Love itself! The energy of Love itself informs the Lover who to ‘love’ - and what he or she must do in order to achieve union with the chosen opposite lover. You see how blessed and powerful Love is for us mere mortals? It is an intelligent form of energy, Lady, think of my words. How do atoms know where to go and what to do? They just ‘know’. Maybe, ‘tis God that tells them. Here too, I speak to you, perchance God directs this exemplary ‘Energy’ called Love, to inform Lover to approach his or her Lover and that is why they fight injustice, sacrifice, and bleed tears of blood, till they truly one day, some day, join in flesh and mind!”
W: “And what of the changes that Man and Woman do undergo – how does Lover continue to relate to his or her opposite?”
M: “Again, for your beautiful question, I tell you this: only for the Lover who has been blessed with Love from our Lord Himself, then, no matter what changes exist within his opposite, the Lover will still, and for eternity love his Woman! That is the meaning of Love, Woman! You ask me, what is the definition of Love? I answer you truly, that is the meaning: that I, your Lover, will fight liars, and jesters, and hypocrites, and cruel deceivers for Your Sacred Cause and – hear me here – and even if you should die, the Man who loves, will fight still and forever even after your expiration! Never, ever to capitulate! Do you feel the boiling energy of furious rage that will not and never, ever accept the rule of the hypocrites and oppressors who oppressed my Lover?”
W: “What is your meaning of ‘Sacred Cause’?”
M: “You missed a crucial vital, life producing word: ‘Your’.”
W: (Puzzled) “’Your’ - And what?”
M: “Woman of Endless Beauties! The Sacred Cause can mean nothing when in the absence of the word ‘Your’. So, listen now: the Lover will fight unto brutal, painful death, only for Your Sacred Cause. That Sacred Cause is for your Lover to do for eternity to fight for your, and only for your dignity, and only for your liberation, and only for your freedom, and only for your joy, and only for your prosperity, and only for your joy. The ‘Sacred Cause’ speaks to me who the Lovers love. And ‘Your Sacred Cause’ means your Lover will fight forever in order to give unto you and only you, your joy, your mirth, your pleasure, your comfort and all the beauties of our miserable existence.”
W: (Bored) “But why take unto your already sun-drenched, parched and burdened body all these arduous tasks?”
M: (Surprised) “What? You still do not comprehend nor words, nor ideas and nothing for all that matters?!”
W: “No, unto you is to be an answer that needs be forthcoming. Speak for me, why should we beasts undertake all these blood-drenched battles and all for the attainment of the ‘Love’ of a Woman?”
M: “For sure! Indeed! That is a the beauty and reality and the truth of Love, for just as Life itself a never ending life and death struggle for existence, so too, is then, Love, for to attain Love, Man and Woman, or ‘beasts’ as you choose to call us, must necessarily and seek to ceaselessly struggle against death, and gloom, and despair to possess that holy union between flesh and mind between Man and Woman.”
(Silence)
M: “To me, I believe that you feel Union is not that so necessary for Man and Woman?”
W: (Surprised) “On the precise opposite! Union is a need of all beasts, for it is a fundamental instinct within our starving bosoms. But your definition of what that ‘Union’ is meant to be, differs from your vision.”
(Silence)
W: “Love is the Union of mind and flesh. That we all agree upon.”
M: “Indeed.”
W: “But in my planet, beasts, Man and Woman, ever change in their visions and in their feelings and in their needs and in their appetites and in their desires so that what Man originally ‘loved’ is no longer the same Woman that he once did love. And so how can you ‘love’ that which has utterly and completely altered into another being. That is truly a contradiction that defines nonsense; so, now – what say you?”
M: (Baffled): “Well, even though we do change with time, experiences and events and the effects of powerful memories, real Love will simply overcome all these difficulties and soon Flesh will reroute its way back to its Lover’s Flesh and Mind will re-unite with his Lover’s Mind. And should the two humans fail to reunite then all that can be said is that it was never Sacred Love in the first place.”
W: “Yes, Man, but why crucify yourself for that Union? Union can be achieved through much easier means and paths.”
M: (Shocked) “Why do you underrate the power of the eternal Union?”
W: (Laughing) “I’ve answered you already, dear Man. For what you so call ‘Love’ and ‘Sacred’ and ‘Union’ are all true to me – but they can all be achieved by much simpler ways than from your tortuous journeys – and you describe the struggle to achieve Union of flesh and mind as being like a life and death struggle. Well, listen to me, ye mortal Man, for you have overburdened yourself when I assuredly tell you, there are easier paths.”
(Pause)
W: “Maybe not as intense, pleasure-wise, as your struggles, but as for the truth that God has allowed us only a brief moment in life wherein we are breathing, I can say this much: it is much better to follow the path I have chosen.”
M: “But did you not before, unto may speak, telling me that your path for the Sacred Union of Flesh and Mind was exceedingly more pleasurable?”
W: “Conversing is the need to be as the tide. I can tell you this much: pleasure and its ferocious, unyielding intensities can only be experienced and defined by the receiver and so – unto you I say, perchance yours are weightier than mine.”
M: “And so now what, Fair Lady?”
W: “And for now, either dream on or think on - in the paths you shall have to necessarily endure.”
M: “And then?”
W: “Senseless questions requires of me none to be replied to.”
M: (Confused) “I ask thee, do we be on this fiery planet, for the sake of sufferance only?”
W: “Yes, and no. I tell you that what is ‘north’ is unto thee, is true. Is it not. You see ‘north’ is the direction that only you and your constituents see,  and, perhaps we ought to all applaud you and pat you and concede that you do indeed see the ‘north’ direction. But, then, for another creature, who sees from a southern angle, they will speak unto us, ‘By Christ, we say, we see naught but a southerly direction!’ Do we then disregard them?”
(Pause)
M: “So who speaks Truth then?”
W: (Patiently) “Both do, Man. For the creature who is from the northern angle, then what he does see, is a northern angle, and so for him, the ‘north’ is ‘his’ truth. And, as for the creature who locates himself in the southern location, then as for himself, his vision can only speak to him truthfully, that their vision is a southerly directed vision.”
M: “So Truth has and have contradictory dualities that mutually oppose each other, and yet at the same moment, co-exist?”
W: “Correct, Man, for perhaps, you do now see some burning light, amidst this fiery blackness of this dead night of blackness?”

FINIS

When life happens
And you are young
There is nothing
But confusion
You are helpless
Don't have a choice
And draw
The wrong conclusion
A hug, a word
A gentle touch
Can turn
That fragile emotion
For growth
Is not just physical
It's your spirit
That's in motion
You form, you grow
Within yourself
Through love
And interaction
The unseen growth
Of your soul
In thought, feeling
Reaction
So when our bodies
Are full grown
And now the issues
Surface
We look back
To our childhood
To find our inner purpose
So often
We've believed a lie
Self taught
Or others have said it
The damage done
To our surprise
It cripples
If we let it
Forget the cruelties
Of this earth
My special
Wonderful child
Be healed
Of all the wrong
That's been
And allow your life
To smile
Your spirit now
Is formed
And strong
Don't believe
Your childhood dictums
Get up in courage
And live your life
And remove
The victim