it was me who destroyed carthage of the ancient worlds in 1300bc. the way i destroyed carthage was this. my mother was a persian queen and carthage wanted persia destroyed. my mother did not want her husband killed so she sent me, her eldest child, to the war. i told them that if they looked into my right eye they would think it was very beautiful but if they then looked into my left eye, which was my most beautiful eye, for i was left-handed, even as most creative people are even back then, they would notice it was even more beautiful.
i then said if i wanted to be a little kind to them they would want to be very very kind to me. they liked me and tried to show me their great kindness but the truth was that they had been so unkind to their children with bad magics involving rings that they died instantly. that is how i destroyed carthage.

I
The rain falling now
In Carthage -
A nectar
Of rainness -
Is like the grains
Of couscous
Made the day of
Celebration.
II
In Carthage now
The scent of rain
Is like the sound of
Pain
Memory has lost
To imagination.

© LazharBouazzi

/                   as i am pretty sure all americana
feels about "us":
oh 'ook, 'ere comes old man
europe,
           no hemmingway,
and no so: as the casual english
expression solidifies exchanges:
just across the atlantic:
                            the, pond...
haven't the foggiest...
     i'm "new" here,
   and even i find these english prims
& pomps and idiosyncracies
a bit debilitating...
today i walked from my home
with a knife in my pocket...
why... why?!
                         apparently it's worse
than new york,
a belt as a qusimodo boxing
glove won't cut it,
   given that that:
   requires a formal introduction,
prior to a fight...
    guns guns guns...
     over 'ere we 'ave knives knives knives...
and politicians can't exactly
ban them... no, not really...
ban knives, soon you'll be banning
forks, then spoons...
   and then...
   the whole ******* kitchen...
we'll all be eating out,
in public, cheap cheap cheap,
cheap restaurants
like the slovakians eat in...
    can you even imagine that while
in st. petersburg i didn't see,
not one mcdonalds...
    same so in moscow:
                   not a single mcdonalds...
it was like a: relief...
  a bit like only seeing africanos
only, but not elsewhere other than warsaw;
erm: afro-saxons?
            sure! we have them in england,
plenty of afro-saxons...
                so now afro(x)
is not pop-up frizzy hair,
bundled into a french bun...
                    type of... "thing"?
**** yeah!
                                hit the spot!
oh old man europe...
      tired and yet, and yet tired
of his riches,
   how craving the old trenches
of Ypres...
the belgian mud, the rain,
                        the rats and crows...
europe: lament over libya...
or even pseudo-neo-rome
lamenting over carthage being destroyed...

in reverse -
              abbrv. into - orior carthago!
was it cato the elder
   who persisted counter to this?
   as heidegger would have put it:
            that's not even question-worthy.