And on the day when
He shall gather them all together:
O assembly of jinn!
you took away a great part of mankind.
And their friends from among the men shall say:
Our Lord! some of us profited by others
and we have reached our appointed term
which Thou didst appoint for us.
He shall say:
The fire is your abode,
to abide in it, except as Allah is pleased;
surely your Lord is Wise, Knowing.

Holy Quran
The Cattle
6:128

Do you build on every height a monument? Vain is it that you do:
And you make strong fortresses that perhaps you may
And when you lay hands (on men) you lay hands (like) tyrants;

Holy Quran
The Poets
26: 128-130


The desert Jinn of Cairo
flit and dance
upon the burning waters
of the Nile.

The midnight streets gasp
with the turgid fragrance
of tear gas and jasmine

The stink of the
ungrateful dead
riles the nostrils
of indifferent gods
laughing
at the litter of corpses
strewn along
torpid boulevards
in this city of lament

Unbounded crowds dash
amongst fleeting shadows
the agitated ghosts
of undead generations
refusing to stay buried
blink to life
in epileptic frenzy

The timeless city
civilizations
fertile floodplain
authored
western cultures
opening chapters
housed mythic libraries
erected mysterious
stone tributes
esteemed
monarchical opulence
now yields
frenetic outbursts
of Arab fury
writing
an epilogue
to a despots rule
the blessed end
to an imperial age

Rampant corruption
asphyxiating bureaucracy
malicious suppression
syphilitic exploitation
rabid oppression
enforced ignorance
human defilement
are the bitter
sediments
of degradation
layered in crushing piles
upon the lowly masses
on this delta of sorrows
breeding revolution
to unravel a tyrants
specious claim
to perpetual rule

The city
streets
flood with
militant
insistence.

Emboldening
a peoples will
to rise up
beating hearts
pounding
a sonic drum
resonating
through
this age
foretelling
a turn
in history's
creaking wheel.

Allah Allah
Allah Akbar!
bleats
from parsed lips
from underground
brotherhoods
the rising words
sharper then
Saladin's Sword

The Holy Quran
flows like boiling blood
in agitated hearts
dissidents pound
bloodied fists
against intractable walls
of monolithic power

Visions of liberation
a democratic paradise
an infinite harem
of compliant virgins
swim in the heads
of dissidents in motion
as baying throats
exhort comrades
shouting brave
seditious slogans
to engage
bullets
batons
water cannons
and unsure outcomes.

I heard a young woman say
"I have faith in my people
and faith in my country."
Never a more foolhardy sentiment been expressed,
nor braver words have I ever heard.

As the laughing Jinn of Cairo
flit and dance
atop the burning waters
of the Nile.

A city
self immolating
atop a pyre
of blood stained stones
dry constricting fables
passed down along
marching epochs
hieroglyphic puzzles
recorded on
crumbling papyrus
wrapped in
holy legends
of mystical pharaohs
receiving an exiled
Father Ibrahim
fresh from
the destruction
of *****
cedes to the
Lord of Fear
spawns a lie
and gives
Sister Sarai
over to the
unholy whims
of profane
magistrates

Abe's skin saved
soul preserved
the generations
multiply
more numerous
then the countable stars
in a known universe
not vast enough
to find room for
Hagar's cursed progeny
-call him Ishmael-
a wild ***
exiled to
Desert of Paran
siring many
lesser Semites
becoming
a strong archer
in the vast legions
in timeless
service to
an uninterrupted line
of deranged Pharaohs

This scorned land
grew the
grievous reeds
swaddling
Baby Mussa
who turned
the river of
his arrival
into a flood
of gushing blood
who split the waters
to consume
the raging armies
of marauding charioteers
bent on the annihilation
of their chosen
Semitic half brothers

The shame
agitates
the simmering
rage of ambivalence
gladly sacrificing
these historic
treasures
on angry
bonfires
tipping
the glories
of Alexandria
into the sea
once again

Up stairways
down dark alleys
the Jinn of Cairo
dance
haunting ruins
hurling stones
burning buildings
looting stores
smashing artifacts
cursing the bitter bread
of tyrants
chasing
the black echos
of deadly gunfire

Nasser's
dead soldiers
gather in corporeal legions
a proud nations
undead generation
mythic heroes
dashed in Six Days
rise from
shallow graves
of Sinai
shame is loosed
to stalk targets
heated enemies
setting aflame
the burning waters of
a very blue
unsettled Nile

The unholy platoons
Sadat's assassins
hurl grenades
like thunderbolts
from jealous Zeus
implores Mars
to join the fray
rousting the specter
of dead kings
and a terrorized
President
living in the black days
of his final nights

Tell Ole Pharaoh
to go back to the hell
from whence he came
as the laughing
Jinn of Cairo
dance on  the
burning waters
of the Nile.


Music Selection:
Randy Weston: Blue Moses
(WIP)
1/31/11

Night equals day equals night;
The march of hours pauses,
poised in tranquility
as the waning season cedes
to its successor -
with each passing day spinning
like a cosmic pirhouette
whirling about the solar axis.

The oracle of autumn
prophecies the coming snow and ice.
So we gather in our grain
and fire up a *** of tea
to share before the hearth.

The solstice descends upon us
as we burrow in with friends and kin.
But even as the frozen ground
crackles beneath our boots,
we trust the ever-whirling earth
to stretch the days once more
and raise spring flowers from their sleep.

*October 14, 2015

You've made your suffer very clear
In anguish's cutting headlights
You are a fragile deer
Glass organs pop under foot
Your psyche crumbles into dirt
Glass murks reading worse
Than it ever has
It ever has
In this one bedroom den, I'm the wolf
Once I was a scrapyard mongrel
Once you were my wide world
Presently avatar of indifference
You've become a cyclone fence
Every dawn sweet music cedes
Every dusk, must evade sleep
Evade sleep

We bathe
in a different star and its light
One, forever
Our soul
endlessly cedes from Earth into space
and We
eternal
We few
ascend inside of this void bound flame

I offer you my organs
In this unnatural red rust rain
I’ll take this blade I’ll
I’ll take this pain I’ll
Welcome your weakness
with shattering teeth
and a smile

there is a forecast
brewing over the weeping landscape
thunderous clouds pound the earth
and bruised the cerulean sky
into purple emphasis of pain
the electricity rages
and cracks the horizon
the rain pelts in a single exhale
as I ran away

wait until the affection cedes
then as the storm ascends
pump your arms
pull your lip over your teeth
shut your eyes tight tight tight
as the forecast will rage tonight
yes it will, it will rage
upon the terrains of your chest
that inner specialness

don't stop running,
run run run run
don't worry about the mascara
or the ends of your shirt
dig your fingernails
into the betrayed flesh
of your palms
run run run run
the storm raging upon you
don't let it catch you
never turn back

what the hell were you doing there
you know you are a ******
a creep, an unlabeled something
a someone with no one
don't worry about your shoes
they fall, they always fall
keep your head down
and run as fast as you can

bury the keys to your gates
drop it in a well
right now all you have to do
is to protect yourself
from those anguished memories
the almost encounters and doubts
the insecurities and fragmented hopes
keep my head down
right now,
just escape

The bistred day has  fallen still,
A darkened mead hangs overhead;
The hush within the evening chill
Chants now the yore is gone to bed.
A gently breeze steals from the west
Cool along the shadowed lanes;
The sunburned broil, now at rest,
Its warmth has gone, though still remains.

The cold night air stands all alone
Anon the past is gone to sleep;
Daytime secrets tossed and blown,
The faithful night for ere to keep.
Secrets that the breeze fears speak,
Winnowing in the night-time swell;
Brushing eastward 'gainst your cheek
The whispered wind mayn't kiss-n-tell.

Evensong is served this eve
All around the moonlit shrine;
Absolution cedes when you believe,
The cool night air is sweet as wine.
Drink your fill in solemn thought,
Let your mind escape within;
Cleanse your conscience, ever fraught,
Save your soul! ~ confess your sin!

Here beneath a cloudless sky
You're not alone ~ you seldom are;
Within the dim nocturnals fly
As someone watches from afar.
So, mediate, your faith elate,
Ruminate, and yet beware;
Intoxicate your mindless state,
Drinking in the cool night air.

How many hero's/heroines
sacrificed and left too die
all the pain and suffering
who and what can qualify?

Stumbling over the distractions ahead
Craving for more, salivating to be fed
Improper desire for lust and love
Just as free as a flying white dove

We'll move past the bodies
abdications, cedes, and waives
saving, craving, all sensations
just trying to be
brave

But for not to be seen
Covered in red
From the human remains
The lost
The hero’s
The blood
Of the dead

Things that were
and were not
said

Still hearing the silent screams
The nightmares, the sweats
The constant reminder
The flashbacks


No way to forget, it seems
the scars the blood, and everything
like cracks and the unsealed seams
reality of, Avenger teams