فلنفتعل الأسباب

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فلنَفْتعِلُ الأسْبَابَ لِنَحيَا..

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للكلماتِ حُرمة

المواطنون الشرفاء يعتدون على الثوار.. والثوار الحقيقيون يطيعون الحاكم.. والعملاء هم من يساند حقوق العمال.. أما رافضي التعذيب في السجون الحربية فهم الخونة.. البلطجي يصرخ بكلمة حق في وجه سلطان جائر.. والساكت عن الحق ليس الشيطان الأخرس بل الأغلبية الصامتة..

يخلقون الأكاذيب وتصدقونها فتضيع المعاني من الكلمات..

Paris, 2pm

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The city moves you

as it moves me

In long strides soft boots rhythmic ease through pastel

coloured crowds painting lavender fields across acres

of pavement and snow

We go

from café to cinema to umbrella search at utmost speed breathing

without pause for breath you reach for my hand as I find yours

not missing a touch a word a look or a beat

We cascade down the steps to the metro pour fluidly through the barriers

the bodies the plastic posters above invisible lives in ancient tunnels we hover

like water through the cracks in the rocks

we flow

Over daydreams of brassy tunes impressionistic strokes fragrant steam of

morning coffee Japanese food gulping wind frozen on our faces

feeling no hurry no time no cold no need

 

We are the city that moves me as it moves you

 

We are the moveable feasts of what we know what we’re about to discover what we forgot we knew

 

We are urban butterflies with wings of steel scales of glass reflecting sky whites snowy blues

 

We are unicorns of porous stone galloping through the warehouses the palaces the alleyways of one long afternoon

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precious .. precarious

Two flat tyres .. one early morning .. have me sitting on a plastic chair under a tree by the pavement of a side street.. outside a mechanic’s shop .. not far from the house where I first learned to speak ..

Waiting while ..

a savvy sassy boy in his early twenties ..

his girl watching from a few metres away .. out of sight from his boss .. her arms resolutely crossed .. her colourful veil in contrast with everything around her ..

fixes my car.

I’m aware of my first coffee of the day .. waiting .. on the other side of all this.

As the savvy sassy boy goes .. back and forth .. between my car and his girl .. I expect to feel impatience ..

I don’t.

I make two phone calls .. I take out my notebook ..

and continue to sit.

My breathing is slow .. my thinking is slow .. I’m slow to recognise the grounded lightness that I’m feeling as the pleasure that it is..

Pleasure rising like perfumed steam .. from the breath moving through my body .. the sunlight dripping through the leaves above .. onto my arms and onto the page ..

Rising from the heat of the pavement caressing my bare calves .. from the methodical frenzy of the ants .. in and out of the cracks .. in patterns that must make sense to someone somewhere .. but don’t ..

From the glistening playfulness of the red of my toes .. and my hand gliding over this page .. and my memories of these streets .. as old as I am .. as tenderly relentless .. as gracefully obscene.

There’s a faint pulsating pain in my stomach .. that reminds me there’s more to life than this lightness ..

I step aside and watch my pleasure .. precious .. precarious .. powerful as an instinct.

It could easily belong to that moment in the life of a fish when .. with all the natural confidence of a being in its element .. it runs with the current .. and opens its mouth .. to savour the bait.

Here for now .. I luxuriate in the delicate layers of this moment..

and continue to sit.

Fayoum 2010

I have finished my last cigarette, have stretched my arm to where a white marble ashtray lies on a low wooden table, have slowly brought the burning tip close to the ash-trodden heart and pressed.

The ashtray doesn’t seem to mind or suffer. It seems to accept everything with grace. And so my mind is made up. I’m becoming an ashtray.

I slowly lower myself to the floor. I bend my knees, curl myself around them, arms clasped around my legs, my neck stretched and my head pulled towards my belly. Lying on my side, I breathe slowly into the new shape, limbs relax and lose their heat, stiffness and intention. I don’t want to move and I do not try, so it doesn’t matter that the boundary between arms and legs is becoming blurry and mercurial.

The nakedness of this body is natural and unplanned, as are the pores that open on its skin revealing bubbles of still soft clay. My inner clay is reddish brown. It oozes out across the uneven circle that I am, and into the space of air in the middle, filling, closing, spreading, until it fully claims me, engulfs me, and hardens.

I’m a clay ashtray, the size of an average human hand, the shape of a woman lying curled on her side, her features, limbs, hair, bones and heart all merged in grainy mellowness. I’m rooted to my place on this earth, finally becoming the heaviness that has always burdened me.

I’m picked up and placed on the low wooden table, where I will have to stay, pondering the purpose of this new life.

ل أ

The ability to refuse is what makes humans more than the sum of their natural instincts..

Edinburgh, 7am

She leaves the train with the night’s intermittent sleep still nestling its head between her shoulders. At this time of the morning the city belongs to the seagulls and the mist. They will allow her to intrude.. as long as she shares their exuberant indifference.

Cairo, 7pm

She walks her beloved oppressor of a city, in a long flowing dress, bra-less,

the twilight resting on her shoulder, the breeze drying some droplets of sweat

on the back of her knee…

And it’s like sighing, like sitting back in her body and lightly falling.. into sleep…

She quickens her step.

Comfort.. can only come as a jolting shock, a forewarning..

in these relentless streets.

home

Home is not a place you know, but a place that knows you.

ليس الوطن مكاناً نعرفه ولكنه مكانٌ يعرفنا.

what (new) men want

كأي رجل جديد، أراد امرأةً لديها من الاستقلالية ما يكفُل له حريته، ولكن دون أن يخرج مُجمل حياتِها عن إطار حياتِه.

Like all new men, he wanted a woman with just enough independence to leave his personal spaces free, but whose life was still wholly enfoldable within his own.