Dubai

A city of fingers
Bedecked in jewels coarse and subtle

Fingers sculpted in imaginations set free from the limits of cash

Fingers
Stuck out at the sky
Fingers adorned with a million stars shrouding the sky with their rainbow blinks

Long thin fingers
Wafting through closets and safes and bank accounts
Grasping fingers finagling value out of thin air and powdery dust

Fingers reclaiming life from nature, water and desert
Wresting habitat from sun sea and salt

Fingers of black and gold, finest silk and coarsest calico
Fingers hiding the souls behind a mask
Hiding the prada behind a gown but flaunting the masaretti

A city of fingers
Is false like her nail polish
Temporary like her Brazilian hair
Fingers that beacon pockets and reason
Fingers that flick off roots like cigarette ash.

Dubai.


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Chim, maje

You have put shelter above my head
And placed strong beams to hold it
Swallows and doves make their nest in the eaves
There they lay their eggs and compose their tunes
We are safe from the maelstroms raging above
Us and the birds that have lost their wings
And the dogs that have lost their bark

We do not know how far you rolled the rocks
Nor how deep you have sunk their foundations for the beams
We cannot fathom the walls you have built around us
That have repelled the wind and the whirlwind
And has withstood the sword and the cannon

Our flour is not running out
Our oil jar remains full
You have served us bread in the midst of famine
You have given us extra for our enemies
And those whose homestead no one now remembers
You have opened our hands to share
And the remnants overflow our store

We have traversed through the jungles
Jungles of concrete, jungles of flesh, jungles of blood
We have traversed the wilderness
Wildernesses of the hungry lion and his cub
We have swam seven seas and seven rivers
Seven hills and seven mountains
We have met men, we have met demons and
we have met men that are demons
We have roamed far and wide
We have roamed in flesh and in spirit
And you have brought us home

Chim, maje




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I don't want to make money

I want to build a house
That will last for ages and ages
To be wondered at and explored
To be a shelter and a palace
A refuge and a shrine
A house to be yearned for in souls
That have wandered far and wide

I want to cure cancer
And abolish pain and maesectomy
I want to make the fathers see their children
And the children their children
And keep the kindred gods happy in their abode
Their abode bereft of ancestors

I want to spread cheer
And smiles across the wilderness
That now stretch from face to face
I want to share a laugh and a shirt
And add a shoulder to the plough
That adds another bushel to the harvest

I don't want to make money

I want to know
The fabric that keeps the eye
Glued to the head and the heart in the chest
I want to discover the strange songs of the stars
And the conversation of the rocks
Sitting on the roadside

I want to debate
With the sea crashing on this beach
Ignoring the oil and the egg
I want to call the wind howling silently
To witness my incantations for calm

I want to count my treasures
In memories shared of laughter and tears
And just the silence of hearts in rhythm.
I want to erect monuments to knowledge
And mercy and charity laid like a carpet
For searching hearts.

I don't want to make money.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad