Dark Cities III- Republished!

When you lose your words
And retreat to a dark corner
We should forgive you
You’re an urban person
Not used to space
Your eyes don’t belong here
And your heart holds no dreams
Do people of dark cities dream?
When you lose your words
Collect your past and present
And escape to possibilities
Don’t follow your ancestors’ footsteps
They were trapped in falsehoods
And died young and dreamless
History might not narrate their tales
Yet, you ought to keep their features
When you lose your words
And retreat to a dark corner


YMK
Dubai
Jan. 2006

a visual note- from Dubai

Photo by: Yomna Kamel

communication

“Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful.. When communication occurs, all natural events are subject to reconsideration, whether it be public discourse or that preliminary discourse termed thinking. Events turn into objects, things with a meaning. They may be referred to when they do not exist, and thus be operative among things distant in space and time, through vicarious presence in a new medium.”
(John Dewey- Experience and Nature, 1958)

Empty bottles

How it feels to live in a city that corrupts residents and visitors. It is the culture of empty bottles !!

Schizophrenic!

In the dark city, everyone has the right to be schizophrenic, pretend he is someone else and escape from an ugly reality!!
yomna

hearts .. and ..minds..

soc.hfac.uh.edu

المـدن المقهـــورة

مدينتى ...

ككلِ المدنِ المقهورة ....
يعلوها غبارٌ ....
من نوعٍ خاص .....
يبتلع الأنفاس ....
يسرق حرياتِ الناسِ
وأنا ....
ككل المقهورين ....
أحلم بقوس قزح ....
يمتدُ من الأرض إلى السماء ..
أحلم بجداول ماء ..
وبأرض شوارعها ملساء ..
معطرةً برائحة الأمطار ..
وككل المقهورين ..
أحلم بمساء ..
يأتى بنسائم حرية ..
تقتلع القهر من الدنيا ..
وتعيد إلينا الإحساس.. القاهرة2002

Counterpoint - Homage to Edward Said

By Mahmoud Darwish

Take your birthplace along wherever you go and be a narcissist if need be.
- Exile, the outside world. Exile, the hidden world. Who then are you between them?
- I do not introduce myself lest I lose myself. I am what I am.
I am my other in harmonious duality between word and geste.
Were I a poet, I should have written:
I am two in one, like the swallow’s wings.
And if spring is late coming, I am content to be its harbinger!
He loves countries and leaves them. (Is the impossible remote?) He loves to migrate towards everything. Traveling freely between cultures, there is room for all who seek the essence of man.

(Published in Le Monde diplomatique- Jan. 2007)

بغداد

استئذنك..
سيدى الخليفة...
أن أبكى على قبرك..
دقيقة ...
سقط الوطن من قلوبهم..
وسقطت معه الحقيقة!!
فلتأذن لى سيدى الخليفة..
أن أبكى على قبرك..
دقيقة..

يمنى كامل