Mind I was influenced by Dues Ex: Human Revolution when I was writing these pieces. Influenced by the sense that I was listening to the soundtrack consistently. That’s a little thing about me, that music affects me in different aspects of my life. Whether it is in recreation, lying about, studying, writing, or even having sex. So some of the titles of the poetry are shared with the song titles – but that’s about it when it comes to what is shared between the two.
Instead, Icarus is a collection of prose poetry revolving around the beggars you would see about in Ras Beirut. I am not going to say how much of it is real. I don’t want to repeat that to anyone. But at the same time, the illusions that take place are small ways to escape into the air, only to fall back down to the ground.
Final warning. This piece in particular isn’t for children or the weak of heart. That said, may I present to you Icarus.
Foreword:
I am a writer who lost his ink
the pen dropped down into the water
it swirled and swirled,
a black whirlpool of much spinning and dispersing. The words that could have been written lost now, leaving black marks at the eddies of the shore.
And I would watch as the ink mixed with the poison that bloomed and fell into the ever receding tide of sewage from Beirut’s shores.
As a writer who lost his ink, the pen left dry scribbles on the paper or floor. And who gave me the idea to take the ink, from the industrial spillage and give it words:
***
Steps:
I thought that if I could believe that things will be better the next day or the day after that, everything will be fine. But all that did was to explicate. Be lazy. That’s all. There is nothing. That it would. Do – but keep the keeper at bay. There is more to my life than that
Should be.
Yet stranger tides have came
through.
Stranger days
wills.
And except for that singular notion the only one I affirmed to and took in and accepted.
There is no-one on these empty street but my self in the end.
***
Beggar:
Different kinds of beggars roam around Beirut at night.
Those who prey on the weak. That pink pot bellied foreigner.
Signs/words of obesity stretched across his 12 year old stomach. A contrast versus the starving kid next to him.
Starving isn’t the word.
A contrast versus the – stretched, straightened back from sleeping on the ground, the boy who earned the most money sleeping on the rickety bed. Trading bed bugs and parasites for the cockroach ridden floor. And he would barely sleep night after night because the indentured slave of a maid would cry as she is raped night after night by the child’s owners. The “mother” would show her love for the children by taking the money earned and shoving crusts of heroin and bread into her flat gluttonous mouth. The kids were smacked into believing of God and redemption and that they use those prayers to invoke sympathy. Though most of the money is so that they would shoo away and leave the foreigners in peace – kid next to him.
And that child would stare at the obese, plump turkey of a boy and the child would walk away indifferent.
- culture shock for the masses
- daily life for him
And as the starved child would come and ask me for a cigarette, I would smack him. Nobody deserves to be a
smoker
Look at him in the eye and tell him
Where there are more foreigners.
Thank whatever son-of-a-bitch up there that he wasn’t a girl.
Otherwise that bed wouldn’t be for her and her “siblings”. But a long line of fat men with the small pricks To feed the gluttonous “mother” alone.
***
Icarus
The sun flared through the shades of the gritty room
It worms itself over to the young girls sitting, sleeping
In that room. The sun flared and wormed and sparked to
move and twist along their naked ankles. A foot will twitch
unaccustomed to the strange warmth
as if
as if
asleep throughout the days and awakening at nights for
a vilified pleasure. In the corner their passports were
burned. Their parents in Syria know of them as dead –
if they cared to ask
and all in all, in the drugged haze, the dream
of escaping and leaving and living by themselves like
the ugly ugly men they swallow in each night with
those strange pills that make their stomachs feel weak.
The one recently beaten, the one most recently – raped
lies on the ground naked in flesh, eyes full of tears
the drugs wearing off
the drugs wearing
the drugs
and she would tilt her head and watch the warmth
and she would tick at the ground
ticking
tick
with the semen dripping from her lips.
***
Disclosure:
Disclosure at it’s finest
the wake is all that comes. It comes with broken syllables Broken notes as if from a piano that was left alone to be pounded away by inexperience
and time.
And it is only stopping on the street for that false fresh air of passing cogs that you realize and believe that the broken bones you carry around are being refreshed by
industrial
noise and industrial sounds that come and breathe
1.2.3.4.
and industrial noise and industrial sounds and finally – silence.
Mr. Turner came and fixed the piano.
Mr. Grim knocked at my door.
As I slept away from the window and stepped into that family’s home to play and play and play their piano with a false vigor.
***
Price
The man for that night was a heavy sleeper.
He had his fun, stroking himself slowly
as they fucked in his little girl’s room.
Her clothes were ripped and shorn. Damaged
goods, designer wears. Borrowed to fulfill a
fantasy.
The drugs were fading. Some guy’s idea of mercy.
And she would close her eyes and will him to stop
and will him to stop and move her hips with him and
will him to stop.
The man was a heavy sleeper, after he had his fun.
She crept back into the room, his daughter’s room,
and took with her the clothes. The clothes she sees
the women walk around in, in Ras Beirut. Her hair
still a mess, she dared to try on the clothes. Only to
get a yell out, a stark cry as someone grabbed her
and told her that filthy prostitutes should not be here
and tried ripping the clothes away from her with the
feminine grip, and she would stop and see her age
and turn her fury towards the husband and forget
about the young girl and she would escape and run and run and run and run.
* * *
Corroded Conscious
breaking the soul as each creation we make breaks to split seconds.
Yawning Ends Ends to break break break mechanical soul monster.
Monster. Testing the soul as each creation we make breaks to split seconds. Yawns as we end the mirrored noise in a hallway of glass and smoke and mirrors. The mechanical children we made were sold to flower sellers, flowering the industrial forest with papered pamphlets of God’s name in fast drying paint brushes of water.
And then to find at the end of each night, trail ways and walkways of papered footsteps. Each footstep with the words, worlds of crying. To save me. To pick me up like that man picked up his daughter and carried her on his shoulder and laughed as she laughed with the mother behind them, not in tow, but holding a hand of a son who smiled and held his backpack as he was being dropped off to school and that smile he gave them and how he would look at me as he walked past me and wondered where my mother and my father was and I wondered too and I would remember how I was taken and sold and given away to feed the rest of the family and that I didn’t have them anymore but how I have new brothers and new sisters and how they cared for me only as much as they cared for themselves and that I would then leave and leave and be left alone at night with scooters passing by me and the shouts and yells as I was told to leave each doorstep as each family seemed to step out at that moment from those shiny cars and held each hand and walked into their homes, all smiling, all mocking me.
Each footprint with the words, worlds of crying. To save me. As the mechanical child worth the amount of flowers he sold looks back at you at the end of the street. A diseased face edging.
At the corroded conscious of Beirut.
***
Jewel of the Orient
A routine would be picked up –
on places to go and hide from them
on where to eat and where to hide
away from those men who would
stare at me with those lewd eyes and
I would try to ignore as they would
ask me if I am lost and if I want to
come with them and I wouldn’t trust
them and I would move and sit on the
sidewalk until someone gives me money
but it was just paper to me. I would only
see it and see it and see the eyes with it
and I would be scared to hold it and I would sit on it when it was given to me.
Then I found that at night it would stop people from touching me if I give them
that weird paper and that they would
leave me and look at me oddly. There
would be that person who would give me
food and drop it on my lap when I am
sleeping with this strange M and I would
wake up and touch it and eat it and eat
then get sick and eat and eat.
I would hide in my place on that corner with
the flowers and sit against the wall and smell
those pretty things and close my eyes and sleep
but I can not sleep soundly, that is dangerous
but I would sleep.
And the drugs wore off
And the drugs wore
And the drugs
That made me sick would wear off.
* * *
Everybody Lies
Lulled out of sleep, I felt like I was flying
The ground would be moving by itself,
moving away and away and away and away
Then came the smell,
a feminine smell,
that woman’s smell. The woman that shouted at me
and tried to hurt me. Fear took me and I started to
move and shake and cry out. The next person on the
street would look at me then walk away, no second
thought would be given to me. And I would cry out
but no one would come and help and I would hear
soothing words in a weird language that were warm
but not everything that is warm is good, as with the
drugs they gave us, the only thing we felt was warmth
at first as we began to be used and filled with all these
different things. Warmth is not good. Warmth is not.
I would move and shake, in fear and fear and fear at
this woman and a man’s voice came out and I would
shake some more, afraid. they would hold me and take
me to a room and put warm water on me and clean me
off and wash my face and smile at me and I would be
afraid and try to find a way out and a way out and the
man would block the entrance and I would be scared and
shiver. And they would make sure I am clean then leave
with a towel on the ground and stand outside as if I was
allowed to dry myself, after they saw what they wanted.
And that feminine voice would lead me to the room with
a mattress on the ground but no shackles to keep me there
with food and food and they would watch me eat and speak
to each other. But when I finished eating I would close my
eyes and try to sleep because the food made me sleepy, and
the drugs were there and not going to wear off and sleep.
* * *
Ticktickticktickticktickticktick
aspeedwatchticksaseachpersonrunsbyoncats
withwheelsstucktoeachotherandfinallytobe
meltedandtheyblow smoke as two people
press their weight and pass bybybybye TickTickTickTick wash sip drink cold barley wheat sip drink falls down parched throat. Beer is cheaper than water. Compared at different places. And we save our money on essentials only to spend on non-essential goods more more moremoremore & we develop our own cultures withoutname and call it our own and end up discovering and falling and ticks the clock till we are disavowed and fall and die.
The same patch over the eye. Only difference is that the man is blind in a different eye that day, with a hand out asking for money. Money. Coins. It is as if I were to stop the periods at the end of each sentence and introduce spacespacespace And it would increase and increase with each moment until he would lift up his head, notice a person right next to himself, smack the guy in the leg and cry out “God is Great”. My fucking ass god is great you hypocritical piece of shit. You use that deity’s name in vain, and you were put in this shitty situation because of your own mistakes. And it’s because God is great?
Or because you are a coward?
***
Moors:
Moors sun drip red paint
Moors dune creeping velvet sky
Moors wet tear tear tear tear
the only visible water in the desert
Moors mildew cry from tear spread
Moors create a false light life
Moors Moors Moris you left the residing men and women fighting with scarfs in brooding sinister gaze a gunshot stroke of violin.
+ + – + Gunshot bystander viola + – –
A thousand viola strokes calming a fire
stroke pull pull pull pull stroke
string break Moors
Moors red black paint dot dot dot
Moors desert with drops of red black paint
Moors Moors Moors
Stepping stone for next generations fight.
***
First and Last
‘She’s a refugee, we can use her in our trial’
– Can she speak to us, answer our questions?
‘We haven’t tried, but she’s young – she can learn’
And to that I would be given a smile by the woman and she would try to teach me and she would frown and teach me and when she would frown I would get scared that she would hit me and I would edge away from her and she would smile and walk away and talk to the man again and I would close my eyes as she would come back and a picture would be taken and they would ask again in Arabic and then I would open my mouth to speak but I would be afraid and close it.
They took a picture as proof of my state
added it to a collection – I was afraid that they would use me like the men did.
Use me and let me go.
I would stay in that room with them and try to communicate with them and they would try to communicate back and I would want to tell them about my dreams, about the ‘Icarus’.
And I would disappear
and close my eyes and disappear
and the world would change and I would disappear
into my world at nights, where I am safe.
* * *
Carnival
I would take a mask at the entrance, a grave warning to not
remove the mask when walking at night.
A carnival
would appear. Only at night though, that’s important to remember.
The grounds would be overtaken by people
by sights
by sounds
illusions and patchworks in the air.
A maze would present itself,
a labyrinth at night.
You can only enter at night – exit when you wish but the world remains night within. Each room would have a theme.
Ghost children, mimics of how I would imagine myself to look would run in different paths, different ways.
To the center, you would hear a giggle
laughter
as the children run from room to room –
“Tag, you’re it”
The first room is a corridor. Second room a kitchen.
Debauched, blood dripping on the walls, a room of ice.
I once saw a tree there, popping and crackling. A room of stories, ladders in all directions made and leading to books. The demons would be bathing, an angel would preen in the mirror. Rooms each crawling darker and darker and darker and darker before the rooms to the center are pitch
black.
The center piece is a statue. Alien, not moving. When you approach it –
It would move towards you. Asking for affection. It sees you with the mask. Of a previous lover maybe. Of that mask that each person wears when they reach out to you and who they imagine you to be as they fuck you. It would hug you and you would get a flicker of each room as it is held in your embrace. You move, each room is moved till you remain on a cliff with a chessboard moving by itself. The alien nudges at the board, and when you touch it, you are transported back to the entrance, laughter in the distance and the voices of the little girls in the air.
“Tag, you’re it!”
* * *
Alone
They took what they needed and left me. Let me be.
Gain publicity, and leave me alone with myself and how I gained myself and what I can do and what I can do and what can I do.
I told them about how I was sold off, paid off, to the parents and who sent me, so they can earn money, get money from the papers and the papers that everyone loved but used me and the papers and I was left alone. I ended up trusting them and trusting them and they took what they needed and they fed me and left and I wasn’t told to go but I wasn’t told to stay.
You sit on the edge of the room and watch people pass by and watch them and they may see you or may not and in that darkness in which you feel so safe and secure you notice the silence of the room and the silence because you can hide your fear and hide yourself away. In that room in that world in that sense I would hide and smile and hide and smile and hide as I would move back to my spot next to the flower shop and the decaying building behind me down the corridor down the hall with the open roof and with no such thing as anyone to bother you or hurt you or harass you and I would feel safe here at home.
In this darkness then I could sleep and be awake and be wary and watch the cars pass by roar by, hiding as they do and I would stick and sit and watch and close my eyes and imagine that the wisps of smoke that pass by are nothing more than the illusions that bring me security of my dreams.
Then that dream or shadow would come and I would see the men that pass by and become afraid of them and be afraid and be
afraid and hide and cower and hide and stay safe in the illusions that I carry and wish for a change but not receive any change and dream and change and dream for that change but the only thing that would end up changing is my view of the world as if the drugs that they used on me were moved off and I was left alone with the dreams and dreams that became a reality as I became more and more insane.
And there would be this man, and I would be afraid of men, knowing what they would do and what they can do and the jealousy of that race and what they would do to fulfill their own desires and he would sit
across the street
and sit across the street from me, taking sips from that weird colored bottle and he would drink and watch me and watch me, and I would sleep and he would watch me then move and I would awake and he would move and come back and sit and watch.
And when dawn comes he would be gone and that beer bottle would remain on the ground with scribbles on the ground and I would see him the next night as he would sit and watch and draw scribbles in the air and draw scribbles in the air and draw scribbles.
Sometimes he would be gone and he would disappear and come back
and come back
and come
and give me food and I would eat as he would move back to his side of the street and draw scribbles and sit back head against the wall and watch the people pass by and drink and I would believe that this would be my imagination but it wouldn’t because of the traces left in the morning.
There would be nights that he wouldn’t be there and when those nights happen I would be scared and hide and be scared because something could happen and I wouldn’t be able to stop it or protect myself and I would be scared and I would huddle up and dream and be hungry and dream and dream and dream in an illusory fervor that would make me more and more human or less human and I would dream and think about the world and think and think and wish and hope as I see people pass by with their families – children smiling and holding hands with their families and I would remain in the corner snuck away and I would walk but come back to that same spot and stay safe stay safe safely stay away from me.
And the next night he would be back and sit and watch and bring me food and sit and watch and bring me food and sit and drink and doze off and I know he would be watching people as they pass by on the street – and there would be this one time he would protect me from another drunk and he came the drunk and started shouting at me and tried to get me to move and the man came and watched him and made him stop and left me alone and alone and I would feel safe around him but I would remember that I would always be alone.
* * *
Keeper
The lights creaked, as the shadows shot by.
Shadow
Shadow
Shadow
Three shadows hunting, bending the world around
them
As they hunted and hunted
as if
if they were dogs on the hunt
The scent of blood a powerful force
Hunt Hunting Hunt
The prey ran away.
Faster Faster
Tears flowing in the air. Precious little crystals
the shadows could have paused at that moment
Stopped
Stopped and stared
The crystals flowing, dripping, before shattering
on the ground / ground / ground / ground / ground
The street was empty. Just the crystal tears
remained in the air. Before they splattered on the floor.
Anger rising in the blood. This is my turf. Mine!
Not their hunt
I picked up the speed – cracking the lamps.
With outreached fingers
Running Running Running Running run
The shadows continued hunting, their one track minds
Hunting hunting hunt hunt Hunt
Barring their fangs, with their evil guns.
Bah, childs play. Boring shit. Little boys with their guns.
A side step. A little movement.
Two heads drop to the ground below
The first shadow hunting. Hunting. Silent
Running off the ground
Children lying at my feet
the tears still breaking on the ground
Sending ripples through the blood.
[First shadow running. Running away. Crying away. Away. Away.]
No need to follow the “prey” this night.
My own amusement satisfied.
Heading back to sit next to the flower shop.
And wait, wait, wait
Keeper of the grove / the bait lying at my feet.
Staying and waiting
To keep
my boredom away.
* * *
Jewel of the Orient (part 2)
A routine would be picked up –
I would return to my routine and fall and sleep and dream and dream and wish and dream and stay silent and fall and watch the world as it moves around me my world on this street and remain with myself and not trust others and remain within myself
on places to go and hide from them
and I would hide and feel safe because of those dreams and dreams and I would sleep and eat and wake up and sleep and see that strange man that would protect me and he would be silent and he would speak to himself and say those few choice words and I wouldn’t understand him unless they were the words that woman taught me.
on where to eat and where to hide
and I would eat and be full but not happy and sleep and dream and look and feel something of stupidity as I would see the people pass by and not stop to enjoy the smell of the flowers at the flower shops with the old men who’s dicks no longer can move and are safe but to look at.
away from those men who would
and those men who did not stop at the old ones but the young ones and the children who believe that they can do whatever they want because of what their mothers and their servants tell them that they are the gods of their own domain.
stare at me with those lewd eyes and
I would ignore and move on and be careful and stay away from that poison no matter how hard it was and I would wear my clothes and close them tighter as if I felt them pierce my breasts and I would feel dirty as if the abuse that went on before.
I would try to ignore as they would
and I would stay and I would move and I would remember where I saw them and I would remember what it was like before when they came to the man and asked for what they want and they would pay and he would give us those drugs and send us out and we would be afraid of what can happen. As if we were toys and toys and toys that we should be playing with but are instead played with.
ask me if I am lost and if I want to
After that woman who just took me and used me for her own war, I would feel used and betrayed by a woman, and by everyone and not just the dirty men but the women – is this what it is meant to be human to be used by each other and held down? What was it that I did before that made me just rely on my dreams to keep me safe and safe – and now that each person that scares me how I imagine them with weird faces and I would laugh and move and I would still be scared but I would move on.
come with them and I wouldn’t trust
I couldn’t trust them I couldn’t trust them I can’t trust myself as I move on and feel vulgar and violated as each person took away something from me and left me alone in this culture of the orient.
them and I would move and sit on the
And I would wonder and think and want to get away from here and be happy like those kids on the sidewalk walking with their parents or adults and smiling and not be pointed at and mocked because it is not my fault. It is never my fault. It will never be my fault. This jewel in which everyone has touched leaves me alone and used and leaves me alone and used and I would remain and hide and hide.
sidewalk until someone gives me money
And that man would sit there and watch me at night and I would feel safe and he wouldn’t give me paper but would watch me and make sure I’m fed and he gave me a chalk and showed me drawing but never spoke to me and when I tried to tell him thanks, with that word boundary I would tilt my head down and he would step back and show me how to draw and how to speak and leave me alone and sit and doze and sleep and watch and make sure I’m safe.
but it was just paper to me. I would only
and I would take those papers and collect them and he would show me where to get them and I would collect the money and get more and use them and I would draw and draw and stay in touch with my dreams as they would unveil in front of me.
see it and see it and see the eyes with it
But nobody saw the money the same way. Some of them that passed by would just toss it and others would hold it and covet it and others would watch and make sure that I’m safe and watch and make sure I’m safe and I would hope and stay silent and he would watch and make sure I’m safe and he would speak to the flower shop next to me and I would watch him as he would step back and stay
and I would be scared to hold it and I would sit on it when it was given to me.
Then I found that at night it would stop people from touching me if I give them
that weird paper and that they would
leave me and I would no longer need to and the man at the flower shop took me in and gave me flowers and I would take them and sell them and give them to each person and people would give me that disgusting money and I would offer them a flower but they would shake their head and I would feel like they are taking pity on me but I don’t want that pity.
leave me and look at me oddly. There
And I would leave that flower with them and move on and with the money that was left as extra I would give to the man and keep the flowers for myself and he would see me at one time outside of the store and he would let me sleep inside of the store and I would sleep and feel safe from the outside but I wouldn’t be able to sleep because the sounds of the world have changed to an even greater silence.
would be that person who would give me
And he would come in and check on me and he wouldn’t care of who I am and he would leave me different books and I would try to learn and learn and learn more so I can do more and the man would stay outside on the sidewalk and watch the world that passes by and he would swirl words in the darkness and swirl it with smoke and I would hear the occasional coughing and stay silent and watch the world and watch and imagine.
food and drop it on my lap when I am
And go into the dreams and imagine and dream and close his eyes and dream and imagine and the world would change and the world would change and the world would change.
sleeping with this strange M and I would
And closing my eyes I would imagine and sleep and dream and sleep and wish that the world changes and one time the man that took me in and used me came to the shop and I hid behind the old man and the old man sold him flowers and I hid until he left and stayed on the cot and would refuse to step out and the next time that man came in he told him to go elsewhere and he did that and I felt safe.
wake up and touch it and eat it and eat
And the man that sat outside that I felt safe with but not trusted disappeared that night and I remember hearing on the news of a ring that was discovered and ruined and that the man will go to jail and I sat and took the flowers and moved the flowers and sold the flowers and learned more and more about those flowers and I felt happy.
then get sick and eat and eat.
I would hide in my place on that corner with
the flowers and sit against the wall and smell
those pretty things and close my eyes and sleep
but I can not sleep soundly, that is dangerous
but I would sleep.
And the drugs wore off
And that man never returned to the spot at night. The beer bottles were no longer there. And that man never returned to the spot at night and the beer bottles were no longer there.
And the drugs wore
and I would dream about this person standing there and keeping me safe and I would dream and feel safe and sleep and sleep some more and I would dream and dream and dream and eventually I would sleep and dream and stay in the flower shop and I would enjoy myself lost in the flowers taking care of the place, safe in this world a gift that I couldn’t have been given – that pittance of money making people feel better about themselves but leaving me feel used no longer there but replaced by a sense of work and I would keep working and I would slowly forget about my past and forget about my past and forget about my past and forget and forget.
And the drugs
That made me sick would wear off.
And then when I started reading a bit more I would give myself a new name and I would get a weird look by the owner of the flower shop but he would call me by that name.
Icarus.
Daydreams that build Worlds 