A very Lame New Year

I really have no reason or rationale to celebrate anything, let alone yet another lame new year of yet more terrible existence without you.  Yet more killing, yet more suffering and yet another dawn of another day ..

But to you, my precious, I wish the best, want the best and long to see you achieve whatever it is you dream of .. with our without me.

A Very Merry Christmas
It must be quite a sarcastic God, and an even filthier congregation, that celebrates the so-called Christmas, and able to look themselves in a mirror every day with this sort of atrocity going on.

So here's a Very Merry Christmas .. from the children of a lesser God to the rest of the rotten world.

Sonnet 116 

This is for you .. a man much bigger and wiser than I said it some five centuries ago.  I wish you the best there ever was, and the best there is to come.

You have shown me what it is to be in love and what it is to have your heart shattered at the worst and lowest possible moment in your life.

The only reason I still am: there is nothing more left in heart or liver that can be broken.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

    William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

The further one goes ..

There's been this thought that's troubling me for a long time now.  Little did I know that Master Lao had a view on my strife.

The thought simply centres around the question of how much or, more precisely what sort of, knowledge one accumulates, the farther one travels?

Is it a case of gathering more knowledge and understanding the more you travel? the more people that cross your paths during your travels, long distance, overseas travel? does one really get satisfaction and knowledge by travelling further afield? by venturing far and wide? or is there a different angle on what seems like a triviality?

This morning's been nothing special so far.  A bit heavier than usual, in fact.  It's raining, and the weather has been miserable in Minsk all night last night  and this morning too.  Nothing too unusual about pulling a book, reading a little, being frustrated with it, and tossing it aside.  
Too lazy to make tea or grab a bite to eat.  I keep thinking of all the things I have to do,  this thought that has been with me months now, and, goes without saying, of her, every second.


And I ask myself, again and again, travelled the world over (almost) several times.  Seen some amazing people, customs, ways of trade, traditions ...etc.  Have I really expanded my knowledge base? am I any more knowledgeable or, Heaven forbid, any wiser?!


Then I see a possible answer in one of master Lao's teachings, and it kind of makes sense, though I don't wholeheartedly agree with it:  "The further one goes, the less one knows".  In a way, he is right, and who am I to question the pillar and post of Taoism?.  But in many ways, he himself teaches that knowledge is within, and fawning is what knowledge does.  An endless cycle of accumulated, re-cycled knowledge - the cycle of Zen.

True, the further one travels, the less one knows.  Though is this not the very basis of seeking knowledge, and therefore acquiring new knowledge by venturing into spaces that one hardly  knows?


In a very small and very silly and very twisted way, I see his teaching in you my one.  The further I travel into this seemingly simple case of outrageous love, the more I am lost and can't find a way back.

Once, I was told that someone who loves you doesn't seek you in their time of idleness, but in times when they are so preoccupied with work, the daily life, their strife ...etc.  The rationale is that this goes to show that you actually occupy a space within their life and daily routine that is so important, that they actually go and seek you prima facie and by default, no matter how busy or preoccupied they are, without needing to find place in time and space to dot it because you are in that time and place any way.

I know you do in my time, space, life and very fabric of my being, that I actually take the time to seek you irrespective of where we both maybe, how much struggle and sadness I carry around, whether or not you will respond, or the kind of load I carry on my shoulders in this crazy life.


And that, my one, is why I will forever be confused as to what it is you feel towards us both.

the less one knows ..


QED.

An Enquiry into Values ..

"And what is good, Phædrus? And what is not good ... Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"

This is a place-holder for a blog post I'm writing off-line.  It is to do with a book by one Robert Pirsig, and his magnificent Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - an enquiry into Values.  

Now before anyone jumps into conclusions, neither the book, the author nor yours truly has anything to do with motorcycle maintenance, or the legendary school of Zen - the mechanical and Buddhist aspects that is, and everything to do with an altogether different undertaking, namely, an enquiry into values, and the title of the book could not be more eluding, nor more befitting at the same time.  Hardly surprising coming from a man like Pirsig.


One day, I'll finish the topic; One day very soon; For I have not liked, nor connected with any of the commonly accepted, and somewhat shallow, critiques of this one-of work, and neither, I would suspect, has Pirsig himself.



And one day .. before I die, I will take my Adil on a similar journey .. where it will take us, where we arrive and who we are seeking, however, is an altogether different story.


So watch this space for a Qud Erat Demonstradum soon ..

The Search ..

Everywhere.  Very specifically, in everyone.  Every face and every gaze.  Every pair of glowing eyes and breathllessly divine smiles.  In the soft voices of young people saying sweet words to each other.  In the loving looks of grandmothers insisting on speaking Russian to me, even though I hardly understand this romantic language.  In everyone's footsteps; the ticks of high-healed, outrageously feminine women all around me.  Deep in my soul; my very being.  In the beats of my heart.  In heavy breaths entering my troubled chest, as if by force; as if knowing how indifferent I am to living or dying ..

In all of these I search for you my one.  Failing every time.  Hopelessly retrying every time .. and so will it be .. so it has been .. and so it will always be.

QED.

To change the world ..

Leo Tolstoy once said: "everyone is trying to change the world, but no one is actually thinking of changing themselves instead".

I must have read this statement a million times, and I don't know if its me or if there seems to be an endless cyclical paradox that infinitely goes back to a common denominator - one's self, then the hierarchy builds up to "the world" which is, very trivially, a collection of individuals, souls if you will, and we are back at the beginning which is also the end ad infinitum.

What completely blocks me, then, is that I, like many fools before me, and doubtless after me, have embarked on a journey to change the world; to create a "world", a universe if you wish, in which one person, one soul, is the centre, and everything would emanate and terminate there, and in the process, little did I know, that I was moulding myself in and around that centre, together with everything precious and dear, within and outside of my very being.

How difficult must it now be to dismantle all of that, and still be standing and survive? it was hard enough the first time round. How much more so must it be now my one?

Neigh enough impossible ..

QED.

Nahawand ..

I guess anyone who hails from a land before time, that gave the world time, amongst other things, must be a proud being, so needless to say .. I am extremely proud to hail from Iraq, the land of Mesopotamia, but that's not why I'm writing this, for fear of stating the obvious.


Today, I saw her .. heard her .. smelled her .. touched her .. in a piece of music I was playing .. she was there .. she is the music .. she is the soul that moves my fingers on the strings of the Oud, and she was Nahawand; In all his glory in her being, his wisdom in her steps, his love in her eyes .. his passion in her contradictions ..

And here is the Nahawand for you my one, for he is you and you are I .. though I thought you'd better hear it played by the fingers of a man I am proud to call my master ..


QED.

The Sun Worshipper

Legends from Southern Iraq tell of a bird that loves the sun so much, that people named him the Sun Worshipper - it is a legendary bird called the "الدلم" (Dilem) by local folk.

Legends tell how he forever has his head up to the skies, and eyes looking directly at the sun's aura, turning all day with it as if dancing, so much so that his tears never stop falling in silent desperation and mute pain.

An old folk poet once told me:

ثلاثه بالملا مثلي يونون: الورق و الدلم و الخنسا الشجييه

To roughly mean that only three in existence will weep the way I do: the Dilem, the wood pigeon weeping the loss of her loved ones and the Khansa "الخنساء", a renowned female poet that wept the death of her eldest brother Sakhr till the day she died.

And though he was a southerner, and I a Baghdadi, we had long chats as he tended to our house's huge garden in days when I thought the world would never change .. we spoke of fools and kings and a million and one other things .. I loved him a lot .. he was also our gardener, and tended the garden out of love for us, as opposed to any sums of money.

The poet has long since died, pretty much like all those unfortunate enough to have known me and I to cross paths with them, which is a whole different argument on its own.

The Dilem will still dance his desperate, legendary dance underneath his beloved sun. She will forever be bright, long after he has gone, long after I have gone, and he, like me, will never stop weeping, content only to know that she will always be there to shine her warmth upon his miserable existence from far afield.

And forever will I weep and mourn you my one, content only that you are, like the sun, as bright, as warming and as loving, are somehow shining down on my barely existing being, till the day I die.

QED.

All's right with the world ..

It would seem so .. it would seem that I am once again revolving around a circle who's centre is myself; a vicious cycle of misconceptions of love, the universe and whatever else is going on around me, when everyone else is busy living; busy dreaming, and busy with a whole load of things that do not include anyone else.

I wonder when, or if ever, am I going to see a light that for once will shine down upon my being and not others; when, or if ever, am I, like the rest of the world, from what I see, going to find happiness and satisfaction that is to do with the selfish 'I' as opposed to seeing it in the eyes of those I care about, and therefore be happy myself?

God's in his heaven .. and all's right with the world .. though I will forever question, which world, which heaven and what right and happy actually mean?

QED.

The Day of Victory

This is a day when no words will suffice. Not a million prose. Not all the words, in all the languages, living and dead.

In each others arms, and let the world go to hell. In love, to the point of melting down space and time around us and not caring. Despite them all, despite it all.

It is a Day of Victory, no more and no less. And it is yours my love, and mine.

QED

The night Che Guevara Died

It was a cold night. The breeze from the Rio Grand was misty; the air full the stench of treason, and little did Che, the revolutionary, Che the man and Che the lover know of any of it. Nor did he care.

Little did he care, I submit, because he was a man in love. In love with his cause, and the woman in his life that stood by him in that cause. With her it all made sense.

More fundamentally, consider this: what is love, but a revolution? what is revolution, if not love? An individual, or a collective, falls in love with a cause - the cause of freedom, the cause of breaking prison walls and the cause of the will of the free human spirit, are as good causes as any. The labour of it all is their fight to attain that ever so near, ever so far an aim. And upon the palms of death, arrives the child of labour of that love, in itself a victorious revolution; A manifestation of the everlasting cycle of life, that has no beginning and no end. What more can be more human, and what else can be so close to being in love than to revolt for it? And the converse, is trivial, quam clarum.

To him, the world was written in black and red - white was to yet to be born. To his mind, the ever-so-subtle interaction between these two colours would produce all the other colours in the spectrum of light that was to be the road to his, well, death. I say that so hesitantly, because I really do have a problem accepting that any man can die when he is so much in love. To my aid rush the proofs of his hands all around, for all to see. To the point that even when his dead corps was being displayed by captors, he looked alive.

I submit that there is a side to this man that no one ever cared to consider, which is how much of a faithful and loyal lover he was. To let it all ride on a wing-and-prayer. To throw caution to the wind, in pursuit of "the one".

And to sum it all up, this is for you, Che. I'd imagine we'd be good friends. Even though we could not be more different in political ideology, we'd be marvellous friends if you were around, for we are both lovers. You, of your Marxist cause, and I, well .. of my one, the only one ..

Here's to you Che .. ever present, and not forgotten.

And here's to you, my one. This revolutionary still lives on, and while they may hang me and show my corps to the world, I shall never surrender you. For as long as I breath, I will fight for you, if only for my heart to keep beating your name till the day I am no more, and my soul has to come back from the realms of oblivion to guard you.

QED.

The hand ..

That rocks the cradle .. is the hand that rules the world ..

She will be, the world has been ruled, sent to oblivion, me with it and both my world and I are an irrelevance.

Her hands, will forever remain, the one that will rock the cradle and the ruler of worlds. Mine has just been unfortunate enough to cross their heavenly path, and fortunate enough to be destroyed by them.

Here's to your Godly hands my Goddess ..

QED

Hic requiescet corpus tuum

Legend has it that St. Marcus had a vision of an Angel greeting him that peace shall be upon him, and that his body shall lie where he was to be killed seconds before he was killed.

The irony of it all is that no one will know. No one shall ever know anything. Whether the vision was true; whether Angels do really manifest themselves to people; whether they exist at all nor, alas, whether St. Marcus is even anything more than a figment of some fanatically religious story teller's imagination. Our witness, after all, is a dead man, of questionable existence.

Pretty much like this being, falling apart, yet standing nonetheless. In love, to the point of no return and madness, yet unbeknown to the world, and very content being so. And there his body shall lie, in a graveyard made purposefully for him, and him alone, and a grave dug exclusively for him, by both of them.

Though he is no saint, and she's as real as the air he breaths, and blood that keeps his veins alive, which is no more, and the wind, and the rain, and the sun and the moon and the stars.

Pax tibi Marce, evangelista meus.

QED.

To you in 2011


I've no idea if you still read this, or will ever, but here it is for the history books ..

I still wish you the moon, the stars and an angel to look over you from afar. I still have you deep down in there, in a place so sacred, that no one can ever take you away from me, not even you. You will forever be mine come what may.

And I still wish him death and eternal damnation in the deepest dungeons of hell, he who took you away from me that miserable day.