Big City, Little Beirut The Rug Beater
Come over to the window, ...Love.... See the Arab woman... On the roof below? ...There!... The one beating Mercilessly ...Her rug... With a ragged broom... As if she could swat ...Away... The dusty footprints Of her oft-swept ...Dead... Who've loitered there... Watch her face ...Explode... And the flowers of her blood ...Stipple... Beirut's crippled ...Streets... As far as Sin-el-Fil.... You don't see her? ...Oh!... Well, now you know What's in my head... ...Why... (When darkness ...Smacks... Our room...your eyes Not stars but bullet ...Holes... Your mouth a ...Wound...) I tremble ...So. Perspectives on the Death of Poetry in Beirut George Dickerson The commando cradled the poem in his arm. When he made the poem speak, it spit stanzas At pedestrians who fled from poetry. From the rocket launcher a barrage of poems Burst like roses in the street. The eloquent shards Inscribed the houses with an elegy. Fragments of the poem's petals were found In the face and chest of a young girl Overcome by the eternal aspect of poetry. At night, when we fought with fitful sleep, The deep guttural throat of poetry roared Across the rooftops and devoured our dreams. A wayward poem entered the boy's head And left his eyes hollow with amazement. A poem snatched hunger From twenty people waiting for bread. Two poems recklessly slit each other's bellies. The head of a truncated poem Was proudly impaled on a barricade. From the cellar, where fifteen poems lay crushed, Oozed the sweet odor of poetry. When the plane lifted off over Beirut, I could see poems shrouding the city, And I abandoned poetry. (Prior publ.: Medicinal Purposes Literary Review) |