excerpt

“Yes, indeed. It’s terrible, Bevan, yet what do you think could be the cause of
all this?”
The Admiral doesn’t get the chance to answer right away, because the server
brings their plates. When she walks away, Bevan tells Ibrahim that maybe
Matthew’s death had a lot to do with his work. So much time away from home,
away from his wife, from his daughter. “Who knows, perhaps our line of work is
not meant for family people? Most don’t have the ability to cope with the
pressure. They begin to show signs of stress and despair even from their early
days on the job.”
“Yes, perhaps some people don’t have the ability to cope with the pressure,
deadlines, and demands of the system. Then maybe the problem is not the
people. Have you ever thought of that?”
“Yes, my old friend, I have thought of that many times.”
They remain quiet for a while. Ibrahim raises his wine glass and toasts the
Admiral.
“This is to your good health, my old friend.”
“And to yours, Ibrahim. May Allah bless you with many pleasant and healthy
days…Have a good trip back home. Don’t forget I’m here and you may call me
anytime.”
Ibrahim has tears in his eyes, and looking deep into his friend’s eyes, says the
only thing he cares for is his beloved son who lives here. He asks the Admiral to
make sure nobody harms him or puts any impediment in his path.
“As long as I am alive, you can count on that, my dear friend.”
Then Ibrahim leads their conversation back to Matthew’s suicide. In his
view, the problem hasn’t been the pressure; perhaps it isn’t even the people. It’s
the agency and what the operatives are called on to do for the agency. It’s also
what the other side does with the intelligence turned over to them.
“You mean ‘The Circle’?” the Admiral asks.
“Of course it is, my dear friend. Look inside yourself there where the answer
lies. See how you feel about the results of your work. The other guys you work with
are humans, too. The time comes when they crack, because of the guilt, because of
all the anxiety, because of all the killings and destruction they help create. They see
it in the daily news, they hear about it everywhere they go, they know what goes on
when they see the dead or the maimed soldiers coming back home. Don’t think
you are the only one who feels the misery of what you help create all over the
world, my good friend. Perhaps this man collapsed under the same pressure of
guilt and disappointment for all the years of killings and murders.”
“Yes, perhaps that’s where the root of the problem is. That means we need to
do something about it and bring about change.”

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XXI
We who started out on this pilgrimage
looked at the broken statues
we lost ourselves and said life is not so easily lost
that death has unfathomable ways
and his own special justice;
that when we died standing on our feet
like brothers inside the stone
united in toughness and weakness
the ancient dead have escaped the circle and have
been reborn
and smile in a peculiar silence.

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Libeccio
The anemograph caught fire
confused wondering
which direction to adopt
Southeastern explosion or
southwestern heatwave
that gallops over the dunes of Africa
and steady charges
to come and engulf your body
to explain its mysticism
languorous upward pressure
promiscuous desire lingering
over the jasmine petals and
on your lascivious curves
while the midnight cock
knowing the magic of lust
under the moon’s direction
calls his first lover and
lost in the fire of your body,
you moan and beg the north wind
to come and rescue you

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Dark Story
You’re far away and I hear you singing
a stuttering song
of the ones you love
bloody songs with abscesses and tumors.
Birds poke on your face
snakes lurk in your eyes
I’ll come to drink your sickly kisses
convince you with heinous games.
I know of a train destined for nowhere,
a bus that will take you away, I know
the music that blows up mountains,
I know the red fish that will devour you.

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Daily Use

Of course all these were somehow vague perhaps even inexplicable
for the ones who raise their glass emphatically over the table without
seeing who holds it until slowly the everyday use makes us mortal;
thus I always tried to look elsewhere when the doorbell rang and when
everything was quietened: where is the host? Why is he hiding?
I leaned on the table that I wouldn’t fall; then bowing my head
I opened the door and followed my path.
And at night, dinner time, in horror, I listened to them narrating
their stories that in a way silenced the dark remote outside — there
where we had lived.

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Ink
He added a little ink to the machine,
the words, oh God, how difficult
to form, letter by letter put on
a line, the consonants on their
appropriate places to underscore
where the voice rises and where they
bow their heads, when his eyes don’t
help well, as they did back then when
he started as an apprentice typist, he
hopes to avoid the painful mistakes
of misspelling words which, using a
lens he starts his daily battle against
errors and what’s the value of an accent
in front of a word and that perispomeni*
heroes that fell when the language was
simplified and the old typist turns
from his machine and stooping over
his soup bowl he can only see ink
in his broth, the ink he just added to
the insatiable printing machine
*_______
accent in the shape of a flat line over a vowel

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