Friends

Friends

As the divers seek pearls…

This way we have look for friends!

The Logical Song

The Logical Song

When I was young,
it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees,
well they'd be singing so happily,
oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me
how to be sensible, logical, oh responsible, practical.
And then they showed me a world where
I could be so dependable, oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world's asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am
Now watch what you say
or they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh fanatical, criminal.
Won't you sign up your name,
we'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!
But at night, when all the world's asleep,
the questions run so deep for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am,
Who I am, Who I am, Who I am

by Supertramp

Leaving Beirut

Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut Willa and I

He headed East to Baghdad and the rest of it

I set out North

I walked the five or six miles to the last of the street lamps

And hunkered in the curb side dusk

Holding out my thumb

In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic Success!

An ancient Mercedes 'dolmus '

The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi drew up

I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the driver

" J'ai pas de l'argent "

" Venez! " A soft voice from the back seat

The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the back door

I stooped to look inside at the two men there

One besuited, bespectacled, moustached, irritated, distant, late

The other, the one who had spoken,

Frail, fifty five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale blue cotton shirt

With one biro in the breast pocket

A clerk maybe, slightly sunken in the seat

"Venez!" He said again, and smiled

"Mais j'ai pas de l'argent"

"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

______________________

Are these the people that we should bomb

Are we so sure they mean us harm

Is this our pleasure, punishment or crime

Is this a mountain that we really want to climb

The road is hard, hard and long

Put down that two by four

This man would never turn you from his door

Oh George! Oh George!

That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small

______________________

He beckoned with a small arthritic motion of his hand

Fingers together like a child waving goodbye

The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot with my rucksack

And off we went

" Vous etes Francais, monsieur? "

" Non, Anglais "

" Ah! Anglais "

" Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "

"Non, je regrette"

And so on

In small talk between strangers, his French alien but correct

Mine halting but eager to please

A lift, after all, is a lift

Late moustache left us brusquely

And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb

Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust

I opened the door and got out

But my benefactor made no move to follow

The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet

And waving away my thanks returned to the boot

Only to reappear with a pair of alloy crutches

Which he leaned against the rear wing of the Mercedes.

He reached into the car and lifted my companion out

Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a vacant hip

" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous

Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme "

______________________

When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream

She handed me the keys to the car

We motored down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze

Got bust in Antibes by the cops

And fleeced in Naples by the wops

But everyone was kind to us, we were the English dudes

Our dads had helped them win the war

When we all knew what we were fighting for

But now an Englishman abroad is just a US stooge

The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge

______________________

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not queer

The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb

No building in sight

What the hell

"Merci monsieur"

"Bon, Venez!"

His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me

Swinging his leg between the crutches with agonising care

Up the dusty side road into the darkness

After half an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile

When on the right I made out the low profile of a building

He called out in Arabic to announce our arrival

And after some scuffling inside a lamp was lit

And the changing angle of light in the wide crack under the door

Signalled the approach of someone within

The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp

Stood a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us

She stood aside to let us in and as she turned

I saw the reason for her stoop

She carried on her back a shocking hump

I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control

The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife

Almost too much for me

______________________

Is gentleness too much for us

Should gentleness be filed along with empathy

We feel for someone else's child

Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong

Someone else's child dies and equities in defence rise

America, America, please hear us when we call

You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and bustle

You got Atticus Finch

You got Jane Russell

You got freedom of speech

You got great beaches, wildernesses and malls

Don't let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up

For you and the rest of the world

______________________

They talked excitedly

She went to take his crutches in routine of care

He chiding, gestured

We have a guest

She embarrassed by her faux pas

Took my things and laid them gently in the corner

"Du the?"

We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single room

The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform

Some six foot by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed

The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open hearth

And brought us tea, hot and sweet

And so to dinner

Flat, unleavened bread, + thin

Cooked in an iron skillet over the open hearth

Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins

My hostess did not eat, I ate her dinner

She would hear of nothing else, I was their guest

And then she retired behind a curtain

And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of Arak

Carefully poured from a small bottle with a faded label

Soon she reappeared, radiant

Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, their child.

I'd never seen a squint like that

So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its nose

______________________

Not in my name, Tony, you great war leader you

Terror is still terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules

History's not written by the vanquished or the damned

Now we are Genghis Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam

In 1961 they took this child into their home

I wonder what became of them

In the cauldron that was Lebanon

If I could find them now, could I make amends?

How does the story end?

______________________

And so to bed, me that is, not them

Of course they slept on the floor behind a curtain

Whilst I lay awake all night on their earthen bed

Then came the dawn and then their quiet stirrings

Careful not to wake the guest

I yawned in great pretence

And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and washed

And sipped my coffee in its tiny cup

And then with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands

We left the woman to her chores

And we men made our way back to the crossroads

The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light

The dolmus duly reappeared

My host gave me one crutch and leaning on the other

Shook my hand and smiled

"Merci, monsieur," I said

" De rien "

" And merci a votre femme, elle est tres gentille "

Giving up his other crutch

He allowed himself to be folded into the back seat again

"Bon voyage, monsieur," he said

And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the city

I turned North, my guitar over my shoulder

And the first hot gust of wind

Quickly dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.

Lyrics by Roger Waters

IDEOLOGY

IDEOLOGY

Here is a newspaper account of torture practised in modern concentration camps.
The victim is bound to a metal chair then electric shocks ore administered to him in increasing intensity till he confesses.
The torturer cups his hands and slaps the victim on the ear repeatedly till the eardrum breaks.
A dentist straps the prisoner to a chair and drills till he strikes a nerve.
The drilling goes on till the victim agrees to cooperate.

Human beings are not naturally cruel.
They become cruel when they are unhappy —
Or when they succumb to an ideology.
One ideology against another;
one religion against another.
And people crushed in between them.
The men who crucified Jesus could very well have bean gentle husbands and loving fathers who practised cruelty to maintain a religion or an ideology.
If religious people had always followed the instinct of their heart rather than the logic of their religion we would have been spared the sight of heretics burning at stakes, widows walking into funeral pyres and innocent people slaughtered in wars that are waged in’ the name of God.

Compassion has no ideology.


THE SONG OF THE BIRD

Anthony de Mello S. J.

Certitude

Certitude

My reason is to lose all reason

My religion is indifference to religion

A simple answer is enough

After doubt, wine has borne my certitude

The day just broken is already done

Tomorrow is not yet here

Be happy today

Unceasingly fill your cup

And seize this

The sole chance of your existence

Although everything is born of ourselves

Yours and mine are

but two miserable lives

To be, is drunkenness and ecstasy

Tomorrow is the downfall of an age

Omar Khayyam

***

Omar Khayyam

(May 18, 1048 - December 4, 1122)

Was a Persian polymath: mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and above all poet.

As a poet, he is the most famous poet of the East in the West through various adaptations of his rather small number of quatrains (rubaiyaas) in Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

He has also become established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. Recognized as the author of the most important treatise on algebra before modern times as reflected in his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra giving a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He also contributed to calendar reform and may have proposed a heliocentric theory well before Copernicus.

His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works have not received the same attention as have his scientific or poetic writings. Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have also testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Ibn Sina in Nayshapur where Khayyam lived most of his life, breathed his last, and was buried and where his mausoleum remains today a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every yea.

Without nothing!

Without nothing!

Without nothing

I love you

Without nothing

In this love

There is no money

No dollars

No territories

No jewelers

Come… we sit

In the shade

None owns this shade

Love me and think a little at that

Without nothing

Only you

Without nothing

Without all kind of your clothes

Without makeup

Without all your friend’s friends

The Nasty and the nice ones

Come… we sit

In the shade

None owns this shade

Love me and think a little at that

Without your mommy and daddy group (choir)

without eyelid and mascara

without that women weave (chat)

without all this ridiculous masquerade

Come… we sit

In the shade

None owns this shade

Love me and think a little at that

Ziad Rahbani

Ziad Rahbani (also Ziyad al-Rahbany born 1956)
Is a Lebanese composer and writer for radio shows and theater, very famous in his native country as well as in many other regions of the Arab world.
Ziad Rahbani is the son of the Lebanese famous composer Assi Rahbani and Nuhad Haddad, the famous Lebanese female singer known as Fairouz.
He composed many songs for his mother Fairouz, as well as other singers, and he has released music albums of his own. Many of his musicals satirized the political situation in Lebanon during and after the civil war, often strongly critical of the traditional political establishment; others addressed more philosophical questions. He played the lead role in all his plays, and has generally been reluctant to allow the filming of his plays.
Ziad was married to Dalal Karam and had a son named "Assi Jr" with her. But his marriage was doomed to fail, and they got divorced. That led Dalal to write her life with Ziad in the gossip magazine "Ashabaka". Ziad composed some songs about their relationship like "Marba el Dalal" and "Bisaraha", amongst others.
After the divorce, Ziad had a well-publicized relationship with actress Carmen Lubbos that went on for 15 years before they agreed to separate.
Politically, Ziad Rahbani has a long standing relationship with Lebanese leftist movements, and is a self-declared communist. Being a Christian, his politics have meant that he has been at odds with some of his co-religionists. During the Lebanese civil war, Ziad resided in mainly Muslim West Beirut.

Murmur of the breeze

Murmur of the breeze

O murmur of the breeze

Go and tell the fawn to find sweet water

Only intensifies my thirst

I have a beloved whose love inhabits my insides

Should he so desire

He might trample my cheek underfoot

His spirit is my spirit

And my spirit is His spirit

When He feels desire, I feel desire

When I feel desire He feels desire

Mansur al-Hallaj

(c. 858-922)

Mansūr-e Hallāj; full name Abū al-Mughīth Husayn Mansūr al-Hallāj was a Persian mystic, writer and teacher of Sufism most famous for his apparent, but disputed, self-proclaimed divinity, his poetry and for his execution for heresy at the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir after a long drawn investigation.

Living

Living

Every man Dies!
But
Not Every man Lives!

Friendship

Friendship

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance;

they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Henry David Thoreau

Identity

Identity

I am who I am
&
I am who I am not!