An old manual typewriter
sits on a hill of dust.
Is that hunched ghost
your wordless self?
Does that self
with its thick fingers
still hammer out a silence,
upon a borderless page,
one that you now interpret,
adding thin strips of madness
on a skin of light?
Back in the blues funk; a lone acoustic, round top guitar sings.
The whining-twang-between-stanzas, slide-notes on lightly bent strings.
Fingers hammer out the timing on an, ebony fretboard.
Having said what I said,
Having done what I did,
I will never keep my head
short of spirit or down with regret.
Alone in my agony, alone in
my dynasty, I will stand still
and dig and have things to hammer out.
Shall I stop? Shall I thus wait and weep?
I weep but not at this time
in this place when my words
have turned without sense
without platform to feel pride
and swing aimlessly like birds.
O brothers and sisters of shared
Love and Beauty, keep working
keep living keep soaring in silence.
Chokri Omri
Tunis, Mai 2011
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