I flew on a plane -
It was regular size
And far from a luxury jet.
If I had to guess,
I’d say 400 million
Could buy quite a few, I would bet.
With no royals on board,
We were packed in the rows
And content with our pretzels and drinks.
Every passenger paid,
No corruption or bribes,
Which for Air Force One everyone thinks.
All the world is aghast
As Qatar worms its way
Into He-Not-Worth Naming’s elite
And Americans sigh
At another display
Of democracy’s hapless defeat.
Just after sunset, the brightest star emerged
With Plethoric distinctions, it reached the sky
No cut-off,
With an urge,
The destination she reached in record time.
She's carrying wealth from the qatar,
A degree in hand, now deserves a trip to Zanzibar
As a bright future taking off.
A success story let's celebrate,
Launch another missile
We are ready for another blastoff.
With passion she is blooming,
And with fire her soul is fuming.
Obstacles she turned into stepping stones,
And that is worth acknowledging.
Proud I am,
And I know the best is yet to come,
With her potential so limitless.
The world awaits more of such light.
Congratulations on such an occasion,
Our graduate, yet again a full pedagogical practitioner.
A hot day and a smelter
Is it in Qatar, or in Dubai a friendly aluminum
smelter for sale, the one in the picture on a TV add
looks ok
Now that my wife is on holiday with her aunt I cruse
on the TV, but this is the first time I have come across
a smelter of aluminum
I buy food at the deli and warm it at home, taste
remarkable like my wife's cooking, not that I have seen
her peeled potatoes.
She hollers, come and get it and slams the cooking
lids together
I have had many cars, old ones, mainly because
I can't afford the taxi fare, I have no money to
buy a new car.
Aluminum smelter!
Wouldn't that be amazing?
I met a man in a bar who said he was a retired poet
spent his time writing slogans on walls
I told him about the affable smelter in Dubai
the retired poet looked out of the window
picked up his notebook and took no interest
in my smelter
He had seen a donkey with a straw hat and
regretted his retirement
Where has America’s decency gone
Long time passing
All the folks who support Hamas
would thrill to Auschwitz’ gassings
Hamas rapes, burns and slaughters Jews
Palestinians celebrate these ‘heroes’
Their American supporters don’t want Jews to fight back
The number of foes killed will have too many zeroes
No matter that Hamas embeds its troops
in Gaza’s hospitals and schools
Or that they use human shields
to pad the numbers killed urban war yields…
Meanwhile, Hamas blocks food and humanitarian aid
from ever reaching civilians
As their fat-cat leaders luxuriate in Qatar
drinking and dining in pavilions
Where has America’s moral compass gone
to support monsters like Hamas…
Those who scream ‘from the River to the Sea’
would eliminate each and every Jew ~ Nazi brutality to surpass
He saw a gap in the market,
Knew he'd found a niche
Got the idea at Scarborough
From donkey rides on the beach.
Camel treks from Whitby
Going the scenic way
Following the coastal road
On to Robin Hood's Bay.
The very place where, if
Local legend had it right,
Mr Hood and the Vikings
Had a very dirty fight.
He advertised on the Internet
Pretty sure there would be
A plethora of investors
All as Foresighted as he.
He checked his e mail hourly,
Couldn't understand why
After forty three days
Not received a single reply.
He sent the camels back to Qatar
After a very drastic rethink
Then devoted his life to
The Pursuit of strong drink.
You can find him by Donny station
A sight to make you weep
As he rattles his tin can
Begging for his keep.
There's a moral to this story.
Always look for the hitch:
Though better than the alternative,
Life at times can be a bloody .
Your country has laws
freedom and rights
that lead to the courts
who settle up fights
You think it’s a given
yet see it unfair
determined and driven
but going nowhere
A victim of racism
keeps you beneath
prevented by sexism
seeking relief
being gay is illegal
in the land of Qatar
women ain’t equal
put behind bars
Issue ultimatum
as if it’s our place
try and persuade them
it’s all in poor taste
We used to invade them
back in the day
a land they’ve retaken
to get their own way
But now we are forcing
the way of the west
without our armed forces
because we know best
We had no right
to rule over them
this time we’re polite
as we do it again
It isn’t our place
it never will be
so as for poor taste
how stupid are we
An Englishman went to Qatar
For the football and bants in the bar
I'm here and I'm *****
And I'm after a beer!
He said. Oh. All together now. Ah
© Gail Foster 18th November 2022
Worldwide Pollution
In Nigeria, in Lagos, in lands far away
The garbage pile’s growing more and more each new day.
The US is known for throwing trash in the road
The UK comes close with a big garbage load
But lands that are far are must worse than this quote
India and Asia are at the top of the note
For having no way to throw garbage away
In Pakistan the children have nowhere to play
In Egypt the pyramids were built for the kings
Now they are outnumbered by garbage and things
Qatar has a problem, Afghanistan too
But so does the US, as if nobody knew
Mexico, India, Madagascar is bad!
What Disney does show us, it’s not, it is sad
The animals live in trash along with the land
In Haiti there’s practically nowhere to stand
In Russia there are tons of bad toxins and waste
In China the air is so thick you can taste
The dirt in the air that we all need to breath
The world is all garbage, let’s all plant a seed
Let’s stop all the nonsense, the garbage, the trash
Let’s ask man to value the earth not just cash
Toby comes from London,
But he trains in Richmond,
Has a sporting degree from,
St Mary’s University pond.
Born on 27 September 1994,
And classed as a T33 sprinter,
He stuck it out at the UK door,
Until 2014 when he went further.
In Team GB for the first time,
In 2015 at Doha, Qatar State,
The World Champs. did rhyme,
With many sports people, fate.
Coming third he took a bronze,
So the next year at the Euros,
In 2016 in Grosseto, he had eons,
To win the gold against his foes.
So in Rio he collected silver,
In the men’s wheelchair race,
The T33 in the 100m scamper,
In which you grit and brace.
Jo was born in Yorkshire, England,
In 1979, but moved up to Glasgow,
And in 2011 saw a spinal tumor take,
So embraced fully the Spinal Games.
Thrown into wheelchair rugby brutal,
She became the Crushers vice-captain,
And began in 2014 a career as a F51,
Throwing the discus and club objects.
She did well and set a ER of 17.68m,
Then in Perth got PBs of 9.79 & 19.50,
Where she took home the gold medal,
In both of these rugged muscle events.
In 2015 busy Dubai beckoned, Fazaa,
She did the F32, the F33, and the F51.
She won the discus with a 8.87m throw,
To set a new ER, striving further on.
And she also won the club, totally cool,
With 19.69m to take her home the gold.
Olympic Park in London made 21.5m,
Where she saw her competitor’s backs.
Indeed, at the Worlds in Doha, Qatar,
Jo went on to throw 21.4m, a CR made,
Which relegated her rival into second,
So she’ll be at Rio for both the events.
poem by :Samira Obaid (Poet From Qatar)
ABSENCE
-------------
Do not wait another cloud in the sea messages,
Absence, like a tinkle Trees fall.
Waiting ,like a pile of smoke,
wind scattered me,
Slapping my cloud fires.
I wandered in self,
calcified tear.
Absent when nostalgia increasing.
Do not wait another cloud in the sea messages
I'm no longer need to
salty Cup full of pictures.
Only, pictures of yesterday are enough.
Enough, to make a weakness juice,
while, wait the rest of me.
-----------
A poem translation from Arabic to English.
For France and Libertè
Bloodbath of hearts, young, old and hard working,
Pit of despair with anger, death and evil lurking,
Why France, why that small country?
Lights cut off, silence punctuated the gunshots,
Which killed, and where so many became hotspots,
You are malevolent with no gentry.
France has always been known for free speech,
For America’s liberty and Piketty’s wealth screech,
Continuing to embrace the many;
A hard intervention policy on Syria for the following,
Of other nations which did indeed with them ring,
For a Syrian democracy brawny.
And recently, Qatar only won the FIFA football bid,
Because France validated them to Blatter, the top lid,
Qatar gave them money for ISIS;
The freedom found in France must not diminish,
Right must be fought for to dictatorship abolish,
Our lives may just be the thesis.
In seeming innocence you lie in the warm ochre
in the center of a dust-kicked street,
a remnant of larger issues crushed to just the right size
by killing blows.
Before the mob merged before catcalls
raised the hairs on the back of your neck,
you had been of a favorite pet a cherished wife.
A wife and mother now lies dead brought down by
the bloodlust
of the men around her.
Today, the stones are coated rust-red with her blood
as another women of Iraq is laid low by the men who own them
husbands sons and fathers.
*Stoning is called Rajm in Islamic literature, and a practice found in United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Northern Nigeria, Aceh in Indonesia, Brunei, and Pakistan. Stoning is part & parcel of patriarchal societies.