Never will the soul kneel to despair
Because ease by God's will is coming
And with it joy and laughter.
Chokri Omri
(Tunisia, 02/02/2023)
Advice
There is no need to play the victim
And go about life as a stubborn mule
Whisper to your poor pained heart
That its dream will pick a good shall
Despite those who said it was
Trust Him, He is most capable
Who gave you life, not they, idiot heart!
Their deceptions and injuries are not a joke
Love yourself and look back time and again
At the many valleys you have crossed.
Chokri Omri
(Tunisia, 01/02/2023)
Money slips through your fingers
Depression sets in and lingers
No gifts to buy
Why, oh why?
Can't go shopping, don't have enough
Do I really need it, it's just stuff
Can't buy pizza
If I had money maybe I would go to Tunisia
Oh, the lack
Everything so black
Wanting to get
When increase doesn't come, I get upset
Maybe, I'm sinning
Don't seem to be winning
Nothing is funny
Wish it were sunny
Increase I'll get
Won't be upset
Dark was the night ..
But the desert's love and the palm trees
Were calling..
The wayfarers went without me ..
It was not a time of waiting..
At dawn, they found a place.
By scorching heat and thirst
The wayfarers were beaten ..
Yet the call of the desert and the palm trees
Could not be aborted..
The wayfarers heard of no fear ..
None of them wanted to stay here ..
I wish I could taste a good sight of them
With a smile and a tear.
- Chokri Omri
"Reflections from Tunisia"
(2022)
It is time now to remember
How time would nearly render
Everyone to see his/her own way
But I hope those ways will cross
Soon beyond earthly gain and loss.
Chokri Omri
(Tunisia, August the first, 2021)
What would be of me
if you could be with me
How would be my present days
if ever you were spared other few days
I open wide my heart so as you I can see
and stand in awe of the woman I would see!
I will not weep or tend to lament
just swallow every moan and each lament
I knelt to the grace of God’s Hands
for the blessing to kiss my mother’s hands
I prayed for a time to once again see you
graced with your presence and a kiss from you
The woman I see as I close my eyes
that’s you, mum, the apple of my eyes
I do remember now my promise and vow
in my words I’d honour your Beauty I avow
Precious praiseworthy parent, my very pride
a sweet scented Rose, a lofty tree in your pride
Envy could not sow its seeds into my heart
as your passionate Love would immune my heart
Here I am on a special day that honours every dear mum
what I feel no words could bear as you are not here, mum..
Besma
Written on March 3rd, 2021
Edited on May 29th, 2021
Mother’s Day on May 30th, 2021 (In Tunisia, celebrated on the last Sunday of May)
Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing mums in the whole world!
And as you see
or do not see
my friend
I continue to walk
It matters very little to me
what has been said against me
This being clearly said
here I am a bedouin
on the hardly being taken road
I am a warrior
whose feet are his blade and sword
I walk with little talk
resting at one time
Harkening at another
with my heart looking out
east and west
south and north
I stand up when I fall
and continue to walk
up and up as a flying bird
who carries his nest
in his heart along
I walk and listen to the songs of life
not knowing if I should cry or sing
I walk, my friend,
I definitely walk
till I meet my smiling fate
and find the garden of spring.
— Chokri Omri
(Tunisia, May 2021)
This is not some verse of weed or wine
discovering now that six resembles nine
What diction or numbers can cover the blows of time?
Those blows hitting and splitting
As hurdles harrowing and arrowing
And then taking your wall for their vine
Those blows sending and pending
Bitter shivers down your poor spine;
Grasp by the time of waking at dawn
there is still room for things divine
Yet never will the garden’s gates unlock for thick hearts
Face it yet with a smile!
Those blows of time
are rambunctiously rampant and windy
to render your sailing ship strong and fine.
Chokri Omri
(Tunisia, 2021)
If love is the fragrance of Life,
Knowledge is the map within ourselves guiding
the flying carpet of the soul
towards its lovely fountain.
Yet, most humans are victims
and/or agents of hatred
and, day in day out,
they struggle to sign loan contracts
with the bankers of ignorance and death.
But further,
Since "knowing is not enough,
we must apply.
Willing is not enough,
we must do",
how could we,
by insisting on ignorance and hatred,
manage to climb the many
a mountain-like burden of life and death
instead of carrying them
all upon us?
How could we,
without reading and learning,
arrive at understanding
and smelling that fragrance of life
to eventually come upon that map
leading to finding that fountain?
Chokri Omri
(Tunisia, March 2021)
A tender heart
is capable of what?
A warm light
in the coldest
and darkest
moonless night;
An embrace
and refusal
of playing
the arrogant
and smart;
I see but then what?
A harmony of
rain droplets
carefully descending
everywhere around
touching our cheeks
offering more of life
and wiping out
tears of deception;
I see! What more?
A reminder
that pain is just a drill
among the drills of life
targeted towards
our weakness and fragility
and meant to make us
feel strong and learn
a daunting lifelong lesson.
I see but then also what?
A tender heart
is capable of courage
Like a noble soldier
Deciding to turn down
an invitation of death.
A candid heart
beating to life
refusing to join
dancing with death
and unwilling to fall
in the trap of taking
desire for love.
- Chokri Omri
(Tunisia, 2021)
Down the difficult road,
they harkened to
go before me.
They were sick and tired
of being dragged down here
And the desert and the palm trees
were calling ..
The night was so dark
But they heard of no fear ..
At dawn,
taken by heat and thirst,
down the difficult road,
they burst into tears ..
They left the horses in the stable
without a prance or saddle
And set the mules to rumble
so as not to wheedle or muddle
They caused everyone to pandle
Why life is so hard to handle!
Down the difficult road,
they harkened to
go before me.
~ Chokri Omri
(Regueb, Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, 2020)
LANDING
Big Brother's eye
beyond the sky
Saw it not sneak nigh,
round valley and hill,
gripping necks at will;
No Global Hawk, Predator,
Brigadier, Mirador,
nor fortress and tower high
Could site it here or there,
abridging lives to spare.
And as providers
keep a busy head
on their insecure daily bread,
even as they watch
in dread for the toll
on the new day's scroll;
And as the white angels contend,
with the Reaper's octopus hand,
And as old earth has to brace
For the Reaper's hasty pace,
Behold the mighty potentates
Of every creed,
of all Palace and House,
of every rank and race
Now kneel before Great Leveller Covid
and, on their clayey knees, plead
with him to spare their crown or mace.
Mohamed Mansouri
Tunis (Tunisia), on 14 April 2020
I want to word my very Love for you
though as a shy child, I start to stammer
a beloved Mother, my sole bijou
as I am of your prime Land enamoured.
A rose breathing the scent of your terra
born and bred knowing no other home soil
how can I bear the burn of your Summer
anger and worry within my chest boil.
I want to paint my very pride in you
with drops of my blood and ivory star
then draw your nature and beauty anew
how would my poetry meet who you are?
To my dear mother, shall I, You compare?
TUNISIA, Your Love, I'll ever bear.
Mother
The best of all my words
I love calling you
Past were those so many years
when the petals of my heart would blossom
as your voice, the sweetest of music would flow
the youth of my soul would cease to grow.
Gone were those so sweet times
when you, mother, in my world would reign
as your Love wouldn’t cease to rain
and the thirst of my soul wouldn’t remain.
Mother
The finest of all my words
I love calling you
I once confided into my words a promise
I would conceal your warmth in my very abyss
I would ever keep your candlelight aglow
and have my bereaved heart lay down its woe
the grief of my soul, I’ll keep my word
and into oblivion, I’ll try to throw.
In vain, I tell you mother
the pain of your loss in my heart couldn’t wane
my words on your blessings are overflowing and plain
the bond we shared is running in my vein
the love I had from you, burning to regain.
Mother
The sweetest of all my words
I love calling you.
May 26th, 2019
Happy Mother’s Day to all the precious mothers in the world
Celebrated on the last Sunday of May, in Tunisia
If every one of us, with a relationship burning
In heart and mind for Jesus, have been evangelizing
Why's Maoist China dominating The Globe despite Columbus ...
Why is it that the Temple Mount is out of Israel's hands
Arabs are all over the land, and the neighboring lands,
Jerusalem and Hebron after David's & Abraham's wars & success?
And where St. Paul began churches, the famed cnames of Smyrna, Ephesus,
Ancient Antioch where we first were named Christian: "Little Christ Jesuses,"
Are now Muslim Turkey's, Syrian ... as if Jesus & Paul never came?
Kingdom Territory have been lost in the Holy Land, in Tunisia, Libya ...
Can someone truly tell me why? After all our successes, books, media
No Temple in Jerusalem ... Hinduism has seduced EU and US of A?
It is as if He never came ... nor taught and healed men and women then
And Earth behaves as if Christ had no disciples, no Kingdom seed of Heaven
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