#title Stoned on Ritualistic Bullshit
#author El Habib Louai
#SORTauthors El Habib Louai;
#date 2016
#source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/396-summer-2016/stoned-on-ritualistic-bullshit]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2016-07-24
#notes Fifth Estate #396, Summer, 2016


<quote>
They shall all tell you, one by one, when you cross them, collectively
</quote>

<quote>
individually, in court lobbies or hotel lounges, in schools or inside
</quote>

<quote>
mosques. They shall tell you only what they shall tell you, in their
</quote>

<quote>
Abyssinian rhetoric of generational apology. They shall tell you the
</quote>

<quote>
same old bullshit they vomited before, and after the great flood of the
</quote>

<quote>
great bullshit out of the great bowels into the great fucked up world of
</quote>

<quote>
ours, they shall tell you only what they shall tell you:
</quote>

<quote>
You should praise your dear Lord night and day
</quote>

<quote>
for having granted you the ease of breathing through one nostril.
</quote>

<quote>
You should praise your dear Lord night and day
</quote>

<quote>
for having sent enough sugar and mint tea —
</quote>

<quote>
for bringing sour milk and wheat couscous to your table.
</quote>

<quote>
You should praise your dear Lord night and day
</quote>

<quote>
for the free birds that have not yet frozen.
</quote>

<quote>
You should praise your dear Lord night and day
</quote>

<quote>
for those who have not yet been gassed in their chambers;
</quote>

<quote>
for the sky that still abundantly pisses on your patches;
</quote>

<quote>
for the army that still reluctantly protects you!
</quote>

<quote>
I do not blame you
</quote>

<quote>
priests of the unconscious
</quote>

<quote>
have turned you all, one by one
</quote>

<quote>
into widowed Mona Lisas with mustaches
</quote>

<quote>
& there you sit in penumbras
</quote>

<quote>
plunged into the noise of your flesh
</quote>

<quote>
afraid of Lawyers’ offices,
</quote>

<quote>
psychiatrists’ couches,
</quote>

<quote>
the neighborhood police station
</quote>

<quote>
Did you decide to die the death
</quote>

<quote>
of a taintless mayor?
</quote>

<quote>
the one who promised to wash
</quote>

<quote>
the neighborhood of its despair?
</quote>

<quote>
did you decide to befriend the treasurer who fattened
</quote>

<quote>
his stepchildren on Urban Household Finances?
</quote>

<quote>
or did you surrender to the bachelor accountant who clipped
</quote>

<quote>
our foliage with his economy of mystical needs?
</quote>

<quote>
I do not blame you
</quote>

<quote>
for having loosened your ties
</quote>

<quote>
when your representatives offer tailored intellect
</quote>

<quote>
how many of you became gay for pay
</quote>

<quote>
& sat in the corners of love waiting
</quote>

<quote>
for a bridge to the other side?
</quote>

<quote>
how many of you drank embryonic hopes in a café au lait cup?
</quote>

<quote>
how many of you slept on post-strike discussions
</quote>

<quote>
to wake up with another historical hangover?
</quote>

<quote>
they shall tell you, one by one, what
</quote>

<quote>
only they shall tell you
</quote>

<quote>
do not bother Late in December
</quote>

<quote>
roam the streets of life
</quote>

<quote>
read newspapers in a strange town
</quote>

<quote>
& drink your cinnamon coffee
</quote>

<quote>
pretend you are used to the explosions
</quote>

<quote>
celebrate your exhaustion
</quote>

<quote>
Who would recognize you after all?!
</quote>

<quote>
El Habib Louai is an Amazigh poet, teacher, translator and musician from Taroudant, Morocco. He focuses on the Beats and revolutionary poetry in English, which he translates and performs accompanied by Afro Jazz and Amazigh Northern African music. His first collection of poems, <em>Mrs. Jones Will Now Know: Poems of a Desperate Rebel</em>, was published in the U.S. in 2015.
</quote>