You Will Fall, American Boy

 

You will fall,
American boy

with a gun
in your hand
and a father
on your back
and a mummy
in your tummy.

 

For hundreds of years
in a million drawers
you hide this extension,
but still you show
your other ones

-your car-

-your TV set-

-your house-

-your spouse-

 

We know

it is a gun culture
you carry heavy on your shoulders,
forty-four states
by your side,
we know
it has to be.

 

But in the drawers

dark water is boiling metal
lurking,
dictating
to your cerebellum:

 kill

kill

kill,

American boy,

just anybody.

 

We know,

this is your masculinity,
it is no pusillanimous act
you want to be
everything your ancestors have been.
 

And then the moment comes

in a place you loved
in a place that betrayed you
it is not them
-We know-
it is a smell
in the air
deep in your nostrils.

It is the mummy
tearing your tummy apart,
coming out
to face you.
It is the Aztec mummy
you are so scared of,
-we know-
but you will obey.

It will happen fast.

You will kill one
then another
and another
and another
then a child
then a mother
and another
then the ether
then your oxygen
then your brother.

 

You will open your eyes

suffocating
with the gun
aiming
between them.
 

A red look

from this fearsome extension.
A quick look.

 

It is the moment
that you will fall.

 

And then you will rise.

 

-We know-

But we don’t understand.

AN AUTHOR'S OPINION ON LENGTH

HERE IS THE COMMENT AUTHOR Colette Ni Reamonn Ioannidou
has made on a question about short story optimum length in my group http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/34426-jigsawfiction
on goodreads.
I appreciated the answer that is why I give space in my Literature Blog, since it is absolutely relevant.


["Christos, I came late in here. Are you still out there? As said, the story length depends on where you are sending it...if you have a publication in mind, most magazines/newspapers etc, give a total for what they wish to receive and you write to 'order'.
When you are writing for yourself, then the story needs to be as short or as long as the volition requires...go with the flow. If you are at the stage where you are doing 'professional' material, you will know what is demanded as to no repeats, check backs, cut to the quick any surplus required.

When it comes, it should take over and you should follow the lead. Discipline is something we all need as we write, but we should not restrict an idea to stick to form. It's a good idea to have a stock of work of differing lengths/subjects already honed that you have completed and are happy with."

Colette
Author of TO DIE OR NOT TO DIE/TO LIVE OR NOT TO LIVE    ]

Birds Still Fly In Damascus

Birds still fly in مدينة الياسمين‎

 

The hum of the flaming helicopter aiming for the new destiny hole

falling on Al-Marjeh, the central square of Damascus.

The blow up has made a flock of cuckoos fly around and away.

They were hiding someway,

high in the remaining cypresses,

low under the wrecked rickshaws.

 

The bullets that constantly hit the walls of every standing building

are digging to the inside

Alas! They ignore the roofs.

Me thinks that is where the sparrows have been nesting,

each mother with feathers on her offspring’s hearing cavities

hoping that this new generation will not bare her fear of the past few months,

that somehow those men will respect her and cease fire.

 

The collapsing of the mayor’s house on the corner house of the migrating lawyer

has launched a mass of a hundred pigeons to the sky,

all dusted and wounded, barely flying to keep up,

I’ve just grabbed a falling feather

-it is white-

 

Birds, they said, are still flying in Damascus.

I can assure you this before I go.

But wait!

This old eagle isn’t.

He is sitting in his huge nest on the water tower,

waiting for something I do not know.

he has no eggs to hatch,

he has no mouths to feed,

he just sits there with his wings open in dismay.

If he is thirsty,

Why won’t he drink from the deposit’s ajar door?

If he is hungry,

why won’t he just feast on the vulnerable rats

as they follow the centrifugal urge of this city to empty up?  

But if he is scared why won’t he sneak late at dusk to find a new home very far?

So quiet he is, an idle eagle,

a humble symbol,

of a dynasty ready to fall.

 

And now, full of days, I am ready to draw my own conclusions

and partly disagree,

Some birds just can’t fly in Damascus

-anymore-