Ce qui ne t'inspire pas t'expire.

God Ibis-Thot
God of Lower Egypt
The God of writing

we must retranslate your name
who has been calling
you Iblis?
are you aththat?
and by the way

how did the sacred cow come
to appear in everybody's book?
Surat-Al Baqara' for one is a long crossing:

Mother, Moooo, Ommmmmm
Buddist, Zen call
to the creative powers of the Great Mother of All
Yimma, Imma, حHayaa', حHawwa -Eva was Heya
Hawaa'- breath, air, apparently became Yahweh- god in Hebrew
and Yahwaa in Arabic- to be in love or to fall down.

How interchangeable the fallings!

Did the cow survive in every body's book because of the sacredness of precious life milk symbolizes? -not as in the misread, mistranslated 'Al Jannatou tahta aqdaamel-Ommahaat', or the multilingual chastity tightly woven around the vocal cords of mother Mariam,
Maria,
Mari,
Marry
but life itself as our collective mother?

Language detours
lapidary inscriptions on the psyche
of every thing that breathes

Let there be light!
Let there be light!
Let there be light was
still is the call of many an African midwife, woman, man and child for the baby being born to emerge out of the protective darkness of its mother's womb.

A natural Out-Come?

My beautiful poet, beloved brother
Lover of all Lovers,
the moment must be ours entirely

and when, where shall it be?
by Sheba's emerald landscapes or
Solomon's dream by the sea?

I am not writing scripts or
establishing-shots about our first convergence
they are writing themselves

what hilarity...

Laws of the Courtyard vs. Word Peddlers

Now the fire is
mostly steerable

Now that the fire is
mostly steerable

what do I do with this
longing for Soul and Solace

that is, memory that
has neither recollection
nor proclivity for
the word

INDIFFERENCE

What do we do
with perfectable-
but-danceless speeches
about 'the war'

AND WHICH WAR?

There is reasoning
and rationale,
almost alive whys
and why-nots

But the desynchronized throb
of the swallow's heart
its incinerated notion of journey-
not to mention the innocence
it shared with children
are still nebulous
invocations
waxers and waners
of the soul's present vernacular

You see
turn-signs of speeches
must also remind you
us
of this

Your humanity will expire
unless you rename it
our humanity

2003

A Few Reflections on Poetry, Art, Language and Future Dialogue with
'America'
Short excerpt from a Prosem/Maqama
Text solicited as a feature contribution to the 10thanniversary issue of the
International Anthology Le Maghreb Literaire. And written in 2004.

Poetry is the distillation of meaning for Truth and Beauty, is the science of the heart and the seven senses. Poetry is the ultimate manifestation of the sacred, because it springs from the sacred, is an expression of longing, celebration or gratitude for it. Poetry's most recognizable face is the verse, though so much of it reaches us not in rhyme, but in the jasmine tree's ability to survive the blizzards of the North. It reaches us in children's generosity, woman and man's labor to lift those who need to rise from the ashes of others' left-over identities, and to rise with them. The hand that sows light and the intellect that nurtures it for the sake of the innocent- and even the not-so-innocent- blood incinerated while still breathing, every life deferred indefinitely, and dreams drained before their naming, are purest of all poetry. When poetry is truly the art of restorative living, its manifest dance becomes irresistible, and only the suicidal will desert it. The emperor dreads the accuracy of History, and dreads even more Historians whose spine is uninhibited. Poetry is the distillation of meaning for Truth and Beauty for our children, for those who nurtured our soul knowingly and unknowingly, those who planted so that we can eat..., 'Purveyors of dreams and imagination'*.

*Mohamed Aziza, Le Chant Profond des Arts de L'Afrique, p.13

biografia:
Rajaa Gharbi is a poets, socio-linguist, painter and filmmaker born and raised in Tunisia. She has been living in the United States since 1982. Gharbi's first languages, Arabic and French, afford her an appreciation of all languages, and a certain freedom in the English Language. She is the first North African poet in the United States to have been published and awarded public funding for poetry work written in English [1986-2006].
Gharbi's poems have been featured in numerous publications and anthologies, including the New Anthology of Arab American Artists, Artists of the American Mosaic [Dr. Fayeq Oweis Heinemann 2007], and the international [USA based] 2003 Poets Against the War Anthology [PAW 2003]. She has widely read from her published literary work and has had numerous solo and group visual art exhibitions in galleries and museums. She is the author of Digging for Gems, a book of poems [Kehna 1993], Blue Forces, a book of essays [Kehna 1998], .From Songs of a Grasshopper, a book of poems and paintings [Kehna 2003]. Her formal education is in fine art, filmmaking, creative writing, and socio-linguistics. She holds a Whole Systems Design MA degree in Transcultural Communications from Antioch University.
She has been teaching in Washington state colleges and universities since 1999. More information on her work can be found at RajaaGharbi.com

RajaaGharbi@q.com