عرض وطلب

تتضائل المساحات المشتركة
وتستمر فى الانكماش والتقلص
فتبقى متفرج عن بعد، فاشل أولى تنفس
وتستسلم لألم المعدة الناتج عن الفراق
ولكن نعلم جميعا أن اختلاف الاتجاهات
يفسد كل ذكريات النبيذ والويسكى وأفيهات العشرين
كما نعلم أيضا أن مع انتهاء تاريخ صلاحية الألفة
يأتى تجار آخرين لفترينة أمك

Change is a beautiful stranger.

I now tell mad thrashing cab drivers to slow down.
It's like, for the first time in 24 long years,
There is finally something to look forward to.

بلوك بارتى

نبيذ أحمر من بلدان أوروبية وغير أوروبية..
لم أذهب الى أى منهم.. أو أى من جيرانهم..
لثلاث ليالى وأيام.. متصلين بخيط من الذكريات..
سمكه لا يتعدى شعيراتى الحاضنة لبالوعة البانيو..
عشر أشخاص.. يعرفون اسمى ثلاثى.. ورباعى..
ولكنى لا أمضى معهم أكثر عمقا من ذلك..

لا أستمتع بالنبيذ مع من يعرفوننى جيدا..

بيضتين من مصر

Here I am, back to the womb where I came from. Sitting

in a dark room on a bed with speakers filling up the only

vacancy that separates the world from my ears…

wondering why everyone here wants me to be miserable

because I am single, while I wonder why every single

everyone doesn't realize I am miserable because I am here.

حكمة

كل الفرص تأتى مرة واحدة.. فتأتى أيضا متعة عدم انتهازها..

Routine Retirement of a Replicant.

I love you much.

I don't remember the number of slaps both of my parents gave me, neither collectively nor separately. For they were many. I don't even recall any with despair, nor grief, nor self-pity. I don't think anyone who wasn't beaten by their parents is any better than I am. They just had it differently - not necessarily better. I love both of my parents, much.

I get a heartbreak every time I know you are fucking her. I get a reel of pretty good porn running through my mind of the ways you do it. The best porn I've seen. The only porn I've seen. Walk out on me, dear. As emo as that sounds, break my heart over and over again. One day, we're gonna wake up and you'll find no more whole pieces to break, I'll find no heart to feel the knife twist either.

I don't know much.

On nights like these, I realize I am only a Replicant. Copy pasting all my experiences over and over again, never with wisdom, always with pain. But again, I don't blame you, dear. You are just a face among the masses, a clown among a circus, a heartless in any odyssey. I was cursed by a high waist, putting pressure on my stomach making me throw up frequently at your memory. Also making my lungs smaller, less healthy and covered by a paint of French bosom that doesn't go with the rest of my Egyptian body. I was also cursed by a fish memory, one that makes me run to you at your sight by mere coincidence after you've made a vow to fuck me over. I have to live with those. Those are my own problems.

I pray to the forces above, below and even within, though. I pray I remember not to let my guard down. If I never let my guard down, never to expect nor trust, I'll just live through everything like I lived through a parent's slap. Mechanically. Mechanically. I want you dear, mechanically. If I gain back this capability that I lost over the years with silly hope that anything can get better, I'll never have another break not after a million parent slaps, not after being kicked out of a grey Polo belonging to those you let your guard down in front, not after you fuck her sideways, 69, back or front, porn soft or gore.

I never look at you.

How am I looking on your petri dish, you who pushed down the first domino? Am I squirming in pain or is my faking pleasantness getting to you? I don't mind your silver laboratory utensils as you move me underneath the transparency of your microscope lens. Just don't poke my eyes out often with your rubbing in. Pushes through the upper half are perfectly fine for now. But again.. those won't keep a constant supply seeping out of the ooze of my worm body.

Tell me about results, dear. Does the anger and successfully contained grudge give you a hard-on? Or does the strength I wake up in after each of your experiments turn you on more? Feed me in. I can help you. I can help you fake the remaining years of your life. Shall never let down the picturesque I weave you, year after year, that of a grass greener on my side to you, that of something I can never get to me.

The first of a million pushes.

علقة الجنينة

Killing the inside out

All my organs are electrified. I look at them in any mirror and they’re just hung there, rich of electric current webs– that which used to be my blood veins. I particularly have a beautifully lit liver, with a mesh of optic-laser-like wrap. How lit they are making a silhouette of a finely tuned skeleton.

Purgatory is the finest shape of Christianity

The only man who can make a woman happy is unhappy. He is going back and forth through his mind. He is wretched to the extent that he asks me for advice. Like a hermit, he lives in a bleak desert with dark haired Filipino nurses, haunted skyscrapers and a father whose only deed is the half an hour he took to be his father. But even there, as poetic and unreal he is, he manages to weave details of life out of those ghosts.

Hated by the Sun

There is a garden. By day, it has all sorts of plants I don’t know the Latin names for. Even though it’s hated by the sun, it still manages to look beautiful from afar in the light. The lights suck you in. You know there are four militia standing on the top of the four trees, found at the four corners of the round garden. Thirty two naked men are blindfolded, running around the garden as the militia whip the skin away from their flesh. The garden, unlike the Sun, is Sisyphean; the light seems to get weary and fade away, yet the whipping continues…

398 slaps received

Not everything that happens needs time. Time makes it easy to prove something existed or happened. Elapsed is an art and history is the masterpiece. But every time I am pulled into this pitch black room and I am slapped by hands that can’t be that powerful and made of human material at the same time, I know time is a luxury for those who can keep track of it. The slaps are followed with an angry monotonic gush asking me to man up. I ask how. I scream how. I burst in tears. I burst in blood. All interrupted by world class slapping asking me to man up. The organs are never lit in this room.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s

I lived my life staring at a stage of human acquaintances trying to show off how much they achieved, how much money they made, how needed they are, how the world will stop if they ceased to exist. Everyone seemed to be motivated by a goal, seemed to achieve it, and seemed to be satisfied too – for why else would they show off what doesn’t bring satisfaction? As I faked cigarette breaks outdoors, I made imaginary friends. One day, I read “I met a genius” by Charles Bukowski carved on the hidden part of the wood of the stage door. The next day I met him, younger than I am, faking cigarette breaks and making imaginary friends. He told me it doesn’t have to be this way. I never kissed him but I walked away from the stage building as I felt him, behind my back, lighting a cigarette and reading the poem carved on the door.

Google "define:" fail.

I was selected to attend a three months script-writing workshop with a target output of writing a feature film. It’s something I always wanted to be tutored its guidelines. The workshop was reasonable in price, in timing, and in geography relative to where I live and work. More importantly, the workshop was sponsored by an Islamic community service centre – which I assume didn’t know my national ID says “Christian” when I was accepted- thus having room for me to play different mind tricks along the way with people from conservative stubborn backgrounds and all, apart from the usual conservative Copt school of thought which I happen to have dived deeper in. Guaranteed fun in other words.

The film I will have to write will have to be void of any sex. I can’t currently imagine how I – or anyone can write a long feature script that won’t strike you with the dumb idea of dude-there-is-sex-going-on-but-we-won’t-show-you-nah-nah-na-na but that’s another story. Yet that condition is feasible.. shameful and lame, yes.. but doable. The feature will also have to serve a “purpose”, I am not quite clear what’s the definition of this either but I trust myself on faking it when I have to. And finally it will have to be constructive in addressing that purpose.

Constructive... How will I ever be able to fake that?

I didn’t go.

Puttanesca.

Before I gave up wondering why everything

was a lot of nothing worth losing or getting back,

I took out a jar of olives, a bottle of capers,

a container of leftover tomato sauce with onions,

put a generous portion of each in olive oil

just hot enough but not too hot,

along with some minced garlic and a whole can of anchovies,

until the mixture smelled like a streetwalker's sweat,

then emptied it onto a half pound of penne, beautifully al dente,

under a heap of grated pecorino romano

in a wide bowl sprinkled with fresh chopped parsley.

If you had been there, I would have given you half,

and asked you whether its heavenly bitterness

made you remember anything you had once loved.

Michael Hefferman

Of sweat pores, Samia Roushdy and Hamid Sinno.

If there is to be a wonderland inside of Cairo, all the bastard fairies would have chosen Shoubra. A city inside a city with rules unspoken, only known to those who reside it long enough. That’s how my first love affair was like anyways.

It was always summer restricted, even though winter is the season when girls shop for love affairs. That was the only season I survived staying up late in that first-floor balcony on a very quiet street. Across the narrow street was another building, full of Shoubra residents. Some were noisy and veiled, some were old and retired and read newspapers in balconies during mornings – let it be winter or summer. I preferred all the noisy and veiled people in the neighborhood; they smothered us with food with and without occasions. On the last floor however, lived the family of Samia Roushdy, with the whole sons and grandsons formula.

There wasn’t much to do in the summer nights of the early nineties. If you were noisy and veiled, old and retired or a Samia Roushdy grandson, you spent your time guessing which pores will your next humid sweat particles come out from. Nobody used air conditioners in Shoubra. Not in the early nineties. Some do now, but the bastard fairies are working on killing them quietly in their sleep and giving back their place of residence to those worthy of it.

I usually waited till my grandmother found her balancing point in her sleep, and my aunt found hers on the sofa in front of a Mervat Amin movie on TV in a dark hall with a couple of flies making love on the light of the screen. I would then sit in the balcony, pretending to do nothing – and yes, that is doable, but I was really staring upwards to the third floor at the window where the Samia Roushdy grandson showed up sometimes. On the very few occasions he lit the room, he was never by the window, but probably doing something inside the room – a purpose he originally needed the working neon lamps to serve, with more than two flies gathering up and making love on the lit-lamps occasion. Thus, I never saw his face on the times he decided to quench my thirst and show up by the window. All I ever had, was a scene of the upper half of a man, lit by faint poor street lamps, resting one elbow on the window, smoking a cigarette with the other arm, topless and guessing which pores will his humid sweat particles come out of next. As he blew out smoke that eventually fell upon my hair, his radio blew endless tunes of Alphaville, Whitesnake and Supertramp, which were carved in my head.

Winter would come. His closed window would leave me lonely and my pores would leave me bored for no sweat particles would come out at this time of year. I would only depend on Khaled Habib and Nevine Shoukry and the Classic Rock show coming out of poor Casio radio speakers, knowing this is what the Samia Roushdy grandson is listening to behind that bleak closed wooden window.

Years passed and the bastard fairies couldn’t hide me for long and I was plucked out of Shoubra. I went to a lot of other places, which forcibly had air conditioners. I got introduced to people who were not noisy and were not veiled but who smothered themselves in Koky chicken nuggets and McDonald’s home delivery. And as time passed by, I blended in and eventually forgot the Classic rock vows we took and the two-floors apart love we made.

But here I am, in a time that can no longer be called the nineties, sitting in a room that had no air-conditioner, with Hamid Sinno’s voice pouring out of speakers that were neither poor nor Casio, and sweat pouring out of pores even though it’s a winter night. He would open his mouth to tell me how beautiful I am, but I ain’t listening. He would ask me if I intend to say anything witty from my “How about..” series, but I sit there doing nothing – not pretending. I would actually see his face in neon light, hand-memorize it in the dark and see it again in early morning light. I don’t seem to listen to any flies making love now. However, this is not Shoubra and those are not my rules, so I just fine tune and restrict the love I make to the amount he is willing to take – unlike what I’ve done with the Samia Roushdy grandson.

Don't Look.

Nobody needs no saving around here. I hope we're clear on that.

We're just going to ride together in your car, hopefully a public bus,

hopefully even a train. We're going to go miserable places like

Alexandria and Fayoum, for no longer than one day, for only when

you go to a more miserable place do you feel relieved.

There won't be any talking around here. No sparse comments

about how good the food is, nor non-frequent comments about how

you enjoy red wine on winter afternoons with some French cheese

that none of us can pronounce its name right. But I don't speak

French, and I won't be able to point out your phonetical sins, only

because there won't be any spoken phonetical sins in the first place.

Nothing much will be going around here. We will read books on the

most lighted bench across the beach, or while lying on grass,

blinded by the sky light in the background of the parted thighs

of them books. If you like a particular paragraph or verse from yours,

save it for later use in one of your little pockets. And you'd better

have a few pockets...

We will go back the same way we came, we shall never switch

the medium. There will be a lot of similar rules around here.

Be it car, bus or train, it has to be the same back and forth.

You can then share what you've saved up. Make it brief.

We'll be putting music till we part, a lot of it. Sincere effort has to

be made avoiding the talk, since the most exciting sincere

form of attraction is between opposites that never meet.

Hung up.

I was counting the white stripes the other day,

Passing under the car, like I usually do,

On them winter nights,

When I heard Creep playing on the radio.

I held out my hand to press a button,

That had a plus sign on it, like I always do.

He tried to hold it as it was on my way back,

To whirl my hair that's been straightened the other day,

For the sake of passing time on a winter afternoon.

I pulled it away.. He asked why..

"I don't know, I am with someone now,"

I said, with my hand on my lap.

But I don't know if that's true, I didn't say,

He believed me and tried again.

bely bely bely.mp3

بمناسبة كومبو الأعياد

وأنه كلنا هنروح عند ستو

نأكل لحمة أو نفرقع بيرة

كل سنة وانتوا طيبين

واهداء خاص

أغنية الأستاذ طاهر صالح الجديدة

بجد نفسى العب

من زمان ملعبتش

بلى كشرى وبلى عادة

وجعليظة بلى سادة

كل دى أنواع

(البلى البلى البلى)

عايزة تطلع عايزة مهارة

فيها نيشان وانا الصنارة

وهى دى حلاوة

(البلى البلى البلى)

من يوم ولادتى من طفولتى

وانا بالعب عند ستى

كنت بأغلب كل الحارة

كنت شاطر فيها بتارة

مفيش عيل فى زمانى كسبنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

محدش كان يقدر يهزمنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

بجد يا ناس البلى وحشنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

بجد نفسى العب

من زمان ملعبتش

لعبت طسة وترنجيلة

مثلثات وترنجانة

وهى دى أنواع

(البلى البلى البلى)

تركيزها بيبقى مية مية

عايزة سرعة من اللى هى

وهى دى خطورة

(البلى البلى البلى)

مليانة لحدى محدش قدى

غلبت عبد القادر وجدى

كسبت جوايز أخدت ميدالية

وكأس كبير على شكل بلية

مفيش لعيب فى الدنيا يغلبنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

مفيش واحد قدر يهزمنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

بجد يا ناس البلى وحشنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

Death is the road to awe.

The counting of breaths and trees,

The Clint Mansell/Radiohead competition,

Falling in love with men and women on billboards,

Drunk dialing and above all,

Playing Zuma in wet eyes.. and winning.

It will all come back again.

In a heartbeat.

There was a girl I used to know. She had the inextinguishable fire in her eyes and she grabbed life by the balls. Of the few times I met her, she was telling the story of her divorce, as she tried hard to keep the smoke of her cigarette away from her 4 year old daughter. She shopped for groceries after a long day at work, carried at least four big bags of miscellaneous items nobody really needed, her handbag, and a bottle of wine, and finally climbed the four floors of her building till she got to her apartment’s door. Breathless as she was, she chose not to put everything on the floor and get out the keys from her handbag… as not to dissipate her remaining energy on dos and re-dos, but rather to ring the bell instead and just fling inside to the kitchen. Once… twice… three and maybe four times. Her husband, who was watching TV inside, opened the door and shouted outrageously at her for ringing the bell. Ungrateful as he was, he found a bottle of good red wine being shattered into pieces over his head. Their marital relationship didn’t really pick up since then.

Unlike everyone on our table, her reaction seemed completely natural to me, the normal consequence to impatience, intolerance, non-cooperation and non-controllable lust for putting the blame. But everyone thought that wasn’t the right thing to do, probably even my mom… for she never did it.

Severin, Severin.

How about you call me Venus as I dress in animal fur?

صحيت فى ميكروباص... شاكرة جدا، حطيت سماعات الام بى ثرى – اللى كنت اصلا استهلكت اخر بطاريته بمنتهى الشهوة فى الليلة السابقة – فى ودانى، عشان اتفادى اى استظراف أو استلطاف متوقع تجاه أى شئ يرتدى حمالة صدر فى ميكروباص – بغض النظر اذا كان يحتاجه أم لا. يفرق بينى وما بين السواق رجل بيقول على مراته "الجماعة" ولابس اخضر فج... ولكن السواق كسب نقط احترام، مش بس عشان اخد غرزة ما بين تلات تريللات من غير لما يشد اهتمامى... ولكن ايضا، عشان ضيع كل رصيده على السواقين اللى وراه بيشرحلهم ظروف الرادارات والكمائن...

وعادى يعنى... يستمر سواق الميكروباص فى أخدان الغرز ما بين التريللات ويتغاضى عن الثلج اللى بيزحلق العربية تحتيه... فهو على رأى المنادى... برنس الطريق... فيقرر الشاب الفج فى أنه يخدش الكادر الكوول للسواق ويسمح أن موبايله يرن برنة صراخ واحدة بتولد والموضوع بيقلب أن هى بتضحك بهيستيريا... بديهى جدا... كلنا اتسرعنا... وبديهى جدا سرق الشاب الفج الكادر من برنس الطريق... فزى اى راجل لابس أخضر... هو عاشق تافه للانتباه...

كنهاية طبيعية لأى اتنين مصريين فى الموقف ده... انتهى الأمر ان الشاب اللى عنده "جماعة" بيسمع السواق نكت عن البلديات من الموبايل... وكل الركاب... كأى ركاب مصريين طبيعيين... سمعوا كل النكت للأخر وبلعوا البضنة بمنتهى الشهوة...

وعلى اخر الطريق كدة... على الغرزة الأربعتاشر... الراجل اللى ورايا لقيته بيقول "يعنى انت ينفع الطريق كله كدة تشغل نكت عن البلديات؟" ننظر احنا التلاتة... أنا ، ناسية تماما انى المفروض باسمع السماعات اللى فى ودنى، الشاب الأخضر فى بداية احراجه ، وسواق الميكروباص فى المراية الأمامية.

يجلس خلفنا راجل وامرأته وابنته... صعايدة... وصعايدة يعنى صعايدة... جبهتهم واسعة ، تكاد تكون كارتونية... وعينيهم واسعة... وجلدهم قمحى بيلمع من اللون اللى مينفعش تبصله باستمرار... فيرد الشاب الأخضر فى منتهى السسّينة... "انا مالى يا عم ده هو اللى بيقول مش أنا..."

تنظر المرأة الصعيدية أمامها ، وكأن هذا الصوت يصدر من حشرة خضرا... لا تستاهل رحلة الى عبوة الفليت... بل فقط غمزها فى قعر أقرب قبقاب... برضه من غير أى انتباه من عينيها... فتقول...

"هو فى رچالة غير فى الصعيد؟ هو فى مرچلة برة الصعيد؟"

وكأى فتاة قاهرية تافهة ، من أصول صعيدية لا أعلم عنها الكثير... توقعت أن ينظر سواق الميكروباص والحشرة الخضراء الى زوجها ويوبخوه عن ما صدر عن "جماعته" أو يطلبوا منه أنه يلمها... ولكنهم غاصوا فى صمت... وتبللت جبهتهم ، الغير بواسعة كثيرا... ولم يجدوا الجرأة أن ينظروا اليها فى عينيها...

كسر سواق الميكروباص ذلك الصمت بمنتهى التردد والتهتهة ليقول "أيوة يا... ستى... أنا أصلا... عندى... أصل صعيدى"... فأنهى أقوى مشهد سادى رأيته فى حياتى.

iPray.

God..

Give me the money to travel around the world,

the seyaعa to always discover good new music,

the health to drink like a vulgar pig,

and the ears to hear you calling me "Mahfouz".

Sea of Beads.

For some reason I’ve been lying in a quick sand of beads for as far as I can remember. It’s been there ever since I was born. I choke on beads, eat beads, shit beads, and breathe beads. I have never had a good sleep… never with eyes closed, back stretched and legs in sloth… beads can’t make beds, can’t make pillows either. I took it for long enough now. Yet something has changed, since early last year. Somewhere along my skin where my hands cannot reach, a hole was created and the beads flood inside of my body, making me heavier, weaker, not fitter… not happier… like a pig stuck in a cage, sometimes on antibiotics. And no amount of alcohol can help me believe the lie I’ve been enforcing upon myself… that I am as strong and I am doing a good job grabbing life and people by the balls, as I always did before… and always survived.

I never stayed long enough, not to call those beads – or anywhere – home. The sea of them beads flows mercilessly and forces change. And I’m sick of change, of light bags, rental houses, evil omens and lie-convincing alcohol. Now all I wanna do is stand right in front of you, look you in the eye and spit out an avalanche of beads right at your face. To be specific, I want to bull-eye your eyes and create holes somewhere along your skin, where your hands won’t be able to reach or sew, and I will fill you with beads… make you a pig dead… in a cage… with no alcohol.

Something in the Way.

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Goddamn they don't make em' like they used to.

Cassidy: Fuckin' 80's man, best shit ever !

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Bet'chr ass man, Guns N' Roses! Rules.

Cassidy: Crue!

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Yeah!

Cassidy: Def Lep!

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Then that Cobain pussy had to come around & ruin it all.

Cassidy: Like theres something wrong with just wanting to have a good time?

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: I'll tell you somethin', I hate the fuckin' 90's.

Cassidy: Fuckin' 90's sucked.

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Fuckin' 90's sucked.

Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler

Nosferatu.

There is no camouflage in the air. Not at all, no. For I stand, a flapper, naked under a short black dress, mounted by a glittery tilted hat and with weaved spider-web stockings around my thighs. There is not even color in the air. It’s all black and white, even my red lipstick… even the black smoke coming out of my cigarette. Passers-by don’t quite grasp it, for they look at me and spit out remains of chewed tobacco at my flapper shoes and look at me with disgust. It’s quite understandable; they are pretty much disappointed at the uncountable Tom Waits strippers I failed to become. I don’t really care that much, lonely towns make lonely flappers.

From time to time, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives me a call on my old 1918 Nokia. I am always standing by that same corner when he calls. I tell him not to worry too much… “Fitzzie, ye need not worry too much,” I always say. He never listens to me, always has to check on me. He’s a nice guy… His sister Ella too. They live uptown now; don’t get to see much of them anymore. Ella sings too. Ella is the flapper all other flappers follow. It’s a lonely lonely corner ever since the Fitzgeralds left. The whole district can agree except that they have them Tom Waits strippers now.

It was a black and white humid Monday when he passed by my corner. It took a minute or two till he spotted my eyes under the piles of black liner I have on. It took less not to spit any chewed tobacco, but a little bit longer to get me on my knees. “All `em Tom Waits strippers you failed te be,” he said as he smeared the lipstick off of my lips, “don’t know what ye will become.”

But Parov Stelar knew… damned well.