JASON IDRISS SPARKES
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He won't go away

9/3/2015

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His little washed up body won't go away with the next wave
Because I can't make him other
His little shoes
Are just like...

You know I cried in the shower
Because the curve of his spine
And the shape of his head
Are just the same as...
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Islam

7/22/2015

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Islam

Pacification and surrender to the divine

Looking for the moon as a sign

And following the sun as it crosses the sky

It's not about making time for some worship

It's about synchronizing my time to the divine

Following the holy flow

The drumbeats and chanting of the cosmos

Paralyzing the limiting mind

Performing acts that first seem senseless to the selfish senses

Preparing to break free

By the grace of Allah

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Leaving

7/13/2015

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Another home has turned into an empty house before my eyes

I walk through the cold structure making sure we are leaving nothing behind

We get used to places

But are destined to leave

One day even this body will stop being home

Nothing but a bunch of bones

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MIDDLE EASTERN POETRY WEBSITE

3/23/2015

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I prefer the term 'North Africa and Southwest Asia' (NASWA) to  'the Middle East' (the region is only the Middle East from a Western European perspective but not, say, from a Chinese one). Nevertheless, despite its problematic title, this website is a very good source of poetry from the region, updated regularly with new entries. Any effort to celebrate the beauty and diversity of the cultures found in this region is to be encouraged at a time when they are under existential threat from violent extremists of all sorts, from inside the region and from abroad.

Here are the links:
 http://middleeasternpoetry.tumblr.com/

https://www.facebook.com/middleeasternpoetry
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Casablanca I'm packing my Bags

3/22/2015

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Casablanca I’m packing my bags and selling my furniture again
After two years it’s time to go home
Not that I wouldn’t like to stay
I haven’t grown tired of your endless cafés
Palm trees
Minarets
Beachside juices
Crazy taxi rides
Fast deals
Dreams of Paris New York Dubai Mecca…
Silent Sufis
Loud weddings
Drums and beggars
Loyalists royalists and football hooligans
White walls
Intersections tram stations train stations bus stations ports and airport

You’ve been generous to me
Kind
Even caring sometimes
A base for me to explore this holy country even more
No I haven’t tired of you Casa
I just have things I’ve got to do
Back home

Sure I could be critical
Poverty humiliation crime impatience vanity and envy
Plague you
I know
But I also know you are doing your blessed best
And after you let me in
As a son not as a guest
I can’t separate myself from your warm noons and cold nights
Broken sidewalks
Slaughtered sheep heads roasting on charcoal and the smell of burning hair everywhere
Stray cats
Pushers
Young women desperate to go up or get out
Frightened boys inhaling glue
And saints oh yes your saints
All are mixed into my body now
I am part of the problem and solution

 Casablanca you’ve become one of those cities I can never really leave
Salam
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Le corps d'une arabe

3/21/2015

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Alors que vous vous demandez
Si cette femme arabe a le droit de considérer
Que ses cheveux font partie de sa nudité
À couvrir par pudeur et pour préserver
Sons sens de l’honneur
Et de l’identité
Ses sœurs sont attaquées partout
Ses filles
Ses fils
Ses frères
Sous pression
Accusés
De vouloir perpétuer
Les supposées superstitions de leurs grand-mères
Encouragés à cracher
Sur leurs grands-pères

 J’ai connu des Arabes au moins par milliers
Et je n’ai pas trouvé ces femmes soumises faibles et idiotes
Que vous me décriviez
Je n’ai trouvé que des femmes et des hommes sous pression
Trop souvent sur le point d’exploser
Toujours exposés à des indignités
Quotidiennes banales incisives excessives
C’est avec leurs vêtements qu’on fait notre lessive
Ce sont leurs corps que traversent nos innombrables controverses

 Nos guerres froides chaudes financées libératrices impérialistes économiques et culturelles
Ont excité leurs fanatismes
Mis en danger les subtilités
Et pourtant la nuance est toute Arabe
Les arabesques et les broderies
Les savants mélanges d’épices
Le soufisme
Tout est menacé
Par l’intégrisme
Le libéralisme
Le néocolonialisme occidentaliste
Les wahhabites sont votre miroir patriarcal
Vous vous complétez
Vous vous embrassez
Vous vous embrasez
Vous vous encouragez
À détruire l’Irak la Syrie le Yémen
Et votre viol pénètre masculinement l’Afrique
De l’Égypte au Nigéria

 Mais restons concentrés sur les Arabes pour l’instant
Qui vous étonnent tant
De résister encore
Après plus de 500 ans
En refusant encore trop souvent
De prendre pour unique modèle l’homme blanc
Je sais en occident presque tout le monde
Et depuis longtemps
A adopté le modèle de la chapelle Sixtine
Le Bon Dieu blanc barbu
Touchant de son doigt viril
Son lieutenant imberbe
Pas de hijab ici
Même les féministes sont tombées sous le charme de cette nudité musclée
En occident que l’on soit blanc brun noir femme ou enfant
Il faut aspirer à être égal disons pareil à ces hommes blancs
Renaissants modernes divinement humanisés

Et voilà que des femmes brunes et voilées
Osent se différencier
Jusque dans nos terres javellisées
Nos tribunaux aseptisés
Normal nos juges sont scandalisés
Et nos journalistes fascinés
À la vue de ces fichus

Alors que moi à Casa je vois se refermer les forces divisées
D’un grand sandwich mondialisé
La tranche du haut est un Arabe occidentalisé
Celle du bas un réformiste musulman violent
Entre les deux trop de salade et de viande arabe
Et au-delà
Les dents d’un géant blanc
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Rain

2/21/2015

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I just didn’t fully appreciate the value of water back in Canada
Here in Morocco rain is liberation

From dust and crust  

This year the rain has finally come on the day of ‘Âshûra’
On a day like today Allah forgave our grandfather Sayyidinâ Adam
Put out the fire for Sayyidinâ Ibrâhîm
Spoke directly to Sayyidinâ Mûsâ
Healed Sayyidinâ Ayyûb
Reunited Sayyidinâ Yûsuf with his father
Released Sayyidinâ Yûnus from the whale
Opened the sea for Sayyidinâ Mûsa and drowned his enemies
Forgave Sayyidinâ Dâwûd
Restored the kingdom of Sayyidinâ Sulaymân
Entered Sayyidinâ ‘Isâ still alive into paradise
Salam! Salam! Salam! Peace be upon them all on this day of rain
It was a day like today that Sayyidinâ Nûḥ was saved from the waves
And I am flooded with love
Sailing safe on the Ark of the prince of martyrs
Our master Ḥusayn
Blessed is his name
On a day like today
He was freed
The tyrant was killed when he killed
And the people of the highest house
Burst into infinite life as they died
For us

Now the blood of martyrs is merciful rain
My ark is a train
Outside the window Morocco celebrates
‘Âshûrâ’ drums drum
Raindrop fingers beat the rooftops
Children laugh
Rocks rock
Trees dance
Flowers shower
And my heart softens with the soil
As I sit comfortably in the warmth of this mercy train
Speeding towards my station

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They Keep Coming

8/27/2014

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They keep coming with their dry mouths and broken shoes

From the cold mountain tops

They storm the walls of Ceuta and all over the world

They cross deserts, drown in the seas, walk along highways, hide in steel boxes

They come from the jungles, the mountains, the fields

Filling the slums of Cairo, Port-au-Prince and all the cities with flashy dreams

Of soft feet and proper teeth

And leftovers, lots of leftovers

They won't stop coming while we dig our pools

Choose good schools

Choose a movie

Choose a skirt

Choose a cruise

Choose a dessert

They sweat and spit

They don't have running water

They want our stuff

They just keep coming

Turn on the light

Check the closet

Look under the bed

Build more jails

Higher walls

Shoot to kill

They just keep coming

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The guy standing behind the garbage bins

4/9/2014

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The guy standing behind the garbage bins
So intoxicated he has wet himself
And can hardly move
Was he ever like my baby boy
Simple full of joy?
The pain Allah 
The pain

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Casablanca the winter is over and I’m still here

3/31/2014

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Casablanca the winter is over and I’m still here
After three quarters of a year

You handle so many contradictions with style 
I must admit
You’re not bad looking
From the right angles
Even beautiful
But you don’t hide your ugly sides well
I guess you can’t
Busy trying to cope with your own impatient cadence
And the constant arrival of people
Rich and poor
Mostly poor
Hoping for more
Biting smiling selling screaming 

Casablanca I’m caught in your hectic dance
Like any immigrant I’m ambivalent
Good days and bad
Today for a moment I broke out of you to notice the ocean
As I often have over the months
Still there
So much bigger deeper longer in its breaths
It could just take over and bust the whole place up
And sometimes it does strike a few blows
But mostly it respects the tiny shoreline boundary
Accepting
To remain a reminder for us
Of other cycles
Other scales of being

Anyway, Casablanca, I’m still here
Now watching your children clean beach chairs
Preparing for the summer
I haven’t taken you all in
You escape my rational mind traps
Too slow for you
I have no choice but to return to poetry
To know you 

I’ve got to tell you I see a lot of violence
Barbarians everywhere
At least it seems to me that’s how you treat them 
They are hungry Casablanca
And speak the languages of your ancestors
Your own deep thoughts use the same North African tongues
No matter how much French you use
And how many monuments you keep to praise the invaders your forefathers kicked out
Just a few decades ago
You are so colonial—it really upsets me—I don’t know whether to scream or cry
But who am I?
After all when my life broke down in Canada
You welcomed me a refugee and have treated me hospitably ever since
I came to you like so many others with ambitions and aspirations
I must really try to be helpful
Because you, Casablanca, and cities like you
Probably hold the future of humanity within your ever-expanding bosoms
Here is where we make it or break it
All or nothing
Casablanca you are exciting
I think I’ll stay a while
Inshallah
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    Author

    Transdisciplinary scholar of Islam and Sufism.
    Applied linguist (teacher, translator, consultant, manager).
    Poet.

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