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

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

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

Morocco you're killing me with springtime colours

Like foam overflowing from a milky coffee

Sweet

The flowers abundant over the walls of buildings all around the Casablanca café

And people bursting into a variety of styles

Then on the train to El Jadida all across the fields

Ya Allah!

The fields

In memory of the beloved (from The Wine Ode (al-Khamriyah))
by Umar Ibn al-Farid

English version by Th. Emil Homerin

http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2013/04/03/umar-ibn-al-farid-in-memory-of-the-beloved/#sthash.JP1ZjfKN.dpuf

The biggest bullies rarely scream
They don’t need to remind you of their power
Because they know
And you know
And they know you know
That they can take you out without using any muscle
Without pounding their chest
Without raising their voice
Others do their business for them
They don’t even need to ask
It would bother their conscience
It’s just understood
What happens to those who get in their way

The biggest bullies are often gentlemen
In soft clothes
With soft voices
Humble smiles
And deadly power

There is no pleasure in life except accompanying the [fuqara]
 for they are the sultans and the masters and the princes [umara]

La vie n’est agréable qu’en compagnie des soufis
 Ils sont les seigneurs, les princes et les sultans

 مــا لــذة الـعـيش إلا صـحبة الـفـقرا     
هــم الـسـلاطين و الـسـادات والأمـرا

Poem in Arabic and English translation:
http://islamicpearls.net/abumadyanrpoem.html
Traduction française :
http://al.alawi.1934.free.fr/index.php/soufismetasawwuf/41-aplication/317-le-code-de-conduite-dans-la-voie-des-soufis.html
Abu Madyan Bio in English:
http://www.dar-sirr.com/Sidi-Abu-Madyan.html

Casablanca : ville intense, mouvementée, magnifique. Casablanca : ville à deux vitesses.
Casablanca : une masse arabophone et berbérophone, le regard tourné vers la Mecque, dominée par une élite francophile, le regard tourné vers Paris.
Casablanca : la mer, la plage, les boulevards, les places et les parcs, les cafés, les klaxons, les mosquées… 

I have built a place for you
Where the inside of your shoe
Is softer than the thick and multicoloured moss
We find upon fierce northern rocks
Softer than a pygmy lullaby

A place
With doors of living wood
Trees that sway away
As you enter
And shut themselves behind you

The leaves that ornament these trees
Are full of poetry
Green words written in gold
By delirious princes
Lost in love
Warrior words
Recreating distant homes
Worried words of mothers
Words of friendship
Written in the deep dark ink of trust
Promises made and signed in blood
Upon thick parchment
Sleeping words awoken for you
Shepherd words about their camel herds
Wise words by men who live in isolation
Sailor words about the ocean
Exotic flower words
Words that describe the flight of birds
Words of pain
Glass words
Last words
Vast words of regret about great loves that could have been
Tombstone words
Words written on the morning of the birth
Of the first child
Of a new generation
Of a noble family
Words written to be free of tyranny
Words for you
Written by me
Collected in the leaves of giant trees
That sacrifice their bodies
Just to please you
As a doorway to this precious place

And when the wind blows hard outside
The voices of great poets rise
Inside the leaves
Perfect polyphony

I have built for you
A kitchen lit with the bright hopes of youth
Beneath three Russian chandeliers
A living feast appears in the dining room
The table is of ancient marble
The food always renewed
Endless degrees of taste spring from the plates
Explosions of first love upon the tongue
Sushi subtlety
Culinary architecture
The taste of adventure
Mouthfuls of meat
Potatoes meant to make you feel at home
The maturity of cheese
Recipes
Rediscovered on the dusty shelves of libraries
In prestigious universities
Strong bursts of lemon
Seafood fantasies
Elegant pastries
Candy store variety
Every single type of tea
Blue Mountain coffee
Subtle flavour blends
Perfected through conservative lineages
Of Moroccan mothers
Identity
Can be lost or found at this table
It is always here for you
In this place I have built for you

On winter evenings there are cozy living rooms
With carpets so thick you could lie down and sleep
Carpets woven by nights of mine
Great nights that lived and died to soften your time
Long logs of loyalty burn in the fireplace
Spreading deep orange across your face
Solo piano on the stereo
Wild beasts lie obediently
Rest your head against warm fur
The depth of lion breath
The slow rising and falling of his chest
Loosens every muscle in you
Now you can relax and laugh
If your little arm is tickled
By his mighty tongue

For you a green lawn on summer mornings
To sit for hours with me
Orange juice and coffee
Lazy newspaper stories
Of a strange and distant world of hurt
Far far away from this garden
Where the stream laughs like a schoolyard
The pond welcomes giant swans
And mountains stand guard on the horizon
Keeping our enemies out
The smell of ocean is ever-present
Its breath like a drumbeat through the days

Afternoons when horsemen compete for your amusement
African dancers capture you
Between two pages of this poem
You are torn from tranquility
Stampeding through some dusty plain
Fire on your face
Laughing loudly
Plunging through a mirror framed in Timbuktu
Emerging refreshed from the pond
The swans annoyed at your intrusion
You drip across the lawn
And find me swinging my pen like a sword
By the patio door

Memories invade you on the beach at sunset
Ocean tips at my feet
I stand with my hands in my pockets and my pants rolled up
My face red with sun
Singing some nostalgic Spanish melody
While you weep at the passing of the day

I have built for you a place where people always pray
Evenings are filled with the memory of God
Friends visit
We drink sweet tea
And live in poetry

Hallways speak of past adventures
Pictures and artefacts

I have built a place where your clothes always fit right 
Magnificent
Comfortable
Pearls of wisdom grow from your evening gown
Traces of gold surround your eyes
A veil of moonlight covers your hair
Upon each finger is a jewel for every type of little joy
You are different and more beautiful
Every time you cross a mirror
In a house of poetry
All things explode from oneness into lush diversity

On some days you find yourself in a simple wood cabin
With the smell of leather and pine and total food in a heavy black pot
I chop wood for the stove
Outside
Through the window of wide eyes
White snow shines for miles

On the table by a can of coffee cream
My pen sleeps on a napkin
You wake it up
To find new poetry in its sheets

For you a place with a sleepy cat stretching on the kitchen floor
Instant coffee and sliced bread in the toaster
Crumbs in the butter if you need reality

For you a place that is lonely without you
Rooms that are dark without you
Ghosts everywhere
Nobody likes an empty house

For you I’ve built a place that needs your beauty strength and grace
A place where you are noticed
Every day admired
A place inspired
By you
A place of poetry
A place of possibility
A place between a dream and full reality

Jason Sparkes © 2003

Words about the endurance of your support cannot meet you 
Words like birds flutter around a sturdy tower
Your cause has never held my consequence
You have never held me back

Oakwood cherry wood brass and marble
Leather seats of warm love comfort me
Reinforce and let me be
As a boy
I never saw you cry
I never sensed your question marks
And now that as a man I can intuit them
My gratitude and admiration 
Grow deeper roots
Bear sweeter fruit

We didn’t meet
We didn’t need to
I have always been in you
And in me parts of you shine through
Our distance is nearer
Our proximity clearer
And the bond of love remains unshaken
God bless the years you have forsaken
In silent worries over me
God bless you and awaken 
Endless thanks in me
 
Jason Sparkes © 2002