The Dreamer and The Pendulum

The death sentence is declared. And I am left with two minutes of life.
The blade approaches and I watch its movement, like a pendulum above my head.
My words fall short, and rhyme escapes my thought.
No time to musically adjust them, so I burst them, wild and blunt.
The feeling of helplessness does not escape me. For I watch this beast approaching with his jaws wide open and his fangs desiring my flesh.
I feel his breath,
The stinking breath and I cannot even look away.
Instead I look at it in the eye. The bloodshot eye. And I see the blade. Unmoving, unscathed, unaffected by my courage.
They say in moments like this, heroes and cowards part way.
I think cowards would be the winners.
I break down and start weeping.
Not because the blade scares me.
Not because death scares me.
Because there's so much more I wanted to do.
So much more I wanted to say.
So many promises I had to keep, and so many apologies I had to make.
I say a prayer for those who love me,
For I fear I might have not loved them enough.
I might not have truly showed them how much they meant.
And I wish in desperate hope that one day they would realize how much they meant for me.
I say a prayer for my mother and father.
I might have been too hard on them
I might have been ungrateful.
I have broken their hearts Oh so many times,
And if only I had a little bit more time to fix them.
Try to mend them, and soothe them.
But it remains a desperate hope.
I think of my friends, and I see them smiling.
Looking at me, with tears in their eyes,
But smiling.
They know what awaits me, but try to make it easiest for me.
They know tears cut me, and crying breaks me,
And they try to control it.
But I break down.
For so many times I have cried in front of them, showed my tears and allowed them to flow.
So many times they have been my shoulder, but not once had I seen their tears.
And it kills me a second death.
Then I say a prayer to you.
So many feelings I felt but could not elaborate.
I could not burst them, for I loved you too much.
You have saved me from myself.
The dark dwelling of my being.
You gave a name for my existence,
And a meaning to my life.

I do not say I am sorry.
The crying turns to laughter,
And I smile as I recall your face.
And I say thank you.
Thank you for loving me,
For being my one and only.
Thank you for every smile,
And every tear and every moment.
You have made my life worthwhile.
And as the seconds tick away,
And my life withers, I see that I have lived a good life,
Having had you near me,
To love and to cherish.
Your lips have been my remedy in the times to pass,
And so they shall save me the suffering to come.

I think of your kiss, and the blade cuts my throat.
And I do not feel a thing.

The Line 2

All the running broke me.
But I was resolved on reaching the light that kept escaping me.
Until I fell to the floor.
I crawled for a while, but crawling made it worse. For the light began dimming.
I was desperate. I was lost.
So I stopped.
I looked around.
I dared look sideways.
I dared look up, and down.
And I saw…

I saw people running, people smiling.
People walking in circles and zigzags and every shape imaginable.
At first I grew resentful.
These people are non-believers
They are disillusioned. They do not want to reach the light.
And then I noticed that no one was walking alone.
Every person I saw belonged to a pack, or a group.
And I…
I saw myself alone.
Why?

The snow onto which I walk tastes only my footsteps.
This virgin forest is my own.
It is my only refuge from savage beasts.
I trod it alone, fearful of the wolves behind me.
Only I have grown hungry, weary and cold.
And realized that the only wolf I truly fear,
Is the only one who's gotten a grip of me.
The wolf of my loneliness.

to be continued...

The secret of happiness

So, have we solved the secret of happiness?
"I believe so," he said.
Are you going to tell me?
"Yes. Ready?"
Ready.
"Be satisfied."
That's it?
"Be grateful."
That's it?
"For what you have. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you."
That's it?
He looked me in the eye. Then he sighed deeply.
"That's it."

- From Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith.

The Line 1

Born with a choice, I walked the earth thinking I was brought up to become.
I thought that I should abide by others' laws.

Life was a straight line. No curves. No bumps. No ups or downs.
It was a path I should walk without turning my face, or lowering it.
And I believed it so.
And I walked it. I walked it tirelessly, reluctantly at times, but I walked on.
I saw a strange light at the end of the path, and I inquired about it.
That light was God and destiny, I was told, waiting for me with wide-spread arms.
And I believed it so.
I was given a reason to keep the journey.
And for years and years, I walked and walked...

But with every step, I found the light getting away, running from me.
But I dared not speak.
And I thought God was running away from me.
But I dared no speak.
I was wrong in my thinking. For God never walks away from believers. And so I was made to believe I was a non-believer. So I gave up walking and started running instead to redeem myself.

I run to you god with bruises all over my legs.
I crawl to you begging your forgiveness.
I am the damned, I am the non-believer.
I implore your mercy, for I have sinned
Save me eternal suffering.
Forgive me father.
Forgive me...

(to be continued)

Launching of The Line.

The Line is a series of texts I have been working on. I have no definition for them. They are neither prose nor poetry. They are their own entity.
The Line is a journey, and today, I start sharing this journey with you.

I Will Not Heed

God watches as I just burn myself up to ashes
He spits at me, scorning my shame
And I look up, arrogant and proud,
'I see you God and I feel you
I will not heed'
I betray his sense as I cut myself
The blade tastes my flesh
Licking the blood as the silver turns to red
Drops of my being melt onto the crimson floor
No one knows, no one will...
I die... again!

God rebels against me, breathes life
All filthy and vile into my hide
One more chance he says,
I give you more more chance
One more death I say,
I give you one more death
I tell you, I will not heed.

The Last Battle

I hold on to my crucifix
My only sword in this last battle.

Humanity decayed
Divinity betrayed
Nothing left to salvage the world.

The lights go low and the voices arise
Screams of the fray slay the silence,
But deep within me, I strongly see
The whisper of my prayer shall set the world free

Falling asleep with every bomb deafening my ears
Time starts to run out as I feel their howls creep into my spine
All I have been and all I ever will be
Vanish from my sight, and I am left with the only present I have been given.
Bloodshed, slaughter and agony,
All I see, all I feel…

Then,
As though injected with sleeping poison
My mind relinquishes, drifts into a land of sheer innocence and purity
Or maybe the land of the dead.



And the sun decides to rise once again
Apathetic to human tragedy.



The voices are silent
The crows feed on the remainders of flesh
Few men remain on their feet
Heads held low
Conscience awakened
'What have I done?'
What began with anger ended with monstrous devouring of human skin…

Will the world of tomorrow learn
From the mistakes of their forefathers?
Will the bloodstained sins
Ever be justified?
Or will history, as it always has,
Repeat itself once again?

Genesis

I met her before the waking of the world
In a dreamlike state where she and I were not human yet
The sea spat us on the shore where the sand sheltered our sleep
And when our eyes opened, we perceived each other's beauty.
Hers was the beauty of a goddess,
She shone far more than the spectre that hung above us
She filled the vacant space of the air,
And she replaced my senses.

When we first spoke, I felt her singing my name
As she muttered every word
And I sang my longing whenever her eyes drifted from my face.

We were alone at first.
Two creatures thrown into a virgin world
Nothing disrupted our peace
We were made to love, and love we made.

Night and day
We shared our passion and poured our insides into one another
We became one.

The wind came, and asked for half my being,
Half my soul and half my flesh
Then asked my love for the same
And took them far beyond the sea,
Where she shaped our son.

When our child was born,
It was carried by the ocean on the shoulders of a wave
Who mourned her loneliness and scorned our love,
Envious, she poisoned the child
Returned it misshapen and seeded with pride.

We never saw the child was sinful
We thought the days of bliss would forever stay
Pride and ignorance, were the first two sins to come to the world.
And we were too blind to see them.


The child grew a beautiful man,
Married a seductive siren from the deep.

They had their children, two beautiful men and one mermaid
Who seduced her brothers, turned them onto one another.
The strongest won. The most instinctive.
And the intelligent perished.
Survival was for the fittest.
And the fittest married his well deserved prize. His sister.
They gave birth to further men and women,
Who learned from their parents,
Arrogance, pride and vanity.
Each challenged the other,
And each gave birth to more of our kind.

Years and years passed and my children grew older.
They became plenty, and they filled the earth and invaded it.
Planted in them were the virtues of the land.
Yet the initial seed of pride remained.
Poisoning them, and following them generation after the other.
But they survived.
They remained.
And they multiplied.



---------------------------------------------------------------------



Soul of the night, redeem me into innocence:
I beg.
Show me truth without its mask
Let not sin into my skin as my children allowed
Ah heavens! Return me to my love's arms
Bring her forth to erase the devil's mark
I was blind, and blindness disrupted the world
Mother Gaea,
My soul lives on into your heart
And your heart weakens today
Because of the foolishness of my kind… of my children
I shall perish Mother,
Take your revenge and make them suffer
And go your way.
A new beginning starts at the end.
Bring forth that end…

Introduction to Death and Rebirth

Death and Rebirth is an autobiography in verse. It has the different
stages I went through in my life. The poems basically speak of my
experiences throughout this journey we call life.

It begins with The Birth of a Poet, where my senses were
introduced to the world, where I found myself experiencing the
complexity of human emotions. Here I would like to ask the reader
the excuse the frailty of style in that chapter, for some of the poems
date back till 2004 where I was fifteen years old. I could have
edited them of course, But I decided to leave them in their chaos,
for they represent an era of innocence and pure spontaneity in my
writing.

Death of Innocence represents the time where I literally hit rock
bottom in my emotions, and you will find that very much
reflected, and here I would like to apologize, for some poems
might seem too dark, and too depressing. For at the time, if only
words would help me express, I was in that transitory state where
childhood was to be left behind, and I was left to face the cruelty of
a world to which I was unprepared.

Transitory Silence represents the time where I found myself inside
a bubble where I felt all my of my thoughts were dispersed. It was
a difficult phase, for it often brought drought for my pen, which is
every writer's fear. In that phase came deep reflection and reevaluation
of values and thoughts upon myself and the world. It
was a crucial phase that helped escape the depression that, I later
on learned, was self-inflicted.

Rebirth of Faith is what I can call the time I am going through right
now. Where there is strong belief in the world, in love, myself,
others and the human condition as a whole. I have become a
learned and experienced man.
The boy who once suffered, hurt and went through phases and
phases of depression now truly understands who he is, and he is
set on reaching what he believes is the ultimate goal of his
existence, which is to reach out to others, teach them of his
experience so that they would be inspired to improve theirs.

Poetry Book

Two years ago, I submitted a book to a website, www.lulu.com, where I posted a poetry book that can be sold through a print-on demand method. Now, two years after I posted it, they send me an email telling me that the book would be available on amazon.com!

And it brought me an idea. Currently I am working on the books, fixing it and editing it, in hopes of publishing it in Lebanon.

Point is, I am now listed in amazon! go check out the book! ^_^

Death and Rebirth - Ribal Haj

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/death-and-rebirth/674242

P.S : I know, the cover sucks!