Tunisian Jasmine by Ibn al Dheeb

Knowing that those that satisfy themselves
and upset their people tomorrow
will have someone else sitting in their seat,
knowing that those that satisfy themselves
and upset their people tomorrow
will have someone else sitting in their seat,
for those that think the country is in your
and your kids’ names, the country is for
the people, and its glories are theirs.

Repeat with one voice, for one faith:
We are all Tunisia in the face of repressive elites.
We are all Tunisia in the face of repressive elites.

The Arab governments and who rules them are,
without exception, thieves. Thieves!
The question that frames the thoughts
of those who wonder will not find an answer
in any official channels. As long as it imports
everything it has from the West,
why can’t it import laws and freedoms?
Why can’t it import laws and freedoms?

-o0o-

The Carpenter speech in Nick Willing's Alice (2009)

The time has come, Walrus, old friend,
to test our many stills,
The ooh's, the aah's, the healing drops,
passions and thrills,
To see how joy, and awe, and lust,
can all be turned to pills.

-o0o-

Fathers by A.E. Ballakisten

How were we to live without our fathers,

absent fathers, invisible fathers,
negligent fathers, fathers who failed
to escape the ash that blesses all
who stand beneath clouds, faces upturned,
in search of the dignity that comes
with taking home a half-loaf of bread?

How were we to know that these fathers
angry fathers, depleted fathers,
tired fathers, would never return
to remove their shadow from the sun?
Freedom rumbles in our empty hands,
frightened hands, our fathers' gift to us.

How are we supposed to live as fathers?

-o0o-