"You don't need any passport, all you need is the thought"
Y. Misdaq

Sung'ed praise. Your most welcome my most high leader.

Allow me to sponsor you. You base. You head of think tanks.

You decision maker, shot-caller. Government-lover.

I is North Korea, I is "Sa-lang-he".
I is Iran & Afghanistan, "Ma turre dose-darum"
I was Iraq, "An-na Bahibook"

The world is what? The words you make it.

Therefore 'the Arab street' is radical.

The world is WHAT? The notions you give it.

Therefore my world is democracy.

You covered my eyes with your sweaty hands, not forgetting to write democracy on the inside palm, with permanent pen before you smothered my face. The thick black clumsily spelt word blackens my vision and the overpowering smell of powerful pen-ink damages my cerebral links until I can think of nothing else but your buzzword. The lie is truly mightier than the pen, as is the exaggeration, embellishment and sexing-up of.

Where the pen represents truth, I am scurrying around the streets searching for adequate writing material. I've been given the Truth you see, and once the Truth is given, you want to remember it. Where the pen represents the truth, I scamper across New York, only to find a twig falling from Brooklyn's last tree as the only thing that resembles a pen. As I stutter along the dusty road to Saudi Arabia, I see the imported plastic pens, melting away into the sand. Into the cleavage of the rich. Into the mouths of the desiring in the forms of sweet honey pastries that once crunched between the teeth, begin to leak black oil all over the uncaring hands of the privileged. Where the pen represents the truth, everybody taps keyboards, cuts and pastes. Everybody talks with omissions. Everybody talks with permissions. Everybody makes it complicated.

Suit: What I believe is different from what I know, look at my once black skin now colourless from the stench of constantly doing that which I know is wrong. Look at the Caribbean history in my wrinkles and sacks. Look at my photo album and be bamboozled.

Suit: Look at my evil. Look at me dance in private. Look at my homebound racism that my unloved, yet loving wife has to put up with every night. Look at my rag-head comments. Look at my fronts in public. Look at what makes me happy. Look at my wrinkled up body. Look at my purpose on this planet.

I address the world at the sort of meeting I always envisaged as a young boy. I speak the truth and the brown people regard me with the highest sincerity and warmth. I speak the truth and the black people regard me with love. I speak the truth and the white people regard me with love. The truth is spoken so rarely. We can so rarely love. We have been so long broken on the back of a laughing pessimism that knows the answers to our incorrect questions. I wish my purity to return to me. I speak the truth to the suit one more time.

My weapons are in my pants. Invade my trousers. Bomb my underwear.

By Y. Misdaq
© 2003 Y. Misdaq & Nefisa.co.uk All rights reserved.