2025 NaPM 18 April

[busker]

Naguib Mahfouz

I dream of a world where American troubles
are confined to American bubbles
and don't pervade everything else.
Look at today's prompt: why should hanging knells
be for black bodies from poplar trees? Why black?
You could say it's because the men who strung up Barack
Obama lookalikes wore shirts and slacks,
not bearskin wraparounds in the Arctic cold
like their prehistoric ancestors,
but I say it's because the only tale that's told
is of American struggle, and lo and behold
we have only American prompts for inspiration.
Look at the Egyptian nation:
no one talks about Naguib Mahfouz. Even Cavafy's sold
on his 'last great Greek' reputation
in a dying outpost of Alexander's empire.
I shall turn to the Arabic fold
and shut myself out from America's oversold
problem-of-the-human-condition art, white and black.
Who cares about Kate and Jack
on the Titanic, or what some gifted hack
on Wall Street did in 1987?
Let him die, and be denied heaven.

---

The Family Tree

Even in broad daylight
as kids call him over
to the brand new tire swing
great-granddad won't go near

......... that gnarled old southern oak.

He has not forgotten
that night so long ago,
a chilly summer breeze,
his blonde hair flowing free.

No one can convince him
now, of his innocence,
or how long he should feel
what he saw wasn't real.

(Men swinging on that tree,
legs twitching, throats choking.)
His shock became frozen-
his story unspoken.



FORM: syllabic

This is a complete revision of an earlier poem

nice one. I was thinking that it looked familiar.