My Brothers

Brothers;

Robust shoulders,
Stubborn hair,
Olive skin,
Moustaches at thirteen,
And temperaments.

Fuses so short, you’d mistake them for explosives,
Hearts so big, ready to forgive.With one hand drenched in Bvlgari diamonds,
The other hand in the same bowl of laban on the family floor spread.My brothers, they call you brutes, and savages, and they don’t know your fists will be the first to drop a thief in the streets.They don’t know ‘yes mama’ with your neck bowed is so easy a response for you,

When mum’s gone all cuckoo.

They have named your beards ten years ago,
A harbour of envy, as you can now see through the hipster show.

Thousands of Semitic years of blood, we’ve hosted everyone, our homes are open, our tables are spread,
But they want to paint us all like we’re violence born and bred.

How? When we’d call a female stranger a day older than us, ‘taunt’,
Any older man, ‘amou’,

3ala rasi khayi,
esra3a bi da’ni habibi, rouhi, 3ayni, albi, khayi, Ibn Al 3aam,Words of utter-ness we soften each other with.Sali 3ala El nabi,
Send salutations to the Prophet,
Would settle hell fire.Words,
That’s all we need and we’re softened,
Words, you’re well aware can steer us.

So you, oh society, chooses them well don’t you?

‘Arab’… Said with contempt,
‘Moslem’ said with insult,
‘Terrorist’, paint the womb too, so when he’s born,
He knows no other language of who he is.

‘Middle Eastern origin’, not a geographic location,
But a cowards denigration.

My brothers,  words are what they use against you,
The same words you now use against yourselves.

Slay them with their own weapons.
We gave the world poetry they hadn’t heard,
A book 1450 years still unmatched.
Jurisprudence, a legal system they stole everything from,
And a revival of sciences unseen.

Let them have their weapons and technology,
Arm yourselves with the swords of humanity, words.

Words,
Sharpen them like blacksmiths of the soul,
Sharpen your minds, sharpen your tongues,
Sharpen your pencils, sharpen your wit,
Learn the writ,
Learn the spit,
The lit-er-ary arts are where our ancestors sit,
They anticipate us with itchy souls,
‘Did we die in vain?’ They ask from graves that quake!

‘All our literature, poetry, and art, we left for you road maps to the innermost core of the innermost core, secrets that men dare not speak, love that has no words to describe it with, and you engage in the mundaneness of warfare, of trivial worldly pursuits? Get busy with the soul of social fabric, the spoken word, the method God chose to communicate with every single one of his Prophets.’

The word is where it’s at, always will be,
Artistry, tapestry, amicability of humanity.

-W.E.

Glossary in order of appearance:
Laban: yoghurt
Taunt: Aunti
Amou: Uncle
3ala rasi khayi: Literal translation, On my head, brother, meaning, I will belittle myself to honour you.
esra3a bi da’ni habibi: Literaral translation, Bury it in my chin oh loved one, meaning If I mean anything to you, let it be a by gone by honouring me.
Rouhi: My soul
3ayni: My eyes
Albi: My heart
Khayi: My brother
Ibn Al 3aam: Literaral translation, the son of my uncle, meaning of blood and closeness to me

I’m tired of the lies, the blatant lies spread about me, my brethren and my heritage. To paint an ancient and civilised foundation of society with such utter falsity, is nothing short of criminal and yet, it goes on unchallenged, even by my own people.