Hibo Posted February 12, 2002 Express pain and pleasure Feel sorrow and joy Sense loss or gain Live in peace and war Fall in love or hate Think of death and life Express bitter and sweet Dwell in poverty or properity Know the male from the female what is it that we lack? Is it ours brains that are rotten? Or our skeleton screach more? Why are we all black and dumb? Why are muslims and unhappy? What are we fighting all these years? Do we deserve to live and to be? Can we be killed all to end the story? Why are you treating me like this? Who are you to think i am Somali? I dont like what i am hearing! I dont like what is coming towards me LOOK! they are eating greens again! What type animals can i call them? [This message has been edited by JamaaL-11 (edited 02-12-2002).] Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Buubto Posted February 18, 2002 That is good one i liked. wat a talented guy u r. thanx 4 shearing with us. Peace May Allah all beless you. ------------------------------ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hibo Posted February 18, 2002 HANKX BUUBTO ABAAYO, GUYS, READ THIS POEM WITH ME, IT IS FUNNY AND IT HAS BEEN RECITED BY A TYPICAL AFMINSHAAR SWEETNESS & BITTERNESS (For B. W. Andrzejewski) Without contraries is no progression —Blake Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes). —Whitman 1 Sometimes even the aloes Bear honeyed flowers Whose nectar you slurp I am sweetness & bitterness Planted in the same place. ll My right hand and left hand are twins: One entertains the guests and walks the weak; The other is daggers dripping woes & wormwood. lll My son, I am rich, I contain countless contraries: Do not take me For a poor monomaniac Out on a limb Hectoring for his bloody hobby-horse. lV Sometimes I am faithfully obedient, Well-mannered, Utterly innocent of evil: And sometimes I am the obdurate destroyer, An arrant knave. V Sometimes I am the anchorite Who sequesters himself in the mosque To review his life and purify his heart: And sometimes I am the villain, The loony Who blusters in every saloon in Somalia: "Go to now. I'll prove thee With mighty-mouthed Evil Till my cup runneth over With contumely and crazy Àasha." Vl Sometimes I am The towering heads Of wit, wisdom, eloquence, Of honor, & forbearance: And Sometimes I am The loafer The nowhere man With no name in the street. Vll Sometimes I am A man who does not allow anything unkosher Go past his gullet: And sometimes I am A thief dyed-in-the-wool Who does not spare Even the orphan's share. Vlll Sometimes I am The leader Of high-ranking saints and sages: And sometimes I am An honorable member Of Satan's conclave-- After the fiend's very own heart. lX A presumptuous Jack Cannot size me up For I run interference for chameleons For I keep school for chameleons. Daily I turn: Every morning My complexion is distinctly Of different color & creed. I know how to hobnob With both Muslims And With heathen honky monkey alien infidels: The angels of Hell and Heaven Argue over my soul. X No man has traced to me All these contraries I trail; But a man of many days, One whose head is hoary, Or One who is hip To sizing men up May possibly Take my proper measure. Xl O everyman Jack, Pick your sweetest, Most apt metaphor To brand me with: Ride the hobby-horse Your heart hobbles after, Or The one you can't help but Tease me with. Speak Right on; Ride on For I make ways For you: Please, Take your choice. ……………… i. A demogouge, an afmieeshaar — i.e. he whom the Somalis perceive to be a saw-mouthed sage, who attempted to cruelly caricature, castrate and crucify the formidable Somali Issaaq poet, Qaasim, a.k.a Ahmed Ismaeel Deeriye, attempting to write him off as mere mug-turned-blotto! Qaasim's parry, his riposte, his refutation of the attack on his reputation, which became Qaasim's classic, much-celebrated signature song. Macaan iyo Qaraar: as distinguished and as famous as Frank Sinatra's classic signature song I Did it My Way. Macaan iyo Qaraar is well-known to all the glitteratti, to all the cognoscenti, to all the connoisseurs of Somalia's current literary scene. It is for this reason that I rendered it into English in the summer of 1986, at The Montreal World Poetry Festival. It was later featured in the now defunct Montreal literary review, Zymergy, to which I contributed poems and essays during the late '80s and early '90s, when I served on its editorial board. …………………………….. Another version of the story behind this now internationally famous Somali song goes as follows: Qaasim the Somali poet was once asked by his exasperated Isaaq clansmen: "Qaasim! Who are you? Are you the poet the Somali nation is most proud of Or are you the jerk the drunk the bum the katcrazy the katcrushing Eedoar the crazywater consumer the dweller of ditches & gutters we pick up every dawn before the call of the muezzin from the ditch from the gutter?" It is my pleasure and delight now to share with you all, Qaasim's riposte, Qaasim's Apologia Pro Vita Sua translated into English by this Somali Abgal bushman! ---------------------------------- ii. Margaret Laurence wrote in her celebrated The Prophet's Camel Bell (1963): "Goosh — whose real name was Bogomil and whose nickname was pronounced 'Goosh' — happened to be Polish, a tall man with an expressive and almost oriental face, high cheekbones and faintly slanted eyes. He was a poet in his own language." Bogomil W. Andrzejewski, the late and lamented scholar and dean of international Somali studies, taught at the London School of Oriental Languages. He was a friend of mine who shared this poem with me in Somali so I could translate it into English. With his wife, Sheila, he also translated the same Somali song into English. Compare my version with their more philological and scholarly version. This can be found in their excellent book, An Anthology of Somali Poetry (pages 88-89), published in 1993. My friend Goosh spoke Somali better than I, a native Somali! Another case of that famous contradiction where the teacher becomes the student! He was most instrumental in the search for and eventual discovery of, a written form of the wild savage Somali tongue, in 1972. I will never forget what Goosh said to me in his London home in 1986, when I told him my name was now John Drinkwater. Whereas before I was infamous as Qaasim, as Sir John Barleycorn! Goosh's reaction became a memorable Somali saying: "waxaa tahai Nin libaax qaathay Oo laga dhigay!" "You are a man nabbed by a lion that was forced to drop you none the worse for the nasty nabbing! Would that the lion would drop more And more Somalis! Sir John drinkwater, let us toast to that! Lakhaaim! To life!" iii. The Somali rum which renders one exalted. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nuna Posted December 27, 2002 All i can say is the the poem you wrote first was good, i really like it, keep up the work. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Paragon Posted December 28, 2002 Nuna darling ... thank you very much ... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nuna Posted January 4, 2003 YOU WELCOME ABOOWE Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
