tears in millions for whole iraq

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    " stranger" ,

    ..

    .

    Be no rude , ever, to someone who is already a stranger

    The whole world is already insulting him thru humiliation and

    plights "

    And yes in deed, the whole life is sure to rebuke any immigrant

    through it all , what a humiliation! , and what a plight is all that

    inflicted upon Iraq next to your era , you who were a true Imam

    for all Muslims , yet, never made to rule the scene by then .

    The whole world is rebuking us , me and my fellow brothers and

    sisters, with all forms of humiliation that we had never beenaccustomed to. I am hailing you right from the depth of my

    heart which knows for sure who you are, honestly speaking .

    I felt tranquil at heart as I sat there, in front of the mosque ,at

    that most favorable spot of mine , compared to whole Ankara's ,

    our souls favors some places over others, you know. I guess it is

    the tranquility of this place, rather than any attributed

    architecture , or the extreme height of minarets almost piercingthe skies above, as if bleeding them to the colors of dusk . Even

    the splendor of the spherical chandeliers and the majesty of the

    huge bulk of the mosque had nothing to do with it .The

    tranquility prevailing there, in the absence of any annoyance

    coming from screaming children and "sticky" beggars and foxy

    sellers harassing you , is sensed in the form of a heavenly

    calmness and a cool breeze that welcomes your face there. It is

    all there, at that site whose extreme altitude would almost makeyou mistake it that Iraq is but a few miles to the south ,only a

    few kisses distant from you. Deposit a few kisses into your palm

    and throw them up into the air, and make believe that it will land

    as a dove does, on your relatives' faces , your brother, father,

    and mother. You may make believe that they would land onto

    faces of friends who were locked home, unable to make it and

    leave , same as that brother of " Quraish Falcon " * , the one

    who quit crossing the river and got back, assured by the

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    promises of the manhunt squad across the river .Eventually, it

    was his grotesque end awaiting him there . So was the case with

    those friends who remained locked there in a way that just

    pierces the heart to a perpetual bleeding .It is as if that Iraqi

    poet , Abdul Razzaq Abdul Wahid * is chanting:

    " Neither they are ever there to appear

    Nor their voices too, for you to hear

    Your home, that neighbor, or those friends and folks

    And you keep on just departing and departing

    With the roads around you, all wailing

    As if all this vast world

    is no more than a single narrow path, my dear pal"

    The same meanings of these lines were chanted by Seals &

    Crofts, a Baha'i duo, three decades ago. I approve quoting their

    lyrics for the wisdom embedded, haven't I mentioned it earlier

    that all rivers meet at one common spot * ?

    " I'm going way down south, to Baton Rouge tonight.

    Well I'll just close the door and turn off all the lights.

    And though the images dance by, of the folks and friends wholie,

    Down home where things are slow and easy goin' " .

    I approve resorting to music, as long as it is not a sensuous and

    sexplicit one , music and rhythms are there within the atoms of

    all creatures .The particles bump and dance with each other in a

    Foxtrot rhythm, as I presume , it is only that the scientists had

    the title misnamed, those forces of "Vander Wal". The infantsthemselves never quit crying and resist resorting to sleep unless

    rocked well ,they need a rhythm before they may submit

    themselves to sleep, and the Turkish old man here was all

    rocking too, an hour ago while reciting Quran . All bulbuls and

    mocking birds are but generators of music, long before man first

    made his first flute, same as volcanoes had inspired eruptions

    and revolutions for mankind too . It is all there, on the wall of

    creation, to light the way for humanity.

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    Have you ever wondered why all those soft-pitched creatures

    are always of the peaceful kind ,while those predators, all

    roaring and howling , are best known for punching , snapping,

    tearing and devouring?

    This is the gist of it, how music is relevant to what is occurring

    in Iraq.

    Closing my eyes ,I used my MP3 phones and listened to Pat

    Metheny's album ," Still Life-Talking" , come along and share

    this issue with me.

    How can any music be this wonderful, spraying its balsam over

    your soul all the way, while your heart is soaked in bitter

    wounds ?I know that Pat had composed this album a long time ago, as

    early as 1987, but the feelings it leaves within you makes you

    think that his chords speak your current Iraqi wound, as if

    designed for Iraq, this very time, this very context.

    How I wish that there is a way of having this album playing

    while we are telling this one ,I wish that each reader does have a

    copy of this album, to listen to, along with each of the first three

    tracks of itguitar and bass guitar, sneaking into your heart,and the tickling drives you to cry ,rather than laugh.

    And the murmurs of the players sound as if angels' humming ,

    taking your spirit high up above the stratosphere , stripping you

    from your human nature ,as if your spirit is taking off to outer

    space and looking at earth below you, seeing it smaller and

    smaller..

    Bass guitar that speaks, while your heart anguish reaching its

    peaks , a moaning sound coming out of a wounded deer, I wasprivileged with that sound that New Year's Eve ***** , do you

    still remember ?

    Never have I known of a bass guitar escalating this high, as if

    talking in deed, almost leading the rest of instruments ..

    All my life, I kept probing for a connection between life and

    music ,until this album came my way one and a half year ago,

    and I was made to realize the link between pain and music, as it

    is in those PPS files, combining both words& images with

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    music, altogether, I think that I am going to consume it too soon,

    for the numerous times I am using it ! It is a tool to make you

    reach a Nirvana, high above the level of pain , makes you

    bypass it all and helps reminding you that life is but a very brief

    march, no matter how long it might appear to you, no matter

    how many obstacles seem to place themselves onto your course.

    The first track, "Minuano", some reciting prayers and human

    murmurings, so much tender , to start the session.. guitar and

    sitar as well as murmurs resembling a silent prayer for those

    who are in lack of any communication , telling of things that

    rate to more than the meaning of our own lives .

    Death and lovers' breakup , and that yearning feeling..The absurdness of life, and how the second term of our lifetimes

    lacks what the first term has plenty of , the joy and the bliss of

    being joyous for all the good things it has..

    Sandy beaches and virgin white shores, never marked by any

    human footprints, a solitary trip in a convertible car , amidst

    spring atmospheres that are charged with the humidity of rain,

    and sunlight penetrating the black clouds thru circular hatches to

    drop over the fields below them, as if pillars of celestial light,and a giant rainbow with the greatest azimuth, standing astride

    the horizon from east to west, how great you are, dear Lord of

    all creation, and how impotent are all these people ..I have been

    living those stances and views some fourteen years ago, and my

    memory just can't seem to let go of it, till today.

    Too many imaginations that follow each other..how many

    lifetimes did you manage to live, Pat?

    How many times did you fall in love, to the marrow of yourheart ,to end up having this big heart of yours?

    Or could it be your lost passion for Antonia, that did create all

    this beauty within you?

    How can you manage to capture the heart and force its beats to

    submit to the sinusoidal track that your fingertips play?

    How do your guitar tunes rule over the sax blows, and the

    raindrops that are created by the keys of the organ and piano?

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    What is it that the bass guitar is striving to say, right in the final

    moments of this track?

    And why didn't your fellow marines learn how to refrain from

    killing and destroying ? why didn't they learn how to love life

    and its livings , the way you do ?

    And you move to the second track, " So may it secretly begin ",and you are almost to forget the magic that the first track

    inspired into you. The piano resembles teardrops falling on your

    head, this is a different kind of speech, unfamiliar to average

    people ,but those who are to focus and listen well are entitled to

    understand ..my days would have been much sweeter if I were

    to grab this album right when it was released.

    The third track , " Last Train Home " is much the same. It isthe one interpreting my anguish ,and Iraq's too. The electronic

    percussion suggests accelerating raindrops falling from the sky,

    but this time it falls in tons, they transform into tears as they fall

    down, to tell of our dilemma that the whole humanity has never

    realized so far, it is only for this line of Abdul Razzaq's poem to

    suit the tune of the track:

    " Tears in millions, all for Baghdad

    tears and tears, in battalions

    Who is to bring Baghdad any nearer,

    Baghdad that's weeping for me

    Much the same as I'm doing ?

    ..

    ..I am shedding tears while my old age helps me none to

    How come you cry, you seventy seven aged man?

    And you know that the tears you are shedding

    Are but ones of injured pride , not those of misery"

    May be I'm right when I see it speaking of children whose limbs

    have been amputated, so recklessly, as if they were mere statues

    made of stone!!

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    Or speaking of women weeping so helplessly, for the brave

    guardian is no more there..

    Or may be this music is really weeping because the ghost of the

    criminal death marketed by people and made in Iraq , free to

    roam the streets ,acting like a drunken villain ,on the loose..

    And once again, no justice to prevail , and no right to force its

    supremacy, for the whole world has agreed to slay the right and

    shed the blood and souls of the people. It is as if I am seeing

    Abdul Razzaq crying as he chants:

    "You are the noblest blood of it to be shed

    If you do not dare, then every child in my country is an orphanAnd every matrimony is a divorce

    Let each star stall in its range

    You and you alone, is a shining star

    You and just you, are to fill the universe with fear

    And all faces of death seem to hurl onto you

    Humvies of hell, and the mad tanks tracks

    And your death toll, and those insolent faces

    And the fires flaming children corpsesAnd the kidnappers and the looters

    And the women wailing, and the slaying until

    .both the blades and the throats go shivering

    Will all be one day

    Any death for any which death on the run"

    Guitar tunes having the flavor of a sitar, talking rather than just

    playing , but you've got to promote yourself and escalate to itslevel prior to just listening , and the murmurs add more to its

    inspirations.

    The man has a guitar of his own improvisation , named it

    "Pikasso", it beats any other Uud ****** .He is a gem of the

    western world's, though sadly concealed by imported Rap and

    Disco music,all bizarre styles of music that got my fellow

    people to despise such class music, and overlook how much of

    taming ability is there within its reach, for the untamable !!!.

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    It is a grief that is customized to your own case, cry for what is

    hurting your heart , and I will cry for mine..

    Cry and feel no shame to do so , I will cover for you if you

    were ever beside me , and won't let any stranger glance your

    face, for your grief is mine, and no one in this merry land is to

    understand you except for some ripped-heart guy like me.

    Cry my brother, be you a Hussein , or an Omar *******, cry

    like me, as long as you do not belong to those crooks and

    scumbags.

    Cry for too many that we have lost, yet no way to confess it , for

    it's too late now, and all that crying of the little king of Granada,

    never did him any good.Cry for the human beings, cry for the beasts of burden, for the

    stones too..

    Cry for mutilated corpses ,with no grave to home them, cry even

    for those who had a grave too .

    And here are some lines of Rabindranath Tagore , those ones

    which Jawahir Lal Nehro described as being "like prayers",

    telling of a plight that is much like Iraq's tragedy, although it is ahundred years old by now, composed by a very sensitive genius,

    born in 1861, but the wisdom of his is still echoing so

    enchantingly till today . It is the serial crime of Abel & Cain,

    however different the cause or justification of the crime is to

    be , whether a dispute on a marriage, a burst of rage that has

    taken over reason, an oil well flowing with gold, or any other

    reason that might appear very appropriate to inspire a kill!!

    Don't you see it that we, human beings, have never learnt the

    lesson?

    That crow did not repeat the burial mimicry , except for that

    very first, and final once, it was meant just for demonstration,

    for the sake of that first and prime killer to learn the lesson ,

    how to cover his victim's body, while the descendants of the

    killer did approve the act of crime in stead, and carried on

    repeating it, not even abiding by that lesson of the crow. May be

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    it is because they did not condemn that first crime, that they

    even clinged to using the name of the killer , Cain !!

    I wonder who was the real crow, that bird, or( The Killer&

    Co.) ?

    "Listen to the old one speaks

    Of all he has lived through

    "I have crossed between the poles

    And for me there's no mystery

    Once a man , like the sea I raged

    Once a woman, like the earth I gave

    But there is in fact more earth than sea "

    Listen to the enlightened man of Bengal, listen to him speakingof his fellow citizens, as if speaking of Iraqis in stead, listen and

    focus on the final lines of his:

    " Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

    Where knowledge is free

    Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

    By narrow domestic walls

    Where words come out from the depth of truth

    Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

    Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

    Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

    Where the mind is led forward by thee

    Into ever-widening thought and action

    Into that heaven of freedom , my father, let my country awake".

    Imam Zain Al 'Aabideen: Ali Bin Alhusain Bin Ali Bin Abi Talib ,

    the fourth Imam of Shiites ,and the only male spared after the

    massacre of Kerbala .

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    (Aka Abdul Rahman Al Dakhil) : Founder of the Andalusian

    Ummayad Caliphate after fleeing the Abbasid massacre of his whole

    family and clan in Syria .

    Abdul Razzaq Abdul Wahid: One of the most prominent poets

    from the times of Saddam's reign, left Iraq after the late 2003 war, tosettle in France, and Syria lately. His poems speak of Iraqi grief and

    nostalgic memories, as well as condemning the occupation of Iraq .

    According to one quote of Prophet Mohammad, Muslims are

    ordered to seize wisdom , no matter what source be the provider .

    In reference to another editorial of mine, titled ( Happy New Year

    Uncle Saeed).

    Uud: A musical instrument that is the Arabian peer of the western

    guitar .

    " Hussain & Omar ", a metaphoric duo, suggesting an Iraqicommon frame of identity ( i.e. whether you are a Shiite or a Sunni

    Iraqi fellow).

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