You are far away
Amid all the splendors of Sakura
And murmurs of colossal Spring;
Merging hopes in azurine sky
With the vast unseen meadows.

I can hear the whispers
Touching Toronto skyline
Saving last dews at the gates of dawn. (more…)

I’m out on the sidewalk in front of the Turkish vegetable market in the Susannenstrasse in Hamburg, bending over for a closer look at a crate of figs. It’s mid-January, late afternoon, cold and gray. In another hour it will be dark. The figs are green and purple and coated with a fine gray fuzz. It’s the fine gray fuzz that has my attention, conveying as it does a climate much more benign than Hamburg, Germany, now deep in the throes of winter. The fuzz looks incredibly soft and fragile, summery and gentle, and above all, transitory. It’s more like a state of mind than a state of being.

Being. That’s what I’m thinking about as I go inside to pay for the eggplants, shitake mushrooms, red chilies and figs that I’ve chosen. Being as a context in which everything is located, be it forever or even for a while. The young Turkish girl at the cash register is beautiful. Beautiful enough to be a model, or a movie star, or a pop star. But she’s just the cashier in a Turkish vegetable market where I happen to be shopping and that makes her all the more beautiful.

Beauty and fig-fuzz. That’s what I’m thinking about as I step outside and turn up the Susannenstrasse, flipping up my collar against an icy wind that must be blowing down the Elbe from somewhere in the frosty northeast. Beauty and fig-fuzz. Two conceptsóone abstract, one concreteóbut both ultimately finite. And it’s the finite that’s doomed to disappear, while the infinite neither comes nor goes. (more…)

1.

Like grandma’s quilt-
patches of colors on the
hillside.

Smell of toasted leaves
at my backyard-
lingers.

Talking to his self
on his dining table-
squirrel. (more…)

Out.

Bolt the door
Disconnect the doorbell
Cut the phone & modem line
Nail the letterbox shut
Blackout the windows
Detach the antennae

The Bin 2.

Vacant food
Great view of trees
clouds above valley
747’s turning
Conspiring partnership
Chin up= advice (more…)

Signposts indicate that we are five minutes away from our destination. Sure enough the colossal cement block resembling a warehouse emerges into view. On the outskirts of Alexandria, Carrefour is so situated that those leaving or entering the city cannot miss it or resist the temptation of dropping in. The practical reason is of course that the construction of this gigantic building no way would have been possible inside the already bulging, overcrowded city.

A spacious car park is alphabetized and numbered for fear that people might forget where they had placed their cars in this uniform allotment. It boasts of endless row upon row of shiny cars whose reflection of sunlight during daytime is almost blinding. Entitled as the city centre, a number of multifarious shops that vary from restaurants, to clothes, to gift shops, including worldwide trademarks like Guess that sell shoes at a thousand Egyptian Pounds (L.E.) a pair, a multi Cineplex and a space that includes videogames and provides entertainment for children, encircle Carrefour.

It is obvious at a glimpse that this is no haphazard or whimsical business project that was established at the spur of the moment from the meticulous details and impeccable organization. It is well-known that Majed El Fouteem, the major mastermind behind this French global chainís expansion into Egypt, along with an expansive think tank, spent three to four years studying its viability, down to every last minute detail. (more…)