No Paper Tiger...

I am no Communist,
nor a Marxist-Leninist,
I am no Socialist
nor a Baathist,
hardly a Nationalist
not even a Pan-Arabist
most likely than not,
a Trotskyist

I trot, alone
and I love the loneliness
the aloofness
the wilderness...

In the jungle of paper tigers
am no Maoist, either.

Labels, I study them
then rip them off
one by one...

And what a pleasure to rip them off...

Am no poet either,
the ink is dry
and the pages are crackling...
like the crackling wood
in a blazing fire...

You sit and you know
you are there,
here,
everywhere...

This where you belong
somewhere,
hanging in between,
in between the flames,

You have no race
no religion
no nationality,

You are beyond
papers,
paper tigers...

I love the humility
of being a no one,
just a lonely voice
in the cold,

Just You and I
treading along the path
a path,
with no name...

Picture : Lion of Babylon, courtesy of Occupied Iraq.