Wake up and Dream

(LONDON) - Forward by Editor: Our latest poetry by Mamoon Alabbasi is a thoughtful look at this life and the world around us; life and death intermingled with technological advancement so intense that it threatens the world's very existence.

Mamoon grew up in Iraq and he knows what it is like to feat what the next moment will bring, yet it isn't generally the feared Dictator that men like this fear, all too often it is the deathly threat of the U.S. military and all of its red, white and blue killing ability that is totally indiscriminate and leaves legions of people dead, homeless, orphaned, limbless.

The bombs have no soul and their results are terrible and far reaching, not to mention the actions of gunners in attack helicopters, troops on patrol- fearful for their lives, in a conflict their nation never anticipated would be so impossible to win or retain public support for.

This poem is not about the war in Iraq, these are just my words and the things that run through my mind when I try to imagine what it would be like to see life though this Poet/Writer's eyes.

Wake up and Dream

Wake up, my dear, but continue to dream
Let's play a game of make belief
Help me break these digital chains
And run to a wilderness, wild and free

I read somewhere 'the future is orange'
Yet we still long for a past that was green
Can we retain mother-nature in a non-JPEG format?
A utopian former life outside our computer screens?

Join me to where our phones are always out of reach
Where there are no satellites to spy on our liberated beings
They say 'life is a jungle' - they lied
In jungles one could still find peace

Let's role-play Adam and Eve
Of times prior to the censoring fig-leaf
Join me and get down on your hands and knees
I'll race you across these ever-green fields

Release me from the codes of decorum
And unleash the animal in me
Do not scream should I bite you
You can dig in your claws deep

We could dance in the rain
We could roll in the mud
Imagine; we might even forget our pains
No more tears that flood

There are no four-wheel drive vehicles there
Just four-legged mammals, birds and bees
Unlike man, most animals kill for food, not for sport
Let's find refuge in what remains of that tree

You won't see animals in control of nuclear triggers
With one wrong flick threatening their kind with extinction
Only here do you find such beasts
Though they're dressed in human skin

As we wake to the sound of a digital alarm
I shave - for work - and wear an ironed shirt
Locking her femininity away
She puts on her formal pin-striped skirt

I, with colour-coordinated clothes
And she, with a handbag that matches her shoes
We appear as modern, civilised couple
As we tuck in our hopes, fears and blues

Mamoon Alabbasi

Mamoon Alabbasi is an Iraqi news editor and translator based in London who writes compelling articles from a unique perspective. His Op-eds, reports, and reviews have appeared in a number of media outlets and we are very pleased to carry his work at Salem-News.com.

Mamoon has a Masters degree in applied linguistics. The many interesting highlights of his career include spending ten years in Tunisia teaching English. He has also published a number of poems online. Salem-News believes in utilizing the work of poets; this is an outstanding way to present news and current information, and always a great tool of expression regardless of the subject. You can send Mamoon an email at this address: abbasid@writeme.com