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Cascina Spinasse
Dahlia Baeshen
She was single every February 14 day,
And, maybe also on the verge again today.
If he was going to break up with her,
At least they both had to finish their meals.
The argument calmed down after they sipped their second glass of Barolo.
She stared at her boyfriend across from her,
Reminded of how much she hated Valentine’s Day or
Valentine’s Day hated her.
She asked him if he enjoyed his dish.
He looked away,
and she smiled to the waitress siding a strand of hair behind one ear.
in a restaurant in,
1531 14th Avenue,
Rustic interior,
and the standard Seattle rain.
The rain drizzled,
As tears fell on her cauliflower salad.
More food started coming in,
And as she faked a smile thanking the waitress,
She wished they waited before ordering this much.
“ and this is the Rigatoni, enjoy!”
And as she silently cried more,
It did not break the food’s delicious taste.
While the butter and sage melted in her mouth,
she noted to herself to certainly come back to this restaurant again,
even though she did not know how to pronounce its name.
cas-ci-na spin-na-sse
Bow tie,
Blue eyes
Black blazer,
Why did he have to look this good every time we fought?
“and this is the baked zucchini, compliments of the chef! Two other dishes are coming out!”
The never-ending food on its way,
Father Valentine must have cursed her this day.
Ferocious Fruits
In fruit land, where I am from,
they used my coat as a slippery humor in cartoons,
Jerry would throw my peel in the middle of the road,
and Tom would slip.
Josephine Baker danced with my crust falling around her hips in un vent de folie back in 1927,
and no that dance was not the “mashed potato.”
Monkeys advertised me,
objectifying my yellow skin,
The other fruits, the pineapples, oranges, mangos and watermelon,
were jealous of my fame.
Even though I wasn’t fond of my own modeling career.
I told them to look at grapes’ success,
I wasn’t the only one in the limelight.
(It’s ironic that lime was never in the lime-light. He lies sometimes and says he coined that word.)
Back to the grapes,
They will always be one of the “classics”.
The blood of Jesus, the beverage of kings.
Grapes, were historic, religious, and seductive.
The Ripper seduced his victims with his lavish grapes.
But despite our fame they liked him more than me,
They said that grapes were “the chosen ones”.
Bacchus, god of the grapes, planted with crowned grapevines, harvested and drank wine in madness.
(Even simple branches of grapes sit on thrones.)
Grapes of four colors; black, red, golden and white laid in Caravaggio’s painting- the basket of fruits.
Fig, was grape’s friend,
they were in the same cult.
Fig and I had a fight once.
“You think you’re better than me cuz you’re in better shape!”
I do regret calling him a “vulva”.
“I’m mentioned in the bible and the Quran, what are your credits baboon-feeder?”
But I never wanted to be a fruit, in this vicious land.
I wanted to be made out of wheat, yeast, dough and flour.
I wanted to be of sacred international importance.
The food of equality- For the Kings of Versailles, the heads or tails, and the little boy waiting for wool around the lake.
No one will ever use the expression, “he’s a banana-winner”.
I longed for being a wholesome winning bread.
Hasan, the Great
Years later, the lunar eclipse told us that Ramadan
will begin in the summer this time.
I hope since it’s during the summertime that Hasan would be far away, tanning
his seashell colored skin by the shore.
The shore would push him towards my direction though even in a hot summer that deserved a tan.
Hasan, was different this Ramadan summer.
His usual Jafar-looking beard was trimmed for once.
His coffee-bean sized eyes were glowing.
And he greeted me with a titled smile
But I didn’t smile back to him.
“Anything new in life Hasan?” I whispered in my head.
You see we quarreled all the time,
Hasan and I.
I saw him once or twice a year
but the minimal visits did not deter his audacity.
He was a distant cousin,
and I would rather he stay distant.
every first day of Ramadan we broke our fast together.
His nose twitched when he talked,
Which made me assume he had a drug problem,
I mean it wasn’t in his genetics.
I did like his mother.
He cut his steak with a spoon,
Treated his knife like a weapon,
holding it symmetrically.
And complained about everything,
from history, the economy, to his parents.
he also reminded us how people think Geneva is the capital of Switzerland, but it’s originally Bern.
And how Napoleon was born in Corsica but buried in Paris.
This information made him proud e-v-e-r-y y-e-a-r
he would lick the zaatar off his lower teeth,
have a glass of water after playing trivia across the table with the family.
He won every year since he jumped to answer his own questions.
Ramadan is in March
I always marched up and down the food table to smell the food but before the sunset. The odor of Sambosas, Fettas and Gameraldeen juice were better to smell than watching the clock tick. My stomach hurt less that way.
He fussed as I marched and called me a “food soldier” or a “mad calorie detector”.
“Wait like the rest of us. Smelling the food breaks your fast”.
In annoyance I would pretend to have a bite from the Sambosas
His small eyes would grow bigger.
“it’s tradition to break your fast by eating a date first.”
“so YOU eat a date” I’d say.
This same conversation happened every 1st day of Ramadan,
Ever since I was eight years old.
He never grew tired of his Ramadan to eat or not to eat bullying.
Today was different;
he did not complain, nor inform.
I did not want to know ask why,
My ears would be at risk.
I marched up and down again like a food soldier.
He broke his fast eating a Sambosa first.
I ate a date.
The Arrogant Musician, Ziryab
I added a fifth string to the Oud,
making it sound more rhythmic.
Using an eagle beak or a quill,
Instead of a wooden pick.
And you danced the Zambra.
Sweated, but did not stink.
Thanks to my creation of the premiere deodorant.
I saved your armpits from yelling.
They watched me,
Wondering about my origin.
They knew I did not belong to the Iberian courts,
I was no aristocrat.
They confused me for an African, an Arab or a Persian.
They continued to dance in ignorance, noses up.
Soup they sipped, the main course they chewed, and dessert they relished,
“Where do you come up with such great ideas Ziryab? Three courses in one meal! Is it from back home?” a woman asked.
“I left Baghdad a long time ago. This is a new invention for Cordoba,” I said
“And this asparagus, never heard of it before. Delicious!” she said.
I suggested serving on plates rather than tables before any generation.
I introduced the quality of gourmet dining, chose crystals over lead.
Encouraged fashion, and invented toothpaste, saving your teeth from decay. Don’t believe the Greeks and the Romans; they just improved it.
They drank raising their crystal glasses cheering while
I wrote the lyrics to their Spanish footsteps.
They danced,
I sang.
They danced,
I played.
With every step,
Their noses stayed UP.
My head higher.
Oud: Pear-shaped Arabic string instrument.
The Falcons clench the Hummingbird’s Beak
By: Dahlia Baeshen
sand colored pelage like the landscape,
of the Arabian Desert.
fear to molt to modernism,
through visual expansion, progression of “profane” content or sound,
the railroads, musical plays,
wheels a woman’s woe, no wooing women’s sports associations,
the movies, performances, public transportation
and pedestrians.
gripping with tenacious teeth to their traditions,
attached to fossils of Wahhabism
respect for the bigoted beards,
banned- laden laws are customary.
women-humble living as palm trees between two-totalitarian swords, the male government of the father, or the husband.
Modernism, is “bilad algharb.”
Falcons do not spread their wings like the eagles of Abha, but
they
jump
backwards,
as the intransigent monkeys of Taif .
narrow feathers don’t fly to further perimeters,
free-thoughts remain as unwrapped gifts.
Hummingbird beaks as pointy as Arab noses,
With long poking tongues, do not serenate free speech,
They jab on cement wood,
to find no insects of hope.
Falcons reminisce on the tales of the past,
The aljabr, alfalak, the origin of the word “camisa”, the Egyptian water clock, and Firnas’s first attempt to fly.
A “new” country taking wing until 1932,
Arab ripeness was crushed underneath its marvelous mass,
Inhabiting the civilization of the 17th century.
Falcons fly paused in the mentality of the still Red Sea,
reciting old stories of “nihna wa nihna.”
the unblooming rottenness of the kh-arab spring
the fertility of the Arab genius from Sinai to Gibraltar,
the oil, the wealth, the Umayyad empire, the Abbasid and the controversial works of Wallada, Nizar, aljahiz , Alma’aari , Abu Nuwas and Al-Adawiyya.
Works less distributed due to falconine dogma.
· Bilad algharb: the west
· Nihna wa nihna: we or us
· Wa means: and
· Kharab: corrupt/destruction