“Sirocco (Al Haboob)”
❝
Just as does The Mayfly —
There was a moment in time, under a iridescent blinding light.
Where I shone so very bright and everything was alright.
I had in my grasp the flower of rejuvenation.
It’s nectar was desert rose, it’s sent jasmine carnation.
I was rapt by its blossoming beauty but it’s clasp and grip led me to take it for granted.
I placed it in a bouquet, my drops of dew sowed others too that I’d casually collected.
It was the time and place where I was made.
It’s now a haunting taste that I’m forbade.
For a ‘Naja haje’ snatched us apart one fang to our heart one to our soul.
Time gnawed away, memories darkened and heaven was rewritten as hell.
— far from you, I shall die.
❞
❝
S/he’s the unforgettable, ever-changing and eternally great being that consumes me in every single way.
❞
— Tolstoy (1867) & Bidoonism (2020)
p. s.
* Video One. — The Epic of Gilgamesh is the earliest substantive work of literature currently known to humankind; it was written down (etched with sun-dried, hand-sharpened Euphrates marsh reed quill into a freshly kneaded tablet of Tigris bank clay) by the Sumerians in c. 2,100 BC (yep.. over 4,000 years ago). In the video — retreived, youtu.be/QUcTsFe1PVs — you hear the opening lines of part of the epic, accompanied by a long-neck, three-string, Sumerian lute known as a “gish-gu-di.”
** Video Two. — Light in Babylon are a celebration of the cosmopolitan traditions of both Istanbul and its Sephardic Jewish community; wih the stunning voice of Elia Kamal and the beautiful sound of the “san-tur.”
*** Inspiration. — A lecture on The Epic of Gilgamesh, given in 2017 at the Harvard Semitic Museum by Andrew George (Professor of Babylonian, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London).
Anna Bidoonism 