December 29, 2012
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The Lute Singer
I've come alone tonight to the Port Sa-Id
With only enough for a beer and some bread and cheese
It's early yet but hopefully friends will stop by in a little while
To stand me a bit more through the protracted night
A few Anatolians and Greeks from the Hoboken docks
Fresh from Onassis' tramps are dancing for the rest of us
All of us mature and immature - Young and middle-aged and old
Ogling the few pathetic whores except for one still young
And still quite pretty - but give her just a few more years
The four musicians step down from the tiny stage
Having just finished a loud and amplified set
Two bouzouks a fiddle and an oud rest abandoned on cheap metal chairs
As Selim the giant bartender leads the old man to the stage
And hands him the unplugged oud - The middle-eastern lute
Shriveled and shrunk he wraps himself around the clumsy bowl
And his first riffs up and down the unfretted rosewood neck
Tells us we're in for a considerable treat and quiet down
Except for two far-gone drunks at the end of the bar until Selim shuts them up
The blind old man plays unaccompanied and along with us
The silenced band sits with closed eyes in sympathy with his unseeing eyes
His ancient music washes through and over us
And lifts us beyond the smoke and clinking raki glasses and low murmurings
And the light laughter of the pretty whore
Until slowly all fall silent in the Port Sa-id
His voice is now an angel's voice sifted through a star-blown sky
Softly falling from irradiated dusts of stars to settle on a misted desert sea
He sings to us of blanketed bedouin sipping tea around a pitted fire
He sings of love's labor gone astray - He transports dreamers such as us
Beyond our odd and now-remembered reveries
He sings to us of vivacious girls and too-young wrinkled mothers
With sleeping children curled in their laps
Silently they weep their bitter and perceptive tears
He sings to us of love's labor gone astray - A sad forbidden love
He sings the sobs of a beardless boy whose stern-faced lord rejects his pleas
Because the boy's corrupted blood would defile the maiden he desires
And desecrate the tribal absolute
The blind balladeer sings to us what we already know
That both are utterly destroyed by love's intensive labor lost
Love's labor rooted in her belly gone so mournfully astray
He sings they drink the fatal juice of the desert juniper
Born and unborn - to sleep forever under the merciless stars
The old man's song ends abruptly on a minor halt
As if it might start up again at any time - but he is done
And for a moment there is a death's silence in the Port Sa-id
Until the delicate sobs of the pretty whore returns us
To this crowded corner of our sordid world
Far from the eternal silences of unforgiving desert hills
Comments (7)
This oozes the sadness of memory. Seems all people are haunted by the past remembered in song...
Always astounded.
Lovely images.
I heard an outstanding Palestinian musician playing oud last year. It was haunting.
@Roadkill_Spatula - I struggled with the oud because it has no frets but did pretty good with the bouzouki... Years ago, I recorded some music my father used to sing and also a few greek songs I learned from some old bakelites... Much of that music is lost and it is a shame... My son-in-law has transferred some of those old tapes onto a CD which I would like to share on Zanga and I have tried to place it on the audio section of my blog but without success and I do not know how to reach anyone there for help... Maybe someone out there could held?
I think you'd be better off uploading it to YouTube and then linking it. Xanga's video and audio service has gotten very bad. Some people still use the audio upload (@andreas_d, for one)with success. I can't volunteer him but you could ask him for advice.
Audio can be converted to a slideshow if you have Windows Live Movie Maker and some images you would like to add (or even just one image). There are instructions here: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1696878&hl=en-US. Then that file could be uploaded to YouTube.
@Roadkill_Spatula - Many thanks and so sorry for my late response... I did not realize you posted your helpful suggestions until I scrolled down past some of my more recent posts... I will try the You Tube route but I'm a real klutz at anything more difficult than Xanga posts...
@Roadkill_Spatula - Many thanks and so sorry for my late response... I did not realize you posted your helpful suggestions until I scrolled down past some of my more recent posts... I will try the You Tube route but I'm a real klutz at anything more difficult than Xanga posts...
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