WAIL "LEBANON'S NATIONAL ANTHEM"

My generation sits on its
beat ass and tokes on grass
A group of overgrown corpses
bumbling around town
between orgies and street deals
casinos and jail cells
sticking their mojo pins
watching their arms swell

Forlorn, foresworn
to a country so small
a country so squashed
that it has become
the bedouin's brothel
the Disneyland of the East
As the girls stumble
from one bar to the next
down Monot street

Replace the -t with a -p
and you get a den of
crackhead bourgeoisie
sucking on Osso Bucco
with bleached teeth
and bleached money
"Here we party
like there's no tomorrow"
Repeated like a mantra

So the kids dance on coffins
With their sleek hair
and their silken skin
until the men in the military
attire bust in

Pills scatter across the floor
the manic paranoia soars
there's no escape now
(not even the gaping ceiling)

Somewhere on a balcony
A maid stares out to the sea
Expires, pulls up the rug and
retires
to her one foot room
with a mattress and a picture
of Jesus
to keep her company

As the workers drip with sweat
and the housewives shop
to forget
A boy stands on a windowsill
and screams:
"My eyes are my worst enemy"

Somewhere in a sleepy Mercedes
A hand surreptitiously slips
into another
as the driver rants on about
how his religion outdoes
all the others
and smiles, toothlessly

Pearls of sweat roll off
the side of his head
as the clandestine sunshine
peaks through the glass
and shines on your pretty face
Babe

Now we no longer burn
our garbage on the streets
now the pavement shines brightly
and the lights illuminate
the city

And somewhere in all of this
I found myself
in a smoke-filled dive
where thhick white threads
were rising and writhing
from the ashtrays

People numbing their wounds
with alcohol
their gazes bouncing
like tennis balls
off the walls

Somehow I found myself with
no place to call home
I stood behind my paintings
that was the closest i ever got
to home

I stood there
fighting the chatter
for silence
trying to speak to you directly
to bear myself to you unveiled
from a whisper to a wail