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Birth in Beirut



We leave the glazed concrete Mediterranean
speeding rapidly towards
the cavernous ghost of Kantari.
I pass Sami Trad's maternity home
peppered with bullet holes and may be
a baby or two inside
and I think
'She nearly went there'.

Ali of the Murabitoon
who doubles as our driver
swings the battered Buick
past clutches of battle-weary Fateh boys.
Abu Hassan
Chief of Intelligence
(now dead alas, splattered on a Beirut pavement)
stop us to say
'Snipers active on the unfinished Tower'.
But Government of India rules
have swamped more than snipers
we say
and drive on,
while tired guerillas give covering fire
to briefly silence
the silent killers near the Phoenicia hulk-hotel.



　

　

We rush up,
we only have two hours
to drag countless reams
of purple or precise prose
penned by Counsellors of yore
into baby pink and powder blue
bath tubs,
where we turn them to ashes.

And then my mind wanders
to the antiseptic fortress of the American hospital
where floor upon floor
is littered with the wounded,
and where I left her.

Entranced I watch
scores of monthly charcoal reports
slowly smoulder and die.

And then
the tanks in front of the Holiday Inn
explode with a roar,
and I wonder
will I ever see
the slow stirrings of life
coming to us again.