To Egypt With Love

Monday, January 31, 2011
To Egypt With Love

To Egypt With Love

Dedicated to my son, Abdul (Darrel P. Jackmon, RIP)

He studied at the American University in Egypt
he fell in love in Egypt
some Ghanian ambassador's daughter
I told him don't give no woman the key to your apartment
he never did
not even the ambassador's daughter, he told me
he loved Egypt
he spoke the language
graduated from UC Berkeley in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literature
He said the Africans were slaves throughout the Middle East
The Arabs took their passports
making them virtual slaves
their racism was pervasive
totally unsustainable
yet understandable
for they are not the aboriginal Arabs
they are not the Arabs of Sabah
Queen of Sabah's land
who ruled from Canaan to Jerusalem to the Persian Gulf
Queen of Sabah
who fascinated King Solomon

My son loved Arabic and Persian
He got a Fulbright fellowship to the University of Damascus
He said Syrian intelligence officers interrogated him daily
why was he hanging around those filthy Palestinians
Why did he go to the American embassy to swim

He said, Daid, they tried to recruit me for the C.I.A
The Mormons controlled the US Embassy
they wanted me to be a Mormon

Toward the end my son became a Mormon
He lived with Eldridge Cleaver
himself a Mormon, for a time
My son said Eldridge got strange phone calls
from strange people
we know Eldridge was dr. strangelove

The Ghanaian woman came to see my son in Cali
I do not know what happened
but she went home

In the end he loved a Portuguese woman
he loved Brazil
said he wanted to live in Bahia
dance Condomble rituals

a man of the world
at his funeral came his friends
no black man no black woman
Asians whites
after all
he was a man of the world
what could he say to a nigguh in the ghetto
his travels to Africa, Egypt, Jerusalem, Brazil,Japan, what could he say to a ghetto nigguh
In Japan, he said they teach the women to say three things:
yes, thank you and I'm sorry
but the Japanese woman he got pregnant said no to his black baby
so she could go home in peace
her family told her don't bring no black baby home.

Abdul loved the Middle East
He loved Persian
the poetry
the rhythms of the language
of the poets who do the dance of the dervish.

Egypt may fall today or tomorrow
but my son will be pleased
to know Pharaoh Mubarak is no more
the regime is history
what a story to tell my son
who walked into a train
in his midnight madness
Dr. Hare said he was like Malcolm and Martin
he was 38, they were 39
but nonetheless he self destructed
suicide and homicide is the same
simply different sides of the same coin.

Let Egypt arise for the sons and daughters who have suffered
a long suffering that has come to an end.
Let Mubarak be a page in history
a pitiful note in the eternal narrative of a people.
--Marvin X
1/31/11