Rumi Dancing w/ Kangaroos

Cultural cringe doesn’t frighten me at all.
Kangaroos don’t frighten me at all.
The bush doesn’t frighten me at all.
Oh, kangaroos! I want to give you
a rose of my dreams.
Oh, kangaroos! I want you to dance w/ me.
Let’s dance in round swirls till madness!
Let’s ascend the sky!
Let’s write a new historiography of the bush!
Let’s swap trees!
I give you a palm tree,
& you give me a eucalyptus.
Weapons are not allowed here.
Let’s erase fear and cringe!
Oh, kangaroos! The bush is not the ultimate utopia.
Let’s dance together in frenzy-like swirls!
Let’s forget about differences & geography!
Let’s ascend the sky!
I’ll teach you Sufism, & you’ll teach me jumping.
I think Sufism and jumping are two interchangeable terms
helping us renew, & gain new foliage.


Ali Znaidi (Tunisia)

The Sydney Opera House

The Sydney of dream and the rainbow lorikeet’s songs
kept echoing in my ear
since the first session of a lecture series titled
‘Anglophone Civilisation’ at university in 1998.
Drenched in light the Sydney Opera House
serves as something mysterious & enigmatic:
Lights flashing, resembling rainbowesque strands of hair —
an anthology of lights deconstructing and reconstructing
visions of polyphony.
The Opera represents cultural transmutations;
many shades of light dwelling in the same rainbow.
Grief, fear, estrangement, & alienation thaw
a-long The Opera; synonymous w/ harmonious tunes
of rainbow lorikeets.

Lights flashing:

one, two, three, four

In Sydney you can’t hide because the kangaroo will expel you
from her pocket, & make you live life & bathe in lights:
Lights against the cringe, & light turns out to be an antonym
                                                                to [claustrophobia.]
& the lures always remain,
& if you are lucky enough you can have a cup of coffee w/
Kylie Minogue.


Ali Znaidi (Tunisia)