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Badmouthing Communicative Language Teaching? No, Not Exactly.

THE SOCKET

Indeed I am no three am-er

Type of guy

But last Saturday, or was it last summer

Pain spikes were more severe

Than a screwdriver could bear

I called my dentist, Miss Overa, 

She was, I guess, sound asleep

She could hardly hear 

The torture in my cords.

She came nonetheless

Within half an hour

With a needle, a gauze 

And something of a plier

And lo and behold

Pulled out my middle-upper tooth

In as little as a quarter of an hour

Truth is, I am all the wiser for it

And best of all,

The pain subsided within the hour.

Other than the gaping socket,

The impact, I felt, 

Was rather insignificant

Except that it left me

Thpeaking with a lithp. 

ELEVENTH HOUR FLASH

The head mechanic's guillotine
Where my car engine is hanging
Is hanging my car engine by the head
Its bolts and nuts, seals, and joints
Interspersed all around
Its apertures agape
Bleeding dead lubricants.
With his hand of iron
The head mechanic securely framed by the right hand
Is firmly securing
The center-slanting iron carcass
Into new middle ground.
Said she before he got
The chop-ahead sign
"You know, iron brother,
I can't make head or hose of us
But why bother to comprehend
The local structure of the act
Where the means justify the end;
Dispose of me wherever
You deem fit to
Dispose of yourself:
We are both expendable".

BETRAYAL

With the palm of your hands

Amidst the cries of seagulls

and the deafening thunder

You could barely holler  

Your voice lost in the brouhaha.

I paddled my way to you

Despite the tumult

And against practice

I reached out

And by any measures

I delivered…

As the scribe later penned the bond

The waves and the clouds and the moon far up

Bore witness to our deed

Only to realize

Ten cycles later

It was mere theater

To be replayed

On other random stages.

Ali H. Raddaoui

10/19/2019

AUGURIES

I asked a small bird
Barely a few weeks old
A novice still at wing fluttering
And water diving
Who migrated from
His hatching place up north
In the mountains and trees
Ever humming the song of birth
Where home was.

"Wherever I roam is my home"
He said, panting,
Awkwardly palming
Behind the flock.
"Every sport,
- Liquid or rock -
And wherever a birds' eye view is caught
Is a nest I cherish
And an instant where I flourish
I know of nothing
You call jet lag
I'm all the time zones of the world
I've been and will be to.

Yet,
The one spot
I wanna rot
Is the one
Where I was hatched."

RAPPELLE-TOI CELESTE

Rappelle-toi Céleste
Des contrées qu’on a traversées
Entre le nord et le sud-est
Des collines qu’on a grimpées
À la recherche d’un instant
Des amonts sous lesquels
Nous avons tous les deux édifié un recours
Des mots qu’on a tissés de part et d’autre
De nos rencontres
L’eau qu’on s’est partagée
Au milieu du désert
Rappelle-toi Céleste
Ne me dis pas que le temps est plus fort
Que la vie à des manières inédites
D’éteindre les murmures
De faire ensevelir les mémoires
D’enterrer les pistils et les fleurs
Céleste, chérie;
Jette un coup d’oeil sur le trajet
Qui sait quel serait son concours
Pour toi, et pour les images
Qu’on a peintes sur la toile de ce parcours
Qui est le nôtre
Quand j’étale le bagage que nous portions
Tous les deux, l’un et l’autre
Ses couleurs, ses refrains, ses odeurs
Ses promesses et ses lueurs
J’aperçois un soupçon de ce qui fut.
Merci tout de même pour les mots
Les gouttes d’eau, les traversées
Et les mémoires
Au revoir.