Corn on the cob from noisy push cart vendors,
Roasted nuts and other ambulant splendors,
Infested with Syrian intelligence agents,
Under the order of a golden-toothed lieutenant.

Tattooed bodybuilders from the southern slums,
In spoilered BMWs with red brake drums,
They know male bonding and are good chums,
Along with the loud music, their rhyming hums.

An elderly man smoking hubbly bublly,
Contemplating the view on his fold-on chair,
Sometimes taking a pause to breathe the salty air,
As if to appreciate the scene more fully.

A fifty something father plays backgammon,
Opposite of him is his barely younger son,
While Zeinab attends to the brooding children,
As a snobbish woman forbids them to caress her kitten.

Three overweight veiled girls in baggy rayon suits,
Hurry in the daily walk avoiding the merchant of fruits,
One of them blushes under the piercing eye of Hassan,
Glad to be noticed by a man apart from her cousin Ghassan.

A mint tea at the seaside Rawdah Cafe,
Or one cup of Uncle Deek’s Nescafe,
Sesame cookie stuffed with Picon*,
Bit by bit, bite by bite, time passes on.

Don’t ask about the hygiene,
It’s a concept never before seen,
But It will never kill you anyway,
Maybe it will, but at least not today.

Sandburg defined happiness one afternoon,
Looking at Hungarians with an accordion,
Seeing these people under a now rising moon,
Of happiness, I think I have defined my own.

*Popular spread cheese brand