In eighty three, as we go down to La Medina,
In Jounieh, a privately owned marina,
With Dalida on the radio singing “Besame Mucho”,
Teenage boys by the pool would be acting macho.

On top of an unfinished house across the street,
He sat with a leopard skin printed swimsuit,
Drinking beer since the early morning hours,
Sitting on a chair as if in watchtowers.

Putting the empty bottles, bottom up on the iron rods,
Extending from the roof ; with just one floor built,
There was too many rods, and not one single guilt,
I am not sure about his story, not sure about his odds.

I later knew that he was a Lebanese from Africa,
Coming to Lebanon in the middle of the war,
They called his Tarzan, but he had no cheetah,
He got fed up over there, and said: No more!

There was also a man with an amputated leg,
An ex-militia man, his pride forbid him to beg,
He was the king of his neighborhood with an M16,
Now, it was an endlessly downward spiraling spleen.

In the cooling splash of the water,
No one needed to know or think further,
War was a faraway entity, in Lebanon, yes,
But in Jounieh, you couldn’t care less.

Fast forward to nineteen eighty nine,
Blood was still flowing like wine,
People were fleeing to Cyprus on a ship,
Next to Jounieh’s harbor, so expensive was the trip.

The ship would station a little after La Medina,
Now too close to the center of the arena,
To get to the ship, they used boats for boarding,
To transport people, and help with the loading.

Night after night, the ship kept on being shelled,
Until one time, a rowboat carrying passengers got hit,
There was screaming and they all yelled,
Everyone waiting for the confusion to settle a bit.

The toll was heavy after the bombs calmed down,
A jeweler lost seventy thousand Dollars in gemstones,
He and his wife, he saw his two daughters drown,
Never to see their remains again or collect their bones.

That same night, we learned in the news the day after,
That a bomb hit a villa causing two windows to shatter,
And the owner, an early sixty something made up lady,
Was lamenting, screaming and shouting like crazy.

She was deploring the “loss of the entire fortune”,
“My castle is destroyed, what a miserable fortune,
Gone are my life’s earnings; your palaces disappeared family of mine,
Husband, before this, it’s good you were diseased” she did whine.

After the dawning of the light,
That followed this fateful night,
The couple forgot about emeralds and diamonds,
Wiping over their now lost family bonds.

As they were deploring two little girls,
That waves took mercilessly in swirls,
An early sixties woman wearing pearls,
Thinking she came from a family of earls…

… Was depressed over the loss of two broken windows.