tarek chemaly
three books
2009
\_Front page
\_Strata
read
\_getting the news
  from poems
\_Archewallogy
\_Jnune 7 – 2009
\_earlier writings
(2002/2003)
(| EN | FR |)
o-----////()/---[getting the news from poems]------(| Tarek Chemaly · 2009 |)------¬ contents
Exodus 2003

“U.S”. v/s “US”

I am a fanatic of moderation,
Want to convert everyone to it,
For everyone to be believing bit by bit,
I’m ready to do a suicidal operation.

What’s the point of having a world,
Full of duplicates of my own character,
It would be a boring brave new world,
Actually, it would be a cowardly disaster.

Still a little disoriented but now a myth,
“What year is it?” Asks Winston Smith,
It’s groundhog year and we’re in a loop,
And to some battle you’re sending a troop.

Is Oceania at war with Eurasia?
Or right now is it against Eastasia?
We all suffer from collective amnesia,
We should perhaps consider euthanasia.

History is forever erased and rewritten,
It has nine different lives, just like a kitten,
The defenses of your memory are smitten,
To the news bulletin, you better not listen.

I am one of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We”,
I am one of Huxley’s clones of type C,
My children snitched me to the ministry of thought,
And Big Brother’s principles will have to be bought.

It is “We” v/s “them”,
It is “us” v/s “them”,
It is “U.S.” v/s “us” at the stem,
… It is “U.S” against all of them.
61

Tarek Chemaly, ““U.S”. v/s “US””, getting the news from poems (2009), p. 61.

Tarek Chemaly’s three books of 2009, published on 111101 with the author’s permission. getting the news from poems: layout Mike Awad. Archewallogy: design Farah Samman, cover Ashekman. Jnune 7 – 2009: with Rami El Khoury, Upstairs Publishing; photographs as credited on each page.