Tour Journal, Day 48: “One is the loneliest number…”
My memory of Dubai is
hazy
I landed in a sandstorm half dayzed
As though I’d been flying east
For 24 hours trying to race the sun
One battle yet won
I lose and I lose
We imagined this city
Before I ever saw it
Like it’s creators
And again
I’ve fell behind
I’m late
I’m catching up
With work
With sleep
With time
This is how I would like a novel to begin
An unknown narrator
Lost in his mind
In a city
It is true
For I do not know myself
And I do not know my story but I pray we discover it together
Dubai is Vegas
With more culture
And less coke
No casinos
Someone dreamed this city
(I think his face is posted on every street)
So why not bet on yourself
He tells us
Or take a chance on allah
How is that I’m out here
Losing my religion
But never claiming one.
A’salum walakum.
Peace be unto you
But what if I desire
A piece beyond for me
A bigger piece
More pieces
I believe these pieces
May make me whole
There is something strange
About a city that grows from the desert
There’s something strange about all cities
But the desert ones have a particular menace
They are not backed by necessity
They are built on sand
As though they may disappear
Back into the mirage
From whence they came
I know you want a story
An minute to minute account
But that bores me
And as I trudged through this desert
And as I trudged through this desert
I resolved to bare nothing
But my thoughts
And I think
It is bigger than
I
It is slanted
And it leans towards America
The American Dream
So far reaching
It has projected even I into existence
So everywhere I travel
America beams from my eyes
And the world is a white screen for the Dream
I see
The whole world becoming America
Or we are all becoming one
Where nothing is so sacred
It can’t be sold
The story has been told
But we only know how it ends
