Excerpt: "Conversations with Arabs" by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
Excerpt originally published in The Good Arabs. Creative Commons copyright 2021 by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch. Reprinted by permission of Metonymy Press.
Eli Tareq El Bechlany-Lynch. The Good Arabs. Metonymy Press, $17.95, 208 pp., ISBN: 781999058890
Conversations with Arabs
Conversation #1
“What is Phoenicia?”
“It is us.”
“But what is us?”
“I do not know.”
“Are we Arabs?”
“I was told not.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where does your family come from?”
“They don’t know.”
“Neither do mine.”
“But they say Phoenicia, long ago.”
“When is that?”
“I do not know.”
“Does she still live on, this Phoenicia?”
“Why is she a woman?”
“Aren’t all land masses women?”
“That’s transphobic.”
“You are right.”
“I wrote an essay about it.”
“Enough about that now.”
“What is a body called when it’s suffering? What is the rubble when it’s left behind?”
“What?”
“What?”
“Are we not talking about Arabs?”
“Are Arabs not rubble? Are Arabs not suffering?”
“Are Arabs not joy? Are Arabs not singing?”
“Are Arabs not extremists? Are Arabs not dangerous?”
“Are Arabs not diverse? Are Arabs not religious?”
“The buildings are growing higher and higher. The buildings cost too much.”
“What buildings?”
“The ones lost in the war.”
“The war was so long ago.”
“The are many people alive to remember it.”
“But can’t we forget?”
“But shouldn’t we remember?”
Conversation #2
(with a foreigner)
“Have you ever seen garbage piled up so high, you cannot see the front entrance of an apartment building?”
“I have only seen garbage in dumps, going on for KMs.”
“Do you think that is a better way?”
“I don’t like to see it. I don’t like to smell it.”
“Is ignorance bliss?”
“We have newer incinerators, newer technologies. They are keeping us safe.”
“Who are they?”
They do not speak.
“But you are right, the incinerators we have are old. We do not have a comprehensive solid waste management strategy.”
“What do these words mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why do you say them to me?”
“I just parody the headlines of news articles.”
“It is unsafe.”
“I thought you didn’t like to see.”
“I choose what I like to see.”
“There again is the choice.”
Conversation #3
“Someone should do something about this!”
“What is this?”
“All of this!”
“You gesture but there is so much it could be.”
“I mean everything.”
“But who is someone?” you ask.
“I’m not sure.”
“And why not you?”
“It can’t be me.”
“Why not?”
“I am so far away.”
“Then why don’t you go a little closer?”
“I do not want to lose my comforts.”
“Ah.”
“Ah, what?”
“Isn’t it always that?”
Conversation #6
“Play Fairouz.”
“No, I want to listen to Oum Kalthoum.”
“Not this evening. What about Dalida?”
“Lah’. How about Sabah?”
“Oof, no no. Let’s listen to Nagat El-Sagheera?”
“Who is she? Khalas, I’ve figured it out. Do you have any Abdel Halim Hafez records?”
“Oh no no. I only listen to women.”
“How come?”
“The diva is the centre of the Arab world.”
Credit: Laurence Philomène
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, Carte Blanche, the Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. You can find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq. Their book, knot body, was published by Metatron Press in 2020, and their second book, The Good Arabs, was published by Metonymy Press in September 2021.