WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.900 --> 00:00:02.760 align:middle line:90% "Psalm. 00:00:02.760 --> 00:00:05.040 align:middle line:90% Departure." 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:10.080 align:middle line:84% "Locusts wrap the sun in gauze, the river swallows its banks. 00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:13.140 align:middle line:84% No pleasure but seeing the no-king crop 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:18.690 align:middle line:84% here, the no-fields, a petrified forest where twins are slain. 00:00:18.690 --> 00:00:21.030 align:middle line:90% Someone will follow a bird. 00:00:21.030 --> 00:00:24.180 align:middle line:90% The work of fire never ends-- 00:00:24.180 --> 00:00:28.950 align:middle line:84% Djinn build cities of mirage, the poor stand waiting 00:00:28.950 --> 00:00:30.450 align:middle line:90% by the shore. 00:00:30.450 --> 00:00:37.260 align:middle line:84% Signs made of spider dust, signs made of stardust and spider 00:00:37.260 --> 00:00:38.650 align:middle line:90% thread. 00:00:38.650 --> 00:00:44.400 align:middle line:84% Any way you measure it, the difference will be a road." 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:47.640 align:middle line:84% "Season of Migration to the North/Northwest." 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:50.730 align:middle line:90% 00:00:50.730 --> 00:00:53.100 align:middle line:84% "Spent years gathering eucalyptus 00:00:53.100 --> 00:00:56.100 align:middle line:84% leaves from King Menelik's forests-- 00:00:56.100 --> 00:01:00.060 align:middle line:84% their fire makes the best injera, I'm told. 00:01:00.060 --> 00:01:03.870 align:middle line:84% You climb wheezing, choking, on Addis air, 00:01:03.870 --> 00:01:07.110 align:middle line:84% then you find yourself in these scented woods. 00:01:07.110 --> 00:01:10.110 align:middle line:84% Back breaking, but I love bundling 00:01:10.110 --> 00:01:13.710 align:middle line:84% the leaves, how the rain soaks the scent into your clothes 00:01:13.710 --> 00:01:15.150 align:middle line:90% and skin. 00:01:15.150 --> 00:01:18.600 align:middle line:84% Maybe that's why Menelik built his palace here, 00:01:18.600 --> 00:01:23.070 align:middle line:84% a great church looming over it to show he was content. 00:01:23.070 --> 00:01:27.150 align:middle line:84% But even he was tempted away; his queen sent a messenger 00:01:27.150 --> 00:01:31.590 align:middle line:84% from the foot of Entoto saying she's found a new addis 00:01:31.590 --> 00:01:37.590 align:middle line:84% flower, ababa, and he followed her like Adam out of paradise 00:01:37.590 --> 00:01:41.370 align:middle line:84% to cofound the metropolis nightmare. 00:01:41.370 --> 00:01:45.030 align:middle line:84% Was my dream worth more than enough to live-- 00:01:45.030 --> 00:01:49.020 align:middle line:84% air to live on something between banal sin 00:01:49.020 --> 00:01:51.390 align:middle line:90% and the creator's potency? 00:01:51.390 --> 00:01:55.860 align:middle line:84% Addis to the source of the Nile, then Khartoum to Sinai, 00:01:55.860 --> 00:01:59.430 align:middle line:84% to be an asylee in Tel Aviv, or northwest 00:01:59.430 --> 00:02:03.720 align:middle line:84% through Darfur and Sebha, to the Bride of the Med. 00:02:03.720 --> 00:02:08.820 align:middle line:84% Names like shabby trees on a map, lines from a screen 00:02:08.820 --> 00:02:13.650 align:middle line:84% where bodies are stick figures dancing to tepid applause. 00:02:13.650 --> 00:02:18.060 align:middle line:84% Each a degree in a circle inside a void, 00:02:18.060 --> 00:02:21.450 align:middle line:84% unmarked time, days like scentless 00:02:21.450 --> 00:02:24.375 align:middle line:84% leaves that slip through your hands." 00:02:24.375 --> 00:02:28.080 align:middle line:90% 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:30.390 align:middle line:90% "Testimony." 00:02:30.390 --> 00:02:33.580 align:middle line:90% "How am I not one of the gone? 00:02:33.580 --> 00:02:39.060 align:middle line:84% How did the hand know to snatch my child from my breast? 00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:42.690 align:middle line:84% A succubus angel wanders the desert, 00:02:42.690 --> 00:02:45.675 align:middle line:90% clouds swirls below the sand." 00:02:45.675 --> 00:02:48.882 align:middle line:90% 00:02:48.882 --> 00:02:49.905 align:middle line:90% "Agadez Blues." 00:02:49.905 --> 00:02:53.060 align:middle line:90% 00:02:53.060 --> 00:02:55.850 align:middle line:90% "No place, no money for the bed. 00:02:55.850 --> 00:02:59.450 align:middle line:84% Je dors dans la rue paid only the way. 00:02:59.450 --> 00:03:02.360 align:middle line:90% Even God can't see me here. 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:07.520 align:middle line:84% Police take your money quand tu n'as pas d'argent. 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:10.370 align:middle line:90% Even God can't hear me here. 00:03:10.370 --> 00:03:16.430 align:middle line:84% Ils te palpent tu le corps pour vérifier palpent all your body. 00:03:16.430 --> 00:03:19.640 align:middle line:90% Even God can't save me here. 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:24.530 align:middle line:84% I pay 1,300 francs go to Libye mais le chauffeur, il est 00:03:24.530 --> 00:03:25.730 align:middle line:90% parti. 00:03:25.730 --> 00:03:28.430 align:middle line:90% Even God can't help me here. 00:03:28.430 --> 00:03:31.460 align:middle line:90% Je n'ai plus rien pour manger. 00:03:31.460 --> 00:03:34.280 align:middle line:90% Je n'ai plus rien pour dormir. 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:36.605 align:middle line:90% Even God can't find me here. 00:03:36.605 --> 00:03:39.530 align:middle line:90% 00:03:39.530 --> 00:03:46.460 align:middle line:84% I work a small town so intense other refugees pay just so I 00:03:46.460 --> 00:03:49.025 align:middle line:90% can stitch, stitch by stitch." 00:03:49.025 --> 00:03:54.490 align:middle line:90% 00:03:54.490 --> 00:03:56.620 align:middle line:90% "Song." 00:03:56.620 --> 00:03:58.870 align:middle line:84% In this poem, I mention Mount Acacus, 00:03:58.870 --> 00:04:02.830 align:middle line:84% which is a great mountain in the northwest of Libya. 00:04:02.830 --> 00:04:04.360 align:middle line:84% And there are caves in that area. 00:04:04.360 --> 00:04:09.190 align:middle line:84% It's also a famous area for caves in northeastern Algeria. 00:04:09.190 --> 00:04:13.300 align:middle line:84% And in the caves are drawings of herds. 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:15.370 align:middle line:84% It's all desert, but in the caves 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:21.730 align:middle line:84% are drawings of herds of bulls, animals, just the drawings 00:04:21.730 --> 00:04:23.530 align:middle line:84% are thousands of years old, but also 00:04:23.530 --> 00:04:25.420 align:middle line:90% drawings of Egyptian chariots. 00:04:25.420 --> 00:04:29.830 align:middle line:84% So apparently, Egyptian chariots had made it-- 00:04:29.830 --> 00:04:34.240 align:middle line:84% used to go from the Nile Valley all the way to what 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:37.600 align:middle line:90% is now the heart of the desert. 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:44.870 align:middle line:84% So this poem reminiscences, if you will, a song. 00:04:44.870 --> 00:04:49.280 align:middle line:84% "How could I not be but a stone now, 00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:53.630 align:middle line:84% deep in the caves of Acacus and memory thrives. 00:04:53.630 --> 00:04:57.980 align:middle line:84% Herds of bulls, and red ocher, and gray-green hues, 00:04:57.980 --> 00:05:02.630 align:middle line:84% demigods riding Egyptian chariots breezing through when 00:05:02.630 --> 00:05:05.150 align:middle line:90% the land was arable still. 00:05:05.150 --> 00:05:09.080 align:middle line:84% What sound can my stone throw make now? 00:05:09.080 --> 00:05:10.920 align:middle line:90% What can it voice? 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:15.185 align:middle line:84% How can it voice these memorial arid winds?" 00:05:15.185 --> 00:05:19.890 align:middle line:90% 00:05:19.890 --> 00:05:22.620 align:middle line:90% "Tripoli Days." 00:05:22.620 --> 00:05:26.520 align:middle line:84% If I sweep this floor, pack this meat, 00:05:26.520 --> 00:05:31.170 align:middle line:84% pluck these olives until my palms bleed, 00:05:31.170 --> 00:05:36.960 align:middle line:84% what outcome is postponed, multiplied into my years? 00:05:36.960 --> 00:05:41.340 align:middle line:84% Not just your labor, your life is cheap, too. 00:05:41.340 --> 00:05:44.160 align:middle line:90% So you pay and pray. 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:48.990 align:middle line:84% Yet but if there is no place, only harbors, no pillow 00:05:48.990 --> 00:05:56.280 align:middle line:84% or window frame, only more space for the sullen dream to grow 00:05:56.280 --> 00:05:56.990 align:middle line:90% and digress." 00:05:56.990 --> 00:06:01.920 align:middle line:90% 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.650 align:middle line:90% "Psalm to Memory." 00:06:04.650 --> 00:06:06.630 align:middle line:90% "At peace in the palm-- 00:06:06.630 --> 00:06:11.640 align:middle line:84% embers, perfumes, the sense of Abyssinia and Mecca 00:06:11.640 --> 00:06:13.440 align:middle line:90% hunt the brain. 00:06:13.440 --> 00:06:16.275 align:middle line:84% You remember weddings and feasts. 00:06:16.275 --> 00:06:20.310 align:middle line:84% Hail pocked the copper dust, and you, open mouth, 00:06:20.310 --> 00:06:22.500 align:middle line:90% gazing at the world. 00:06:22.500 --> 00:06:26.190 align:middle line:84% Years have passed since that since. 00:06:26.190 --> 00:06:30.840 align:middle line:84% How does the body know how to pin so much of itself 00:06:30.840 --> 00:06:31.470 align:middle line:90% in words?" 00:06:31.470 --> 00:06:35.400 align:middle line:90% 00:06:35.400 --> 00:06:42.600 align:middle line:84% Malouk is the poet in Abu Bakr Khaal's novel. 00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:47.010 align:middle line:84% "I tap a few words to her on WhatsApp or Viber 00:06:47.010 --> 00:06:49.200 align:middle line:90% to blot out the day. 00:06:49.200 --> 00:06:51.720 align:middle line:84% I bring my nose close to the screen 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:54.420 align:middle line:90% to smell the photos she sends. 00:06:54.420 --> 00:06:57.900 align:middle line:84% Selfies of her by the gas stove or the baby 00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:01.020 align:middle line:84% making a gesture, a smile or a yawn or cry. 00:07:01.020 --> 00:07:03.120 align:middle line:84% Sometimes a video of an old song. 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:06.150 align:middle line:84% She asks about the sea; it's calm 00:07:06.150 --> 00:07:08.640 align:middle line:90% but the traffickers no show. 00:07:08.640 --> 00:07:12.750 align:middle line:84% She breaks me, a softness that turns me dusk, 00:07:12.750 --> 00:07:15.090 align:middle line:84% I, the poet dissident, who labored 00:07:15.090 --> 00:07:20.040 align:middle line:84% to rephrase with healing the nations' inflamed contract, who 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:23.310 align:middle line:84% roved the bone sculptures made governments, 00:07:23.310 --> 00:07:27.330 align:middle line:84% the sanctuaries filled fear-bright eyes, my words 00:07:27.330 --> 00:07:31.500 align:middle line:90% now monosyllabic soft as sighs. 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:35.580 align:middle line:84% There was blindness in my game, my epic of home. 00:07:35.580 --> 00:07:37.650 align:middle line:84% I hear the smugglers, their pupils 00:07:37.650 --> 00:07:40.830 align:middle line:84% shifting as if following a maddened gull, 00:07:40.830 --> 00:07:44.160 align:middle line:84% some bootleg spasm and discharge. 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:47.130 align:middle line:84% A blindness that cannot stop seeing, 00:07:47.130 --> 00:07:51.300 align:middle line:84% these eyes will keep shifting like this in their graves. 00:07:51.300 --> 00:07:56.430 align:middle line:84% I see my spirit too, a plastic cloud drifting in the breeze. 00:07:56.430 --> 00:08:00.270 align:middle line:84% With them is our last chance, but for what? 00:08:00.270 --> 00:08:04.680 align:middle line:84% From the village drying up to sand, the town without jobs, 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:07.080 align:middle line:84% the hands that never learned to write, 00:08:07.080 --> 00:08:11.760 align:middle line:84% the eyes that barely read, the soul hunger stump and trade. 00:08:11.760 --> 00:08:13.860 align:middle line:90% Am I writing my poem again? 00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:17.730 align:middle line:84% Have I become the exile I so mock and detest? 00:08:17.730 --> 00:08:19.830 align:middle line:90% How to walk this sea? 00:08:19.830 --> 00:08:23.550 align:middle line:84% How to not believe that much is possible? 00:08:23.550 --> 00:08:27.060 align:middle line:84% Arrived in Kufa, the cramped 4x4s, 00:08:27.060 --> 00:08:32.130 align:middle line:84% the Hilux were spent bodies cling to wooden poles, IVECOs, 00:08:32.130 --> 00:08:34.830 align:middle line:84% hundred-packed swaying death's wave. 00:08:34.830 --> 00:08:39.090 align:middle line:84% Emptied in the camp, divided between sheets of galvanize, 00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:42.480 align:middle line:84% the courtyard littered-- bottles, clothes, 00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:46.200 align:middle line:84% old photographs-- like some carnival bacchanal 00:08:46.200 --> 00:08:50.850 align:middle line:84% the night before, a town facing massacre just fled. 00:08:50.850 --> 00:08:55.020 align:middle line:84% An empty, once-crowded barracoon where the signal 00:08:55.020 --> 00:08:57.750 align:middle line:90% is one ribbon strong. 00:08:57.750 --> 00:09:01.575 align:middle line:84% It is from here that I send her all my love. 00:09:01.575 --> 00:09:04.820 align:middle line:90% 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:08.000 align:middle line:90% "Amadou's Boss." 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.090 align:middle line:90% "One minute, Amadou is here. 00:09:11.090 --> 00:09:16.220 align:middle line:84% You send him to fetch bucket of water or to buy fresh bread. 00:09:16.220 --> 00:09:19.220 align:middle line:84% Another minute, he gets a phone call. 00:09:19.220 --> 00:09:22.730 align:middle line:84% And in no time, he's in Garabulli or Zuwara 00:09:22.730 --> 00:09:24.140 align:middle line:90% getting on a boat. 00:09:24.140 --> 00:09:28.400 align:middle line:84% Sometimes he'll call from Lampedusa, giggling, happy, 00:09:28.400 --> 00:09:30.890 align:middle line:90% saying sorry he's gone. 00:09:30.890 --> 00:09:33.710 align:middle line:84% Sometimes he does not call at all." 00:09:33.710 --> 00:09:36.880 align:middle line:90% 00:09:36.880 --> 00:09:39.790 align:middle line:90% "On the Boat." 00:09:39.790 --> 00:09:44.470 align:middle line:84% "The boy next to me covers his eyes not to see the waves. 00:09:44.470 --> 00:09:47.320 align:middle line:90% He falls under our feet. 00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:50.290 align:middle line:84% A pregnant woman vomits, starts screaming, 00:09:50.290 --> 00:09:53.380 align:middle line:90% screams all night long. 00:09:53.380 --> 00:09:55.660 align:middle line:90% Below deck, people shout. 00:09:55.660 --> 00:09:56.890 align:middle line:90% They can't breathe. 00:09:56.890 --> 00:10:00.610 align:middle line:84% The men go down and start beating them. 00:10:00.610 --> 00:10:06.220 align:middle line:84% Tonight's searchlights, crazed sword slashing sky, 00:10:06.220 --> 00:10:08.590 align:middle line:90% can't find us in the dark." 00:10:08.590 --> 00:10:12.690 align:middle line:90% 00:10:12.690 --> 00:10:15.300 align:middle line:90% "Testimony." 00:10:15.300 --> 00:10:18.810 align:middle line:84% I started out of fishermen, learned to make boats. 00:10:18.810 --> 00:10:21.180 align:middle line:90% An Egyptian taught me how. 00:10:21.180 --> 00:10:25.980 align:middle line:84% Open the shop, sold parasols and chairs, nets, bait, and wire. 00:10:25.980 --> 00:10:29.670 align:middle line:84% Then someone wanted a dinghy, a zodiac. 00:10:29.670 --> 00:10:32.100 align:middle line:90% I ordered a dozen from China. 00:10:32.100 --> 00:10:34.950 align:middle line:84% Load capacity, strength of material, 00:10:34.950 --> 00:10:37.770 align:middle line:90% it's all in the booklet, I say. 00:10:37.770 --> 00:10:40.080 align:middle line:84% Long before the Arabs, Phoenicians, 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:44.910 align:middle line:84% Romans old and new, from spear to jet fighter wars, 00:10:44.910 --> 00:10:47.190 align:middle line:90% this jetty has been here. 00:10:47.190 --> 00:10:49.800 align:middle line:84% Boats filled with people and goods 00:10:49.800 --> 00:10:53.980 align:middle line:84% loaded and sailed off, the next day, week, 00:10:53.980 --> 00:10:58.140 align:middle line:84% or month the beaches are littered with the corpses. 00:10:58.140 --> 00:11:02.250 align:middle line:84% I help gather them, dig graves, recite 00:11:02.250 --> 00:11:06.740 align:middle line:84% the Fatiha over their souls, nothing else I need to know." 00:11:06.740 --> 00:11:12.551 align:middle line:90% 00:11:12.551 --> 00:11:15.120 align:middle line:90% "Into The Sea." 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:19.920 align:middle line:84% "Barely out of the jetty, the boat rises with every wave, 00:11:19.920 --> 00:11:24.000 align:middle line:84% and in the back two or three fall into the sea. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.120 align:middle line:84% At sunset the boat starts to lose air, 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:32.220 align:middle line:84% fills with water, mothers and babies fall into the sea. 00:11:32.220 --> 00:11:34.290 align:middle line:90% One side stays afloat. 00:11:34.290 --> 00:11:38.040 align:middle line:84% We cling to a rope, water up to our belly and people 00:11:38.040 --> 00:11:40.260 align:middle line:90% fall into the sea. 00:11:40.260 --> 00:11:42.030 align:middle line:90% All night we grip and bleed. 00:11:42.030 --> 00:11:45.480 align:middle line:84% Rain so cold, waves five stories high. 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:48.720 align:middle line:84% If only I could fall into the sea. 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:50.670 align:middle line:90% Sunrise, a helicopter. 00:11:50.670 --> 00:11:53.350 align:middle line:84% I find a red shirt, wave it to them. 00:11:53.350 --> 00:11:56.520 align:middle line:90% They watch us fall into the sea. 00:11:56.520 --> 00:11:59.250 align:middle line:84% They fling a small inflatable boat. 00:11:59.250 --> 00:12:01.410 align:middle line:90% I am too weak to reach it. 00:12:01.410 --> 00:12:04.770 align:middle line:84% Others try and fall into the sea. 00:12:04.770 --> 00:12:08.970 align:middle line:84% A cargo boat throws a rope, get us on board. 00:12:08.970 --> 00:12:12.855 align:middle line:84% Alive at last, and we still fall into the sea." 00:12:12.855 --> 00:12:16.350 align:middle line:90% 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:20.340 align:middle line:90% "Wave Checkpoint and Doom-- 00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:22.530 align:middle line:90% The Roads We Tread." 00:12:22.530 --> 00:12:26.430 align:middle line:84% "Each day a ragged plastic cup and people 00:12:26.430 --> 00:12:28.620 align:middle line:90% will forget how to die. 00:12:28.620 --> 00:12:34.950 align:middle line:84% The way lost befriends lament to a fog heavy with wings. 00:12:34.950 --> 00:12:39.540 align:middle line:84% Far away somewhere, I have a brother 00:12:39.540 --> 00:12:42.960 align:middle line:90% or a sister in this world. 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:44.715 align:middle line:90% My blessing comes." 00:12:44.715 --> 00:12:47.270 align:middle line:90% 00:12:47.270 --> 00:12:49.010 align:middle line:90% "The Affari." 00:12:49.010 --> 00:12:51.260 align:middle line:90% The Business. 00:12:51.260 --> 00:12:53.990 align:middle line:84% "Someone reaping land, trading it 00:12:53.990 --> 00:12:58.430 align:middle line:84% for a 4x4 or a shipload of gasoline 00:12:58.430 --> 00:13:00.770 align:middle line:90% each body delivered or shipped. 00:13:00.770 --> 00:13:03.860 align:middle line:84% Something to the smuggler, the rescue worker, the boat 00:13:03.860 --> 00:13:07.160 align:middle line:84% mechanics, truck driver, salesman, food exporters, 00:13:07.160 --> 00:13:11.060 align:middle line:84% tire repairman, money changers, doctors, and medicine men. 00:13:11.060 --> 00:13:13.610 align:middle line:84% For each house torn down or blown up, 00:13:13.610 --> 00:13:16.340 align:middle line:84% each bullet-riddled school, each clinic built, 00:13:16.340 --> 00:13:18.530 align:middle line:90% detention center overran. 00:13:18.530 --> 00:13:23.780 align:middle line:84% Something to peacekeeper, terrorist, jet-drone bombing 00:13:23.780 --> 00:13:24.710 align:middle line:90% him. 00:13:24.710 --> 00:13:30.170 align:middle line:84% A salary, a stipend, a grant, a loan, a fellowship." 00:13:30.170 --> 00:13:33.500 align:middle line:90% 00:13:33.500 --> 00:13:36.590 align:middle line:90% "Democracy At Work." 00:13:36.590 --> 00:13:39.380 align:middle line:90% "A city council meeting. 00:13:39.380 --> 00:13:43.970 align:middle line:84% An elected official says, no need for a sewage treatment 00:13:43.970 --> 00:13:45.320 align:middle line:90% plant. 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:52.160 align:middle line:84% The stench unbearable, the city knee deep in its own raw filth, 00:13:52.160 --> 00:13:54.890 align:middle line:90% the sea will take it. 00:13:54.890 --> 00:13:59.060 align:middle line:84% The sea will clean the refuse of life. 00:13:59.060 --> 00:14:01.560 align:middle line:90% When has the sea refused?" 00:14:01.560 --> 00:14:05.470 align:middle line:90% 00:14:05.470 --> 00:14:08.140 align:middle line:90% "Constance Song." 00:14:08.140 --> 00:14:17.080 align:middle line:84% "The hands of your kin, pits of desire for the pain of others, 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:19.580 align:middle line:90% oh poet friend. 00:14:19.580 --> 00:14:27.440 align:middle line:84% Flooding, pounding, prodding, scalding human flesh, oh poet 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:29.120 align:middle line:90% friend. 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:36.240 align:middle line:84% Is this the legacy of your great and noble revolt, oh poet 00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:36.740 align:middle line:90% friend?" 00:14:36.740 --> 00:14:41.000 align:middle line:90% 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:44.000 align:middle line:90% "Song For Amadou." 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:46.370 align:middle line:84% Have you made it to Sicily, Amadou? 00:14:46.370 --> 00:14:50.210 align:middle line:84% Are you deep in the woods of Denmark learn 00:14:50.210 --> 00:14:52.700 align:middle line:90% to read, writing your book? 00:14:52.700 --> 00:14:57.200 align:middle line:84% Have they put you on a plane home, Amadou, kidnapped you, 00:14:57.200 --> 00:15:00.470 align:middle line:84% sent you back to that camp in Bani Walid, 00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:05.150 align:middle line:84% slaving day and night on a farm for some cook? 00:15:05.150 --> 00:15:09.200 align:middle line:84% Are you in paradise now, Amadou, a skeleton 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:13.790 align:middle line:84% bleaching in the sand, a bloated corpse on a sunny resort? 00:15:13.790 --> 00:15:18.220 align:middle line:90% 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:21.860 align:middle line:90% "The Mortician's Testimony." 00:15:21.860 --> 00:15:27.530 align:middle line:84% "You take a tissue sample and fingerprints if intact, 00:15:27.530 --> 00:15:30.440 align:middle line:90% note distinct features or marks. 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:33.470 align:middle line:84% Some have clothes on them with IDs 00:15:33.470 --> 00:15:36.560 align:middle line:84% or passports in their pockets, or the crew 00:15:36.560 --> 00:15:40.790 align:middle line:84% bring documents in plastic bags snatched like dead jellyfish 00:15:40.790 --> 00:15:42.950 align:middle line:90% drifting on the sea. 00:15:42.950 --> 00:15:48.440 align:middle line:84% You match face with photo, you bring the priest and the Imam. 00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:50.990 align:middle line:90% No one is going home. 00:15:50.990 --> 00:15:54.500 align:middle line:90% Sometimes there is no match. 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:58.640 align:middle line:84% That's when I seek their places of birth on the app 00:15:58.640 --> 00:16:04.760 align:middle line:84% and recite weight, height, and gender, age, tattoos, 00:16:04.760 --> 00:16:06.470 align:middle line:90% and scars. 00:16:06.470 --> 00:16:12.110 align:middle line:84% It is to my Lord, to my Lord the antemortem, that I pray." 00:16:12.110 --> 00:16:15.350 align:middle line:90% 00:16:15.350 --> 00:16:17.120 align:middle line:84% You've also heard about incidents 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:20.960 align:middle line:84% of slavery, which is an extension of all 00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:23.060 align:middle line:90% of that human trafficking. 00:16:23.060 --> 00:16:26.150 align:middle line:84% With lines taken from Walt Whitman from 00:16:26.150 --> 00:16:29.330 align:middle line:90% "I Sing The Body Electric." 00:16:29.330 --> 00:16:32.420 align:middle line:84% "The auctioneer in militia fatigues 00:16:32.420 --> 00:16:36.380 align:middle line:84% pushes you aside to conduct his business. 00:16:36.380 --> 00:16:39.830 align:middle line:90% He has 12 lined up. 00:16:39.830 --> 00:16:45.260 align:middle line:84% Of the bonds, fees, threats, and the quintillion beneficiaries, 00:16:45.260 --> 00:16:48.860 align:middle line:84% the revolving cycle of birth, poverty, and abuse 00:16:48.860 --> 00:16:51.350 align:middle line:90% truly and steadily erode. 00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:55.070 align:middle line:90% He knows nothing or pretends. 00:16:55.070 --> 00:16:57.110 align:middle line:84% Or how they ended up in his hands 00:16:57.110 --> 00:17:01.640 align:middle line:84% and whence they go, only his small part in the trade. 00:17:01.640 --> 00:17:04.190 align:middle line:84% And of the cunning tendons and nerves 00:17:04.190 --> 00:17:06.530 align:middle line:84% under the glare of searchlight beams, 00:17:06.530 --> 00:17:10.790 align:middle line:84% how will they swim the pool of labor's excess? 00:17:10.790 --> 00:17:13.700 align:middle line:90% Nothing or pretends. 00:17:13.700 --> 00:17:17.540 align:middle line:84% What building site or garment floor, no time to be stripped, 00:17:17.540 --> 00:17:21.380 align:middle line:84% flecks of breast muscle, plant, back bone, good-sized arms 00:17:21.380 --> 00:17:24.829 align:middle line:84% and legs where they had been tasered, slashed, 00:17:24.829 --> 00:17:29.930 align:middle line:84% and whipped that you may see them, nothing or pretends. 00:17:29.930 --> 00:17:34.370 align:middle line:84% But witness you note how the living eyes map the faces, 00:17:34.370 --> 00:17:36.050 align:middle line:90% acumen stripped. 00:17:36.050 --> 00:17:38.840 align:middle line:84% 'Brothers, we have no time,' he says. 00:17:38.840 --> 00:17:42.380 align:middle line:84% Spare him talk of countless immortal lives 00:17:42.380 --> 00:17:46.550 align:middle line:84% in parlors and lecture rooms across rich republics 00:17:46.550 --> 00:17:48.650 align:middle line:90% and Frontex states. 00:17:48.650 --> 00:17:53.090 align:middle line:84% He knows within there, one's blood, same old blood, 00:17:53.090 --> 00:17:58.100 align:middle line:84% how easily it spills, how evidence is hidden, drained. 00:17:58.100 --> 00:18:02.060 align:middle line:84% Whatever the bidders bid, none of your brothers 00:18:02.060 --> 00:18:04.040 align:middle line:90% will exceed 100 quid." 00:18:04.040 --> 00:18:08.560 align:middle line:90% 00:18:08.560 --> 00:18:11.680 align:middle line:90% "From Palermo." 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:15.490 align:middle line:84% "One day will be money on either side. 00:18:15.490 --> 00:18:18.730 align:middle line:90% Someone want cargo arrive safe. 00:18:18.730 --> 00:18:22.360 align:middle line:84% Someone calculate actuarials, potential return. 00:18:22.360 --> 00:18:25.510 align:middle line:90% A dozen girls give you a quote. 00:18:25.510 --> 00:18:31.930 align:middle line:84% Here now no one say I make you pay if cargo is killed." 00:18:31.930 --> 00:18:34.900 align:middle line:90% 00:18:34.900 --> 00:18:38.890 align:middle line:90% "From Valetta in Malta." 00:18:38.890 --> 00:18:42.820 align:middle line:84% "Will you make enough money from the boat business, Affari, 00:18:42.820 --> 00:18:46.810 align:middle line:84% to bribe the refinery in the next town? 00:18:46.810 --> 00:18:48.530 align:middle line:90% Give us a call. 00:18:48.530 --> 00:18:53.830 align:middle line:84% We issue port of origin papers, unload phantom contents 00:18:53.830 --> 00:18:57.670 align:middle line:84% in friendly ports, wire fee to account. 00:18:57.670 --> 00:19:00.490 align:middle line:90% Best is Cyprus, next Dubai." 00:19:00.490 --> 00:19:04.630 align:middle line:90% 00:19:04.630 --> 00:19:06.850 align:middle line:90% "From Zuwara." 00:19:06.850 --> 00:19:09.710 align:middle line:90% Italians will take the boat. 00:19:09.710 --> 00:19:13.210 align:middle line:84% But the captain, how much he worth? 00:19:13.210 --> 00:19:19.630 align:middle line:84% Ride along a few miles, hand boat over, Sudanese cook. 00:19:19.630 --> 00:19:23.710 align:middle line:84% Some hours, and you kiss sleeping toddler 00:19:23.710 --> 00:19:24.955 align:middle line:90% waiting your return." 00:19:24.955 --> 00:19:28.300 align:middle line:90% 00:19:28.300 --> 00:19:30.880 align:middle line:90% Psalm. 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:33.880 align:middle line:84% What is a mere grazer to the world 00:19:33.880 --> 00:19:36.280 align:middle line:90% of the many and contending? 00:19:36.280 --> 00:19:39.880 align:middle line:84% To the jealous ones of this Earth dying 00:19:39.880 --> 00:19:41.980 align:middle line:90% grass, what do them? 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.920 align:middle line:84% What do time and limb spent this far, 00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:51.160 align:middle line:84% the mind voracious, its calculus ablaze. 00:19:51.160 --> 00:19:54.850 align:middle line:84% Constance [? Song." ?] Day and night 00:19:54.850 --> 00:19:57.490 align:middle line:90% travel to reach these shores-- 00:19:57.490 --> 00:20:01.060 align:middle line:84% west to north, east to north, north 00:20:01.060 --> 00:20:06.580 align:middle line:84% to north to north to north to north to north, your country, 00:20:06.580 --> 00:20:11.425 align:middle line:84% your savage country, where you and I are free." 00:20:11.425 --> 00:20:14.260 align:middle line:90% 00:20:14.260 --> 00:20:16.840 align:middle line:90% "Psalm." 00:20:16.840 --> 00:20:20.440 align:middle line:84% "A fistful of myrrh in his left hand, 00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:24.490 align:middle line:84% and his [? wight's ?] ascent is the bennu's flight. 00:20:24.490 --> 00:20:28.000 align:middle line:84% His voice a thread buried in sand, 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:33.520 align:middle line:84% a fluorescent light inflaming a sky gleaming with ink. 00:20:33.520 --> 00:20:39.040 align:middle line:84% He'll be pure and I will stand an inexplicable glyph waiting 00:20:39.040 --> 00:20:41.050 align:middle line:90% to be assigned. 00:20:41.050 --> 00:20:45.010 align:middle line:84% Measure now your heart's contraband-- 00:20:45.010 --> 00:20:47.050 align:middle line:90% all that's delved between us. 00:20:47.050 --> 00:20:49.780 align:middle line:90% Measure it in blood. 00:20:49.780 --> 00:20:55.180 align:middle line:84% Tell the mind to disband what it's accounted for 00:20:55.180 --> 00:20:56.340 align:middle line:90% and disavowed." 00:20:56.340 --> 00:21:00.750 align:middle line:90% 00:21:00.750 --> 00:21:04.010 align:middle line:90% "Camp Testimony." 00:21:04.010 --> 00:21:07.340 align:middle line:84% "Don't fear the look in their eyes. 00:21:07.340 --> 00:21:11.300 align:middle line:84% You stink just as they, but you're a lock 00:21:11.300 --> 00:21:13.730 align:middle line:90% in the prison of their lives. 00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:17.420 align:middle line:90% And pay and pay they must. 00:21:17.420 --> 00:21:20.970 align:middle line:84% But when will you leave this trade in death? 00:21:20.970 --> 00:21:27.530 align:middle line:84% So many bodies so much life, this snot of unsorted dreaming. 00:21:27.530 --> 00:21:30.710 align:middle line:90% Now the sea is calm again. 00:21:30.710 --> 00:21:36.740 align:middle line:84% Bats circle the tangerine grove riding the sultry breeze. 00:21:36.740 --> 00:21:40.250 align:middle line:84% Time to send another boat perhaps. 00:21:40.250 --> 00:21:42.020 align:middle line:90% And what's her name? 00:21:42.020 --> 00:21:48.140 align:middle line:84% Constance or Blessing, the one paying her fare in bed. 00:21:48.140 --> 00:21:49.865 align:middle line:90% She'll be there when you return. 00:21:49.865 --> 00:21:52.380 align:middle line:90% 00:21:52.380 --> 00:21:55.400 align:middle line:90% "Psalm of the Deportee." 00:21:55.400 --> 00:22:00.020 align:middle line:84% "Between privilege and pity, a paradise of tolerable 00:22:00.020 --> 00:22:05.330 align:middle line:84% solitude, a checkpoint at a hope that slides, 00:22:05.330 --> 00:22:08.900 align:middle line:84% the traveler is cornered at last. 00:22:08.900 --> 00:22:12.800 align:middle line:84% Voice encased in thirst, his body 00:22:12.800 --> 00:22:17.000 align:middle line:84% is midnight, past spirit and cup." 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:19.585 align:middle line:90% 00:22:19.585 --> 00:22:21.120 align:middle line:90% "Malouk's Song." 00:22:21.120 --> 00:22:23.970 align:middle line:84% This is the last one in the pieces. 00:22:23.970 --> 00:22:28.320 align:middle line:84% "Lampedusa a hundred leagues now. 00:22:28.320 --> 00:22:32.640 align:middle line:84% The bay between it and Sousse, a corridor of debris, 00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:35.280 align:middle line:90% a Phoenician graveyard. 00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:38.730 align:middle line:84% Are we prepared for the storm's paradise? 00:22:38.730 --> 00:22:42.720 align:middle line:84% The starlings recite the zodiacs on their wings; 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:46.620 align:middle line:84% the marabouts must in kindness abide. 00:22:46.620 --> 00:22:49.860 align:middle line:84% On the wireless the noises of rescue-- 00:22:49.860 --> 00:22:53.340 align:middle line:84% a blink of unconsciousness and disuse-- 00:22:53.340 --> 00:22:57.210 align:middle line:84% into a theater of salvation we ride. 00:22:57.210 --> 00:23:00.270 align:middle line:84% We are exalted into some hippopotamus, 00:23:00.270 --> 00:23:04.710 align:middle line:84% our mouths checked, hands gloved with inhuman skin, 00:23:04.710 --> 00:23:06.230 align:middle line:90% the fingers inside. 00:23:06.230 --> 00:23:10.340 align:middle line:90% 00:23:10.340 --> 00:23:17.150 align:middle line:84% Their faces that speak covered like Tuaregs, their eyes 00:23:17.150 --> 00:23:20.060 align:middle line:90% swathed with a dusky mirage. 00:23:20.060 --> 00:23:24.890 align:middle line:84% Our names taken, flicker like fireflies. 00:23:24.890 --> 00:23:30.470 align:middle line:84% Looped around our wrists numbers that look like a kind of price. 00:23:30.470 --> 00:23:35.690 align:middle line:84% The bull horns cry, the seagulls deride. 00:23:35.690 --> 00:23:38.090 align:middle line:84% On the bridges of those slippery words, 00:23:38.090 --> 00:23:43.370 align:middle line:84% we are wrapped in gold foil, disease-free. 00:23:43.370 --> 00:23:45.920 align:middle line:90% Who is saving whom? 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:51.040 align:middle line:84% The question's not stated, only implied." 00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:52.000 align:middle line:90%