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WHEN I AM IN TROUBLE BY PROF Mahamud Siyad Togane
—A Negro spiritual
I
Early in the morning Just after the false dawn Just after I pray my daily Dawn Prayer Just when one can tell A white cat from a black cat Or A white thread from a black thread Just before I break the fast I trot out all my troubles On leashes And take them out for a walk Like dogs.
II
When they do their doo-doo on the neighbors’ lawns As dogs would do I stoop I scoop I dump their doo-doo Into the manhole of the city Into the sewage system of the Montreal city.
III
As I walk with Allah As I talk with Allah Who is closer to me than my life jugular vein I sing my morning song of Gratitude and Praise Which I owe Him I also sing aloud of His Might and Majesty Yea I also sing aloud of His Mercy in the morning.
III When I return
The troubles follow me Trooping Right back into the house As loyal dogs would do And collapse down on the carpet Into a canine heap of panting thirsty slobbery hungry hanging-out tongues Since they are now all too pooped out To protest To bark To bite Like Ina Yay does When Meles makes him to Since they all know now I won’t brook any barking back-talk Since they are all now amenable to persuasion Since they all know now that I won’t take any lip from any of them Since they are now ready and ripe for the picking I bring out my Great Big Bertha of a gun I pick them out One by one And put down all of my black dogs out of their misery Forever. NOTES
Black dog: That is the name Winston Churchill gave to his own haunting depression. Gratitude and Praise which I owe Him: “I Owe the Lord a Morning Song of gratitude and praise” is a favorite hymn of mine written by one called Amos Herr (1890) Ina Yay: The puppet of Meles; The moniker of Abdullahi Yusuf who is now the President of Somalia. Life jugular vein: The Holy Koran says and I cite: “We created man and We [even] know the promptings of his mind. We are closer to him than his life vein. (50:16) And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.” “We created man, and we know what his soul whispers within him; and we are nearer unto him than his jugular vein. (The Holy Quran, [50:16]) "It was We who created man, and We know that dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein." (The Holy Quran, [50:16]) Meles: The puppeteer of the puppet Ina Yay; Ato Meles Zenawi is the current tyrant of Ethiopia whose dream is to always obfuscate, to always frustrate the hope and the dream of every Somali of re-establishing the Somali nation-state. Mercy in the morning: See Ps 59: 16.
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