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Aaron LaLux Mar 2017
Should’ve Taken The Camel

I didn’t want to ride the camel,
with it’s rotted teeth and tortured eyes,
though he did kneel for me nicely,
and the tour guide seemed kind when he offered me the ride,

but I didn’t want to ride the camel,
so I took a horse instead,
and we rode in a race,
to catch the sunset at the pyramids,

past dusty whirlpools,
of broken bones and trash,
horse hair clinging to a leg bone,
bloated heads and plastic bags,

dusty as Hell,
dry and hot from sun,
the sound of the whips on the horses,
gets us up and on the run,

gripping onto the leather saddle,
as this white horse begins to gallop,
and as we get going faster and faster,
I begin to think I should’ve taken the camel…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆
ConnectHook Mar 2017
* * * * * *
I drove a chariot for Egypt’s dead gods,
obeyed decrees of an angry Pharaoh.
Vision widens where hope seems to narrow
as coral crusts the rims and axle-rods.
Submerged upon the sands my army’s host;
Erythrean currents their secrets keep.
The waters gave way, drowned me in the deep
while God led you forth toward your promised coast.
There was no choice for me, the charioteer.
A tyrant sent me forth to hunt you down;
pursuing you, I thought your end was near.
In the descent, I lost my star and crown.
My lord was false, while yours continues strong…
I rise from depths to further you along.
Rider-Waite deck, major arcana,
number seven: The Chariot
Aaron LaLux Dec 2016
Be Quick

I’m on the back of His Enduro,
through the alkaline dust of the desert,
we ride by the full moon’s light,
the three Pyramids of Giza casting perfectly measured silhouettes,

so dark they could be shadows,

and we both know time is of the essence,
so we are trying to Be Quick,

I’ve got a train to catch,
a one way ticket to Luxor,
but they say life is the journey not the destination,
so we’re always going even if we don’t always know where,

here,

on the back of this bike,
I hold on to Him for dear life,
as the back wheel kicks up the Sands of Time,
His bike obediently continuing into the night,

I don’t know where we are going,
but I know if I live to write about it I will,
because I am a writer and writing is what I do,
it’s my way of showing gratitude and being thankful,

He’s a writer too,
similar to me,
or maybe I’m similar to Him,
because He’s 20 years my senior,

used to live the Hollywood Life,
made films and got famous,
and now He's a non profit doctor,
helping those in need that are nameless,

I see my future in his eyes,
so when we stop atop a dune,
at a bedouin camp with the three pyramids on the moon lit horizon,
I ask Him one question,

“Are you happy?”.

He pauses,
and He answers,
with something poetically metaphorical like,
“Happiness is relative.”

And then,
He proceeds to tell me the story of his life...

He talks about Hollywood,
He talks about love and about searching,
He talks about how he gave it all up,
to come to these deserts and help those that need helping,

He reveals so much,
so much more than any of these words can translate,
and as our evening comes to an end,
I realize as amazing as our lives may be we are only men,

alone,
atop a dune in Giza,
overlooking the Great Pyramids,
trying to share knowledge without sounding like preachers,

He is Jesus,
at least as close to Jesus as I’ve ever met,
quite fitting considering He came from The City of Angels,
and I see in His eyes that for society he has wept,

and I want to stay there,
because I love Him,
I see his struggle,
and His moral dilemmas,

but I've got a train to catch,
and life waits for no man,
so we wrap up our conversation,
and travel back across those Egyptian sands,

and it is then,
that I realize,
that He is me,
in 20 years time,

He is me,
in 20 years,
and as amazing as his ways seem,
I wonder if He’s lonely and if every effort he's ever made was worth it,

and that is why I asked Him what I now ask You,

“Are you happy?”.

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆
As Time Slips Through The Sands of The Hourglass...
B Young Dec 2016
In Brook Glenn
Again
The Psych Ward
Writing in the Psych Ward.
On Thanksgiving
Yet,
I am still thankful
For life
For breath
For a love on the horizon

Mental illness is one hell of a drug.

Is this what the Egyptians called Maat
or
The divine right order?

the Nile flows
the Nile flows

The sun god shines from Aten
And
i am cursing Akhenaten

But

Motion is relative.
Aaron LaLux Nov 2016
Welcome To Egypt


You want to know what a military dictator ship is?

Checkpoints at every crossing,
police disrespecting the citizens,
guns gripped tightly in the hands of teenagers,
bleached white suits with fake brass stars.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what becomes of fallen empires?

Dusty streets of broken dreams and failed endeavors,
uptight men in loose jellabiyas hawking Chinese made junk,
descendants of kings catering to the whims of ignorant tourist,
and a once pristine river now so ***** it’s dangerous to swim in.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what irony is?

Here denial is a double entendre,
it’s a river and a state of mind,
where the people can’t see they are biting,
the very hand that feeds them.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what it’s really like here?

Well I was just harassed today,
accused by the police of trying to pray,
because in Egypt it is illegal to pray or even meditate,
I had to threaten to call the US Embassy before I was allowed to go on my way.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what the real atrocity is?

The States gives this country over a billion dollars a year,
but the people that really need the money don’t see a single pound,
the money is used to further oppress the people,
and anyone that tries to stand up for their rights is beaten down.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what happened to democracy?

The Muslim Brotherhood won the election,
then the military staged a coup,
kicked out the democratically elected government,
and assassinated anyone that dared to speak the truth.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what the real Egypt is about?

Come witness the horror for yourself,
mothers dying in doorways children eternally crying,
horses beaten to death in 106˚ heat,
then left for dead no burial for the dying.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what equality is here?

What equality woman have to cover everything up,
wearing all black in a torturing heat,
and if I man tries to hold a woman’s hand,
then they both get rounded up by the Moral Police.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know how bad it really is?

People die every day on boats trying to escape,
desperately attempting to flee this god forsaken country,
what a travesty and shame it all is,
how poor this country’s become that was once so wealthy.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know the truth?

The oppression is so bad in Egypt,
that anyone that says anything about that,
can disappear courtesy of the secret police,
seriously it happened to my dear friends dad.

Welcome to Egypt.

You want to know what?

Luckily I am not Egyptian,
so I can escape this country that’s become a prison,
leaving in a few hours and to anyone that’s considering a visit,
I’m leaving behind this welcome warning here that I’ve written.

Welcome to Egypt.

∆ Aaron La Lux ∆

The Holy Trilogy Vol. 1 available worldwide 11/11/16
A harsh reality from Poetic Journalism
Dionne Charlet Nov 2016
Sands traverse oceans to envelop me
within the coercion of a dream of Egypt
as I search the turquoise of the medallion in my hands
to match the gray-blue of his eyes.

Too long have I willed for him
to sail the Atlantic,
stride through the door,
and sweep me from haunting this view of London.
But for now I am left
to my own image and a pane,
so I muster the meat of my palm
within this sleeve of lace
to brush it across the glass for a clearer look,
yet my efforts have revealed
no more than engorged eyelids reflected…
manacles of me.

Behest of self,
maniacal I am slated
to perform involuntary tedium,
hopeful to unlock deeper meaning
within each hieroglyph,
once so purposefully etched in a semblance of bronze.

I long to surrender
to the warmth of the taste of iron
caught in his sights over a tomb blanketed in gold.

I will come for you, Daughter of Heaven and Earth.

Spontaneous peristalsis of phrase
connects with the drop
gurgling through the candid quiet
and I wonder
if the image that now reflects would indulge him,
or if he might ****** the lock of dark hair
that he cropped from my neck with the skill of an assassin
when our paths first crossed in Cairo.

Time has softened the image I hold of him;
his eyes are satin,
burning like a flag still waving
as his army advances over our forbidden dig.

There is something
sensation-like in downfall…
copious saline embodies the fractal curve.

I found no scrolls of the Book of the Dead.

Here in my olive skin I rot like a peach
that’s been left in a satchel
forgotten to dust of the ages
disturbed by picks and axes
that strike with the determination of discovery.
A peach, never to be savored;
never to nourish or to pleasure,
or be trampled by insects
and carried off in pieces
to the hollow of the ant queen.

My eyelids are hard to turn like wet pages
forced to envision a river that is not the Nile
where I am held within the binds of propriety,
corsetted, bustled, and locked out of Egypt
dammed from the salvation
of even an intermittent Dutchman’s finger
by dunes and shores and footfalls
to find words that stream in liquid resonance
where firm succumbs to self and
I can feel passion writhing through my intangibles.

Thusly, clouds form over a city that blackens and distorts
the way a river's reflection of my face
would ripple from the plunging body of a dove,
belly-up, encased in wings,
and two thousand miles from him.

Arousal is a moccasin seethed in spasms
of peristalsis and musculature
toward the beckoning pulse of breast.

Any hope for contact collapses into flesh,
venom sheathes each corpuscle,
and a woken neck flails in judgment
before the truth in his eyes
under the shadow of the Great Pyramid
where Ramses II lies supine
across the Turin Papyrus.

I imagine the other side of me
and where she might reflect when
all that there is in such a study
contributes to my wanting
to wreak my bellied freedom
beneath crevices that sink as crevices do
in downward angled layers
to withstand the ages.

Dark hair gleams in contrast,
more for strip of scalp
than the trickle of red down my back.

Breached like sugar that candid—
starburst wings of Monarchs dripping ancient like sunsets
over magenta and milky mauve in the reeds—
my ankles revealed and inverted to the sky they glean, yet...

his arrival is delayed
when the pistol ***** three times.
The still of my breast compounds
with the steady union of the dark, and
somewhere denial flows with the sands.

So cycles change, like a fable for Eternal.

“Daughter of Heaven and Earth,” written by Dionne Charlet, appears in print in Cairo by Gaslight, the second anthology in the By Gaslight Series from New Orleans small press Black Tome Books.  Books in the series include New Orleans by Gaslight (ISBN 9780615801186) and Cairo by Gaslight (ISBN 9781516961528).  Both collections feature poetry by Charlet, under the pseudonym Dionne Cherie. Look for the upcoming anthology Paris by Gaslight, which will feature a poem of the same title by Dionne.
A steampunk narrative poem of adventure and love lost in Cairo.
Aaron LaLux Nov 2016
The Great Pyramid

Scared to Death,
which makes sense,
nowhere to go but up,
from the top of The Great Pyramid,

no pictures here,
so free you can’t capture it,
white owls and black cats,
call me Alexandria,

honest what,
do you do when,
all of the wisdom,
gets spoken but people don’t listen.

Listen.

I’m at the top of the pyramid,
and I’m scared to death,
not scared of death,
but scared to death,

and that’s exactly what a paradox is,

Isis,
and Horus,
light the,
menorahs,

bless all,
our children,
the need,
more than hope when,
their families are dying,
and it’s not enough to just be trying,
need more than hope,
need to do more than try,
when you can walk no higher,
that is when it’s time to fly.

Scared to Death,
which makes sense,
nowhere to go but up,
from the top of The Great Pyramid.

Please God,
we are,
the Children of Egypt,

we created the pyramids,
and our pyramids created this,

so don’t expect,
a symphony of sympathy from us kids,
even if we,
we unconditionally accept it,

Oh God,
please don’t neglect,
can’t you see we did this all for you,
and all we ask for in return is your acceptance and respect,

Oh God,
I’m scared to death,
I’m stressed and I’m tense,
please allow me to relax,

and please,
when I reach your gates,
I pray you let me pass,

I am just a child of You,
and we are family especially in death,

yes,

I do believe the Light will prevail,
even if it hasn’t happened in this generation yet,
and I’m excited and I’m ready all my bags are packed,
and I’m climb up the steps to the top of The Great Pyramid,

and I’ll come when you call,
even when I’m scared to death…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

The Holy Trilogy Vol. 1; available worldwide: 11/11/16
Another True Story...
Aaron LaLux Oct 2016
God Exists

The world has a funny way of reminding us,

God exists.

Sometimes I forget,
the freedoms I have as an American,
and I take these freedoms,
for granted,

but then,
the World reminds me,
and I remember,
that God exists.

God exists,

I see His Light’s reflection,
in almost everyone,
from the lowest slave,
to the highest pharaoh,

God exists.

For example,

I was on the train,
to Luxor from Cairo,
Aaron Lux headed to Luxor,
it only makes sense,

on the train I met an Egyptian man,
and I took this as divine intervention because I don’t believe in coincidences,
he worked/works for the United Nations,
as an assistant for economic development,

his English was perfect,
better than most Americans I know,
and we talked on that train ride,
to Luxor from Cairo,

once we arrived in Luxor,
we both parted ways,
but we made a plan,
to meet up the next day,

and we did and we went,
to dinner I brought a random Japanese girl,
we ate camel on a rooftop,
overlooking the Luxor Temple,

in the distance,

the lights of The Valley of The Kings,
reflected on caves of tombs such as King Tut’s you know what,
sometimes seeing death reminds me of being life,
and being life reminds me that God exists omnipresent in all things.

God exists.

We talked,
on that rooftop overlooking Luxor Temple,
we talked about philosophy and religion and politics,
and also about some new stuff,

such as the Arab Spring,
and each other’s family,
I told hime I was trying to reunite my parents in Thailand,
because of them together in this lifetime I have not a single memory,

and I’d like to see my parents together at least once,
before one of us three dies,
because you don’t get a second chance,
to live this single life,

I,

asked him about his parents,
he said his father had just been abducted,
by the Egyptian Secret Police,
see that’s what you call Boy Interrupted,

but this isn’t a cinema,
this a real life drama,
and I saw this young man of maybe 22 years old,
had had to grow up so quickly because of such adult sized problems,

he said he didn’t know where his father was,
he said the police had taken him just a week ago,
because his father was on the wrong side of democracy,
I guess that’s just how it goes,

see his father was part of The Muslim Brotherhood,
and had supported the Arab Spring,
which in turn had supported President Morsi,
who was elected democratically,

but old habits die hard,
and the Egyptians know that better than anybody,
not much has changed there’s still pharaohs and slaves,
this country is still ran by an aggressive military,

he doesn’t even know where his father is,
or if he’s even dead or alive,
but hopefully he doesn’t end up like Giulio Regeni,
found in a ditch with an X carved in his forehead and gouged eyes,

I,

realize,
then that I know nothing about “struggle”,
I realize then that the 1st world has nothing to complain about,
it is in that moment that reality popped my ignorant idealistical bubble,

I know nothing about trouble,
I come from a country where people complain about everything,
we get upset because a traffic light takes to long or a waiter screws up our order,
we feel depressed about nothing but we know nothing about real struggle or pain,

I will never again complain,
about being an American,
I mean my God this kid had his father abducted,
and he might never see him again,

God blessed it feels so good to be from a country with real freedoms God Bless America,

and I’m saddened and grateful at the same time,
I’m saddened because no kid should have his father taken,
I’m grateful because I was born in America so I’m entitled to amazing freedoms,
and I believe in the American Dream still wide awake in a country that feels Forsaken,

but there's no Sutherland,
in the original Empirical Motherland,
just brutal reminders resurrected like Jesus on Easter,
or King Tut's curse from Luxor's sands,

I am,
blessed to have freedoms and others don’t have,
simply because I was born as an American,
and I thank God for that fortuitous fact,

The world has a funny way of reminding us,

God exists.

sometimes I forget,
the freedoms I have as an American,
and I take these freedoms,
for granted,

but then,
the World reminds me,
and I remember,
that God exists.

God exists,

I see His Light’s reflection,
in almost everyone,
from the lowest slave,
to the highest pharaoh,

God exists.

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆
Truth.
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