Ahmed parried

Ahmed  buried

Endre’s seemingly overwhelming question by …

—Not only do we belong to the same clan

Togane is my mentor

Togane is my brother

Togane is my bosom buddy

Togane is a man after my own heart

As soon as we got home

Madeleine

My French Canadian copine

Who is an anthropologist

Who is wise to the ways of us Somali savages

Who is hip to the wicked ways of us Somali savages 

Flew into my face

—I thought you had told me

That Ahmed is Majerten and

That you are muddled Mudulood

Tonight at Endre’s party

While you were gone to the loo

When Endre asked Ahmed if you two were of the same KKK

Ahmed replied you were of the same cottonpicking clan

How do you explain that?

—I sat down and laughed and wept tears of joy!

Ahmed’s answer was

Godsend

Allah-send

Throughout many years I have wept and fasted

I have wept and prayed

For the inspired riposte with which Ahmed reduced Endre

To Sullen somber silence

I led my wife out of our bedroom

I took her to our Reading Room

And asked her

—    Look! Count! How many toothbrushes do you see?

—I see three:

One for you

One for me

One for Ahmed

—And how many of my own Togane brothers live in this same city of Montreal with me?

—Two: Abdihakiim & Yahya.

—And you don’t see their toothbrushes, do you?

My wife understood the point I was driving home

She recited my favorite poem by Edwin Markham

To hammer the point home

To turn it into a homerun:

“He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!”

That is why I wept tears of joy

For in that night I was honored

I was privileged to witness

The Epiphany of Ahmed Isse Awad

Single-handedly bring down

The cursed clannish Somali wall called

Dir Darod Dayuus

That night I was honored

I was privileged to witness

The Epiphany of Ahmed Isse Awad

Single-handedly bringing down

That wicked clannish wall

That we Somalis daily construct

To incarcerate each other

To castrate each other

That night I was honored

That night I was privileged to witness

The Somali Joshua

Ahmed Isse Awad

Single-handedly bringing down

That wicked clannish wall down

Single-handedly causing that wicked clannish wall

To come crashing down

To come tumbling down

Like the wall of Jericho

Like the wall of Berlin—

“SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall

For walls make neither good friends nor good neighbors

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out

And to whom I was like to give offense

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall

That wants it down”

And boy-o boy-o boy did Ahmed Isse Awad

The Somali Joshua

Bring down that clannish wicked wall

Single-handedly causing that wicked clannish wall

To come crashing down

To come tumbling down

Kaput

And then some

That is why I wept tears of joy

For I began to understand that night

How we Somalis can free ourselves

From the bondage prison of the Somali KKK

From the prison bondage of the Somali KKK

I wept tears of joy because that night I witnessed

How Ahmed had

The WIT

The IMAGINATION

The LOVE

The Macavity Majerten MOXIE

To draw a circle

Big enough

Wide enough

Open enough

As wide open as Om:

As wide open as the beginning Creative Word

As wide open as the Lord's Earth and the Fullness thereof

As wide open as Yes

As wide open as the Everlasting Yea

As wide open as open sesame 

To set all of us Somalis free that night

From the bondage we Somalis daily busy to build

From the prison we Somalis daily busy to build

For each other

For our country

That night Ahmed had

The WIT

The IMAGINATION

The LOVE

The Macavity Majerten MOXIE

To draw a circle

Wide enough

Wise enough

To set all of us free that night

From the clannish bondage

From the clannish prison

From the clannish boondoggle

From the boondocks of Jahiliyya

From the Qurun that overwhelmed our Qaran

From the Somali AIDS called

Darod

Dir

Danyer

Damer

Dayuus

Dabaal

Damean

Doqon

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can stop being attendant lords of the warlords

That will do to swell the progress of bastard brigands like Atto

And start a clannish bloody scene or two

And advice idiots like Yelahow Yahoo Haayow Haarow

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can stop being

No doubt easy tools for the ilk of Indha’adde

No doubt clannish condoms

No doubt clannish catamites

No doubt clannish coteries

No doubt clannish congeries

No doubt clannish cronies

For Niman Belaaya like Qurunle Qanyare

For Demeans like Dahir Aways

No doubt deferential, glad to be of use

Politic, cautious and meticulous

Full of bullshit and bushwa and always obtuse

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous

Almost, at times, always the Fools 

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can free ourselves

From this life-in-death

From our clannish “mind-forged manacles”

From

This stupid silly Somali Mugdi Mudug

This Bedouin suicidal senseless silly sordid sorite

Of Somali savagery

Of Dirty Darod Mad MOD suicidal sedulity

Of Habarkintirism

Of Habarkuulayism

Of Habarcoonism

Of Habarkookism

Of HabarKKKism

Of Ayr Absiye Salad psychopath Prozac Boy

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can free ourselves

From the barbaric silly sorite of

Me and my clan against the world

Me and my family against my clan

Me and my brother against my family

Me against my brother

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How to draw a circle

Tall enough

Tolerant enough

Rumi enough

Roomy enough

To set all of us Somalis free that night

From the clannish yahoo yoke of the bondage prison

That makes us Somalis all

Into Habarkintir

Into Habarkuulay

And bite and devour and consume one another

Like the bananas that grow in our rotten banana republic of Chaos & Cruelty

That makes us Somalis all desirous of the vainglory begotten upon unpatriotic gore

That makes us Somalis all

Provoke one another

Envy one another

Like the Ill-Jeh of Malocchio

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can free ourselves

From the perpetuation

Of the pattern

Of the paradigm

That makes us all Somalis into pariahs

That makes us all Somalis the dumbest folks on the face of the earth

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can get off the Papa Doc Afwayne streetcar called Qabiil

That carries us Somalis daily

That carts us Somalis daily

To the Mogadishu Hawiye hell called Hawiyah  

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can eliminate and emasculate

The clannish abtirtirsi-gustirtirsi questions contentions genealogies

The clannish strivings of our national clannish strife that is unprofitable and vain

With wit and imagination and love Ahmed demonstrated that night

How we Somalis can stop

Waxing worse and worse

Living

In malice

In envy

In clannish senseless evil rivalry

Hateful and hating each other

Foolish

Disobedient

Serving divers lusts pomps pleasures

Deceiving and being deceived