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    Dancing with the Muse After Midnight: Music to the Ears
    Dancing with the Muse After Midnight: Music to the Ears
    Dancing with the Muse After Midnight: Music to the Ears
    Ebook186 pages1 hour

    Dancing with the Muse After Midnight: Music to the Ears

    By Amr Saleh

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    About this ebook

    Many poets and writers like to classify their work in terms of periods or stages in their lives such as adolescence or old ages. Others like to sort out their poems and fiction in terms of themes. There could be a hundred and one classifications for works of art. This book divides the poems into 2 sections: poems written during the day and those that were written after midnight. The classification is meant to be intriguing as it sheds many spotlights on the internal conflicts that poets face during the day and express them right after; or rather keep the feelings inside until they are released late at night.

    At the beginning, I considered calling the book Fighting with Aphrodite all day, Dancing with the Muse all Night but I found out that Aphrodite was nothing but many learning experiences that lead to the maturity of writing. Then, I decided to change the title of the book to highlight not the struggle but the reward: the eternal dance with the Muse.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateDec 14, 2010
    ISBN9781450274210
    Dancing with the Muse After Midnight: Music to the Ears
    Author

    Amr Saleh

    Amr is a lecturer in the Department of English, Qatar University. He also worked at the same university as a Level Supervisor, and currently he is the Testing and Assessment Coordinator. He has M.A in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). He has taught in different American, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Qatari universities. He also obtained a diploma in Teacher Training and Course Design from University of California, Santa Cruz. He had different scientific and research papers presented in twelve international conventions some of which were in Canada, Dubai, Thailand, Italy, Indonesia, Australia, Korea, Hong Kong and others. He worked as a Teacher Trainer, an ESL Instructor and an English Linguistics Lecturer. Amr’s passion for traveling and his profuse visits to different parts of the world have awakened many senses in him especially his literary abilities. He writes poetry, short stories, prose, and novels. Along with his bounteous interests in different fields such as traveling, photography, bill collection and others, writing has always had a unique place for him. It was born in him in an early stage in his life and urged him to study and enjoy English Literature and Linguistics. Thanks to his studies, interests, trials and errors, and personal efforts, his aptitude for writing got polished and developed over the years. He likes to think that when he is not sleeping, he is writing; even without a pen or a computer! He has published an anthology of poems in another volume entitled: Dancing with the Muse after Midnight: Music to the Ears.

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      Book preview

      Dancing with the Muse After Midnight - Amr Saleh

      Contents

      Part 1- After Midnight

      I have Bought her Soul

      The Ant and the Grain

      The Muse Flew Away

      When we Made Love, She used to Cry

      A Woman with a Stick!

      The Double Zero Spell

      The Queen of Hearts

      The Wisest of the Fool

      She Swore and I Lied

      The Map of the World has Changed

      Midnight in Vancouver

      My Heart Calls out Normita

      Overnight

      Her Soul Is Still Virgin

      Untitled Document 1

      Good is Worse

      Happy Hour

      Head over Heels

      Heaven’s Call

      One Day in February

      The Barriers are Blurred

      A Midsummer’s Night Dream

      Decent Proposal

      Flashes of Memory

      Requirements of Adulthood

      Coffee Lovers

      I Seek You

      La Crème de la Crème

      Life is a B***

      One Moment in Time

      The Everlasting Battle

      In 28 Minutes

      Snow Ecstasy Inspiration

      A Wrong Call

      Alone, I Go Fast. Together, We Go Far

      An Elegy to a Dear Friend

      June’s Fool

      Crazy Imaginations

      I could Smell her Eyes

      Winning a Loss

      Infinity

      Death of a Poet

      The Dark Side of the Moon

      All I want

      The Nightingale and the Rose

      The Dance of the Slaughtered

      When Masks Fall

      The Wonders of Norma

      Part 2- Before Midnight

      The Apple of My Heart

      A Game Lost by Winning

      A Story that’s Never Told

      No Escape: Crossing Boarders

      She is Bad

      Proctoring Inspiration Revisited

      Miss Pat’s Trial

      My Eternal Eve at Hell’s Gate

      Party

      Cold Day in Hell

      Should I Let Them Cheat?

      Goodbye World

      Library Hallucinations

      A Midwinter’s Noon Dream

      The Dutch Goddess

      Arts Change for You

      Forgive me Father

      A Tear in the Ocean

      A Kiss in the Rain

      Losing Mind and Regaining Soul

      No Welcoming Lands

      All that Matters

      Another Pair of Broken Wings

      Injustice

      Discrepancies of a Dead Heart

      I wish I had Never Met You

      Fashion to my Heart

      Sweet Torture

      Music Mania

      A Wild Kiss Message

      Waiting

      Yesterday, Today was Tomorrow

      A Poem to Live

      Introduction

      If you don’t find love in life, go to a library.

      Are there still people who read poetry, let alone write it?

      Poetry is one of the art forms that defines our culture. It improves the quality of life both for those who create it and for those who appreciate it, educating and invigorating the citizenry, and enhancing people’s lives by providing them with deeply meaningful experiences. The extent to which poetry achieves these goals is neither well understood nor easy to quantify.

      Does this answer help? But, are there still people who read poetry, let alone write it?

      Oh Dear!

      A short answer is: Yes. An added value to the answer is: Definitely yes. A longer –yet slightly depressing- answer is: unfortunately not as many people as used to be. Why would anyone spend time reading or writing a bunch of lines that may not make sense to some people? Why would anyone replace an interesting novel, or a thriller with a dreamy poem? Are drowning ourselves with rhyme and getting lost in daydreams just a kind of escapism? The big question still persists: Why do people like to read poetry, and more, and why are people driven to write it?

      Again, a simple answer to the escapism question is: Yes. For a number of people, reading a poem or a novel is a form of escapism. It is a pair of oars that will take them sailing in a sea of fantasies and oceans of dreams. A more thorough answer is that this is not totally true. The reason is that poetry is a pair of oars that will take readers sailing in a sea of fantasies that can impact their realities. It is a pair of oars that will take readers on a cruise that will turn their dreams into informed decisions whether they are aware of it or not. The hidden powers of words are mightier than the obvious powers of actions. Poetry allows the soul to soar to the sky, but on its way back, and before it settles in the body, it always brings something ‘divine’ with it.

      Forgetting the real world with its problems can have healing dimensions that the most sophisticated medicines lack. It is quenching one’s artistic thirst when one is caught between their world and another one; between words and more words.

      Poetry is what I like to feed on when I feel that my soul is missing nutrition. It fills my senses and makes me express myself better than any other means of communication. In this case, the communication is basically between me and…me. All my production was meant to be personal and written by me and only for me. I never allowed an extra pair of eyes other than mine to read it. But once in a lecture, I shared one poem with a student. The poem had a great effect on her. It instilled in her many feelings that helped her hidden abilities of writing to emerge to the surface and flourish. At this point, I decided to share my poems as they may equally motivate other lost souls.

      I divided my poems into two sections: Before Midnight and After Midnight. There is a common underlying sense for the division that some eyes (and many minds) will notice. Like many things in life, logic doesn’t work all the time. The logical sequence should go this way: Before Midnight and After Midnight, shouldn’t it? Yet, for some reason that may be revealed to the inquisitive minds that see words as painting, and to the eyes that hear words as musical notes, I will choose to reverse the order.

      I, the Muse Lover, present thee with my anthology.

      SKU-000434568_TEXT.pdf

      I have Bought her Soul

      missing image file

      She belongs to me

      Dead or alive, she’s mine

      No other contract I’ll be able to sign.

      I won’t struggle, I won’t fight

      because I keep her in a dark cell

      away from any love or light.

      The devil inside of me guards her.

      Nobody can touch one string of hair.

      I’ll rub her lips with my kisses

      I’ll never make her mind make guesses.

      It’s only me

      Nobody but me

      Nothing but me

      You’ll never hear, you’ll never feel,

      You’ll never see,

      It’s only me.

      I’ll envelope her;

      I’ll squeeze her to death.

      Strength would be fun,

      There would be no way to run

      Violence would be the healing medicine

      My arms she’ll ask for

      when I wrap her mind

      and take her body to the sky to soar.

      My glimpse will be a look

      My look will be a touch

      My touch will be a grasp

      My grasp will be a squeeze

      And this I’ll never cease.

      I’ll lick every fault, every sin

      I’ll lick her face, her hands

      I’ll lick all her body

      I’ll swallow the past that’s muddy.

      I’ll clean her with my lips

      I’ll bathe her with my tongue

      I’ll shower

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