This was published in Al-Rai newspaper issue #10676 dated September 23rd, 2008

وسادتي

أضع رأسي على وسادتي الممتلئة،
و من الغريب،  لا لم يعد من الغريب،
أحس بثقل شديد يسحب رأسي عاليا بعيدا عن وسادتي

أين قلمي؟ أكتُبَ أفكاري

نفس عـمـيــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــق

ضاعت الأفكار.
النسيان عدو الفنان. أنا لست فنان. أنا رأسي يؤلمني

ضاعت الأفكار.
أفكاري ذات صمغ غير لاصق.
لا تطيل بقائها في رأسي الذي يؤلمني

في أحد الايام أضعُ رأسي على الوسادة،
أسمع ثلاث ضربات
لا
أسمع ضربتين
و قبل الثالثة ينفجر رأسي

استيقظ من لا نومي.
أحرق كتبي.
أحرق بيتي.
أسير في الصحراء.
أبحث عن رأس يؤلمني

Lamentetra  is a congregation hall for intellectual lamentetious ritual ceremonies. Especially those associated with intellectuals who are very disappointed in life and/or they think that they know how to make money but prefer not to. The name comes from  the verb “laments”, some say it comes from honey-roasted-peanuts.

Lamentationers (the very disappointed intellectuals) gather there 3 times a year, sometimes 4. It depends on how many people can make it.

In South Asia, a Lamentetra sometimes can also be called a “Lamentetra” but with a slight Indian accent, “Lamentetra” with a Filipino accent, or as “Lamen-tent-tetra” in the Arab world .

In the first visit to Lamentetra, lamentationers attend a 20 minutes one-act-play titled “Daddy’s Killing My Creativity: The Shattered Dreams Hotel”. Lamentationers must cry during the show, then write a 3-page analysis about what makes us think that the small boy (unnamed protagonist) will commit suicide when he is 27 or will he do it symbolically when he discovers painting at the age of 20?

Lamentationers cry again during the readings of their essays. That is followed by a small tea party. At the end every lamentationer takes an oath to live his/her life as an antihero. The oath goes like this:
“I swear I’ll be an antihero… especially like those ones from the 19th century Russian novels or old Egyptian films, and we will try to tell everyone how old Egyptian films were highly influenced by early Italian cinema. We will also explain that ‘influence’ could mean stealing the whole plot of a film”

In the second visit lamentationers watch the film “The Dead Poet’s Society 2: How Serious Can Robin Williams Be, Or Was It Jim Carrey?”. This is followed by a seminar in modern linguistics and how the word “shit” won’t be the shit anymore. After the seminar there is a short video about how to become a coffee addict while still be able to maintain an acceptable bad breath . Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries plays and the lamentationers engage themselves in the Lamalama dance, which is very absurd and attacks Plato’s Theory of Forms.

The third and last visit to Lamentetra is optional, instead lamentationers can have a take-home quiz in “Shakespeare Vs. Beckett: who spoke better Italian? and why not say Bengali?”. The lamentationers then go to the LamWall where they sing a hymn of the names of lamentationers who killed themselves before making it to the third visit, the lamentationers light candles and then they put them out instantly to save them for next year. There is an open lunch where lamentationers eat metaphorically, hence the word “open”. Lamentationers then take a nap. At the end lamentationers start to mourn the death of the author.

Each year and on their last visit to Lamentetra an article titled “Breaking all the rules of art” is handed to the lamentationers, and each lamentationer must read half of it (each lamentationer can choose which half) and by reading half the article itself lamentationers break the rules of reading an article… Some lamentationers go as far as reading the essay while closing their eyes and trying to guess what’s written…