Cowards die many times before their real deaths;

The valiant never taste death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

—Julius Caesar II. Ii. 32

Cowards pee too

Many times before their real death

Because of Somali cowardice

Because of the beer too

I peed that night many times

I just could not help it

I just could not sleep

I just could not sleep off

My Somali cowardice

Fuelled by liquor

I was up & about

I just could not believe it

That the Marehan dirty Darod dog of a despot

That the Darod hyena Marehan refugee from

Garbaharay

Would really have the guts

To publicly execute

Gabere

Our Hawiye Hero

My Mudulod Wa’else Abgal agnate

In Mogadishu

In the heart of our Hutu Hawiye city

I could not wait for the morrow to dawn

That night

That is why I was drowning my Somali sorrow

That is why I was most definitely Mudulod

That is why I was most emphatically

A discombobulated Abgal

That night

I was supposed to teach the next day

At Lafole College of Education

&

Where

Every time that I had managed to forget

That I am Abgal Wa’eysle

Where

Every time

That I had tried to be a noble Somali

And not a clannish cur

Like Dafle

A dirty Darod dullard of a Dhulbahante

From Las Anod

Like

Farah Hussein Ghedle

Alias

Farah Bedouin

Alias

Farah Badaw

Would remind me

That I am truly hopeless hapless Hutu Hawiye

By singing in my Hutu Hawiye ear

Samadeedow

Dabin ba ku dhigin

O lugu gu dili doanaa

Wa dal-dalaad aan da’wane-lahayn!

O you Hawiye

O you Mudulod

O you Abgal

O you all

Who are refuseniks of

This blessed Darod Confederacy con job

This Darod-Marehan-Ogaden-Dhulbahante-Revolution

Who are recalcitrant

Who are refractory

Who are reactionary

O you all Ka’aan deed!

O you all

Who refuse the goodness of our Darod Hero

Who refuse the Darod leader of MOD

Who refuse the greatness of Mahammad Siad Barre

Don’t worry

We have patiently prepared a snare especially waiting

for you all

We have patiently prepared for you a noose waiting

for you all

For you Hawiye

For you Mudulod

For you Abgal

For you Eedor

For you Majerten

For you Ainanshe

For you Dhayl

For you Gabere

For you all

It is simply going to be a public picnic!

I assure you all

Backward primitive donkey-drivers

That it is going to be a cinch!

Without a hitch!

Without a hindrance

Without regret

Without recrimination

Without a lazy long-drawn-out court case!

Without powwow

Without repercussions

During this dirty Darod disastrous donkeydom

Every time

I tried to remember

That I am a Somali

My colleague

Nuruddin Farah

The Darod Ogaden refugee

Whom I harbored in Hawiyeland

Would remind me

That Afwayne is

Dirty Darod

Like him

That Afwayne

Is

His kind

His kin

His affine

His maternal uncle

That I am

Shi-shaye!

An alien from Ali-yaale!

With funny accent to boot!

That I am

Alasow in Afwayneland!

But the worst offender of them all

Was another colleague

Whom I thought was Abgal

Mohamed Ali

The PE bugger

Who ran away to Dubai from Afwayne

Whom I knew from my green salad days

When he was my monitor in the Koran School

Of Ma’alim Musse

Who turned out to be a dumb Duduble donkey

Who battened on the leftovers of us Mudulod!

I could not sleep that night

I was sure

That Afwaynye & his mad MOD

Would not dare murder

Ainanshe

Dhayl

Gabere

Throughout that long lonesome night

Cars

Dubbed

The camels of the Marehan

Would crawl

Slowly

Deliberately dripping with clannish crude insolence

Through War-dheegle

The neighborhood of Gabere’s clan

Through Hodan

The neighbourhood of Ainanshe’s clan

Through Iskuraran

The neighbourhood of Dhayl

Cars with ghetto blasters

At full blast

Provocatively

Banging out

Blaring out

Belting out

Blasting out

That provocative song

SAMADEEDOW!

O YOU WHO REFUSE GOD’S GOODNESS!

That dark long lonesome night

Mogadishu was silent

Mogadishu was eerily asleep

I was

The only one who could not sleep

The only one whose clannish blood was boiling

The only one whose clannish bones were aching

The only one who was on a vigil

The only one who stayed up to watch

The only who could not sleep

All the dives where I would drink were deserted

I drove in my small red convertible Fiat 500

To the Lido Night Club

Even the whores & their Johns deserted the place

It was eerily empty

It was queerly quiet

I went to the Lamamba Night Club

Where I kept drowning my sorrow

With one Heineken after another Heineken

Chasing down the J & B

That lonesome night

I must have drunk

All the booze

All the beer

That was meant for all my Mudulod clan

But I could not get drunk

I was as sober as a single-minded Mudulod Mujahid

Why do Somalis drink so much

Somalis drink so much

Because their mouths are whores!

Into which they stuff

Strange rich stuff like

QAMRO QABEEL QURUN QAAT QURUN!

Somalis drink because they are so dumb

Somalis drink because they like to deny

Somalis drink because they can’t stand being Somalis!

Somalis drink because they are at war with themselves!

Somalis drink because they prefer fatude to reality

Somalis dring because they are not Muslim

Somalis drink because they are Munafiqeen

I drank that night because I was angry

At Afwane

At Dafle

At all the dirty Darod

Who made me feel homeless at home

Who made me feel like a motherless child

Far away from home

Who made me feel sing the blues

Like an American coon

Who made me sing this balwo

Who made me feel like a nigger with no place to be

somebody!

In that dark drunk dank lonesome night

I would drive to War-dheeglay

Wandering

Wondering

Why are the Hawiye

So cowardly

So quiet

So asleep

So seemingly uncaring

Why could they not keep the vigil with me

Don’t they know

What is going to happen tomorrow at dawn

That Ainanshe

That Dhayl

That Gabere

Were going to be shot dead

On the morrow at dawn!

Where were our bovine Abgal

That night

I understood

What my uncle Kulmiye taught me

That the clannish claims of the Abgal can put me in a fix

But that they can never get me out of a fix!

That night

I understood

What the poet Tima’ade taught

When he lamented

Dugsi ma leh Qabyaaladi

Wahay Dumiso moyane!

There is

Neither shelter

Nor shade

Nor refuge

Nor haven

Nor heaven

Nor harbor

Nor balm

In the Somali KKK

In Darod

In Dir

In Dayoos

Save

The Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen

Riding

Trailing

Death

Destruction

Pestilence

Famine

War

That night

I learned

When you laugh

Your clan merely pretends to laugh with you

When you weep

Your clan does not even merely pretend to weep

with you

For you weep alone

Like Ainanashe

Like Dhayl

Like Gabere

I could hear them all that night

Weeping alone

In their lonesome cells

Lonesome like Jesus

In their garden of Gethsemane

With no one to weep with them

With no one to watch over them

With no clan to comfort them

That night

In Bar Lamamba

I wept alone

In my beer

In my Heineken

I wept

For Ainanshe

For Dhayl

For Gabayre

For Somalia

For the cold comfortless fact

That when you die

Your clan doesn’t even pretend to give a damn

I knew on the morrow

They were going to be murdered

By Afwayne

By the Darod Pharaoh

That is why I could not sleep

That sleepless night

That white night

At four in the morning

In Bar Lamamba

As I was about

To go out

To drive

To sally forth

One more time

Once more

On my silly Sisyphean rounds of

War-dheeglay

Hodon

Iskuraran

When one of the most prominent big bed-bugs of

Afwayne

Jili-‘ow

Bit me!

Put the bite on me!

By grabbing me

By the scruff of my drunk neck

Shaking me sober!

Frog-marching me across the street

To my home

&

Throwing me

Into bed

Into the startled but grateful warm arms of my wife

Rachel Garber

—Madam

Pardon me!

For this rude & rough invasion of your privacy

Keep this

This your Abgal drunk donkey with you!

Put him to sleep!

Lull him to sleep!

Love him to sleep!

Teach him that

Your love is stronger than Death

He is to stay with you for the next 48 hours!

He is under house arrest for the next 48 hours!

I swear upon Allah

If he ventures out

One more time

If I spy him

Once more

In War-dheeglay

In Hodon

In Iskuraru

I shall have to turn him in

So Afwayne can shoot him too

Along with Ainanshe

Along with Dhayl

Along with Gabere

Togane

Is that clear?

Answer me!

—Jili-ow

Tonight

Of all the Mudulod

Of all the Abgal

Of all the Somalis

It is only

You & I

Who are awake

You are Afwayne’s watchdog!

&

I am a drunk dog!

So

Who is going to save now

Our Clansman

Our agnate

Gabere?

—Togane

Go to sleep

Neither you

Nor I

Can do anything for Gabere now

It is his kismet

It is maktoob

It is written

It is fate

Afwayne is his Nemesis

Afwayne is his Nabsi

Our agnate

Gabere

Gambled

Big time

Like Ché

He shook the revolutionary Somali Tree

Gorgeous glorious golden great fruits fell

Galore!

But alas

It is Afwayne who is now gathering them all!

It is Afwayne who is now enjoying them all!

Good night

&

Don’t let

His bed-bugs

Like me

Like Dafle

Like Farah Hussein Ghedle

Really put the bite on you!

Really bite you in the butt!

Watch out

Big brother is now watching you!

&

Somalia is now under the Darod Marehan boot of

Afwayne!