I Died many Times Before
I Died many Times Before belongs to the following groups:
Complex Simplicity of Art, ! Creative Writing & Poetry !, ! ♥♥♥Love Is (Join us!)♥♥♥ !, "Poetry and Beautiful Women" , ***♂♥♥QUORN♥♥♀, About Time, All Around the Styles, All Out Emotion, All Things Poetic, Artistic, Philosophical, Bits and Pieces , Core [C.O.R.E], Deep Within, Everyday Life, Freedom In Words & Art, Freedom to Shine, Light In The Darkness, Live, Love, Dream: , Midnight Ramblers, The Healing Journey, The Red Writing Room, Up & Coming Writers, Vibration in Art and Verse - VAVoom!, Who are YOU to Judge? and WMGI Died many Times Before…
First time I remember, I was still a toddler
sitting in the morning sun, on the concrete floor.
My grandparents’ courtyard in Salamiyeh.
I watched, fascinated, as the massive snake
made its way from the roof
down the wall in front of me.
I held a long stick in my hand, tapped
the giant head as it slithered closer.
Second time, a year or so older, also in Salamiyeh.
It struck on a starry summer night.
I was playing barefooted on the patio.
Mother came running to my screams.
Sobbing, I told her a big butterfly bit my foot.
I pointed to where it ran off, watched
as she grabbed a straw broom, killed
the venomous desert scorpion with repeated blows.
I vividly recall her rushing around with one shoe on,
the other missing, laying me in a stroller,
running down darkened streets to the emergency clinic.
I also died at age five, along with my mother and sister.
It happened on the two-lane Hama-Homs highway.
Mother unintentionally turned the steering wheel
as she twisted her body to chide us
for backseat bickering. No guardrails.
Nothing but protruding rocks all the way
down the steep drop-off.
My first summer in college, I died in New York City.
Muggy night, uptown Manhattan, a block away from Broadway
in front of the big Cathedral. I had my arms up,
as the man who had just asked for a light
pressed the tip of his knife into my ribs.
Years later, on a misty morning on Texas Highway 87,
I fell asleep at the wheel.
I had worked through the night in Victoria,
and was looking ahead to my bed in San Antonio.
My Chevy Blazer slowly drifted left
into the path of the oncoming truck.
Those worlds
continue without me.
My tombstones there
mark ends of times I knew.
In this one,
grandmother Um Sami suddenly appeared.
Rounded boulder hoisted high. Arms fully extended.
How she lifted it? How she took dead aim, and launched it
smashing the serpent’s head?
I do not know.
I was still conscious.
I do remember clearly
the terrified look on my mother’s face.
How her voice trembled as she pleaded
with the nurse to be careful. She was afraid
the syringe’s needle was going to puncture through
my tiny toe.
Mother slammed the brakes as she forcefully corrected.
Car came to a screaming, precarious halt
in a cloud of swirling dust.
We stayed parked at the side of the road for a long time.
Her hands shaking, she gave us grapes,
while she collected her frazzled self.
She swore never to drive again.
Never did.
“Let the creep go”, the second robber,
who had just cleaned my pockets with swift efficiency,
told the one holding my life at the tip of his knife.
They took pity on me when I told them
there was nothing in my wallet.
They slipped it back. Walked off.
It took my rage weeks to subside.
I could see the whites of the wide-open eyes
of the truck driver, as I twitched awake!
He was already moving to his left
to avoid hitting me. But my reflex was to jerk the wheel
to my right to get back into my lane.
I also stomped the brakes.
We came within a hair of a head-on collision,
as he swerved back into his lane.
That was when time switched
to slow motion…
Me sitting still.
Blazer skidding sideways
on the wet grass
along the shoulder.
Dull-black asphalt road passing
in front of me.
No sound.
Finally,
everything
coming to absolute
rest.
In this one
an invisible hand
still cradles
my bones.
© Assef Al-Jundi
donnamalone
Ahhhh, love this! Bravo!
Assef Al-Jundi replied
wonderful…
thank you very much~
rodeorose
This is an outstanding insight. I am so glad to have read this.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
glad to hear that…
thank you~
Lisa Jewell
Beautifully written, it draws the reader into their own memory of deaths. I find it fascinating that it is not a piece of us that is always sacrificed in a death there is often a piece of us picked up.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
a wonderful insight- that extra jolt of life-energy…
grateful~
ellcot
Thank you for sharing this. Your writing is so beautiful!
Assef Al-Jundi replied
you are very welcome…
truly delighted to know you enjoyed it~
Bryan Freeman
Wonderful writing. I love it.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
Thank you very much…
Vasile Stan
“an invisible hand still cradles my bones” ... yes, Somebody wants us here for his/her/its own purposes that we may never know and we should not try to find out. Suffices to say, we are so darn lucky for that invisible hand. Never taken for granted, never thankful enough, humble for being given what I still need to see and learn.
Thank you for sharing, my friend.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
there is something to be said for “knowing” when to let the wordless just be, as we “see and learn” our way through…
thank you for reading, and for sharing of your thoughts~
Sibel Sancar
I love it.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
That is great!
fleece
enjoyed reading this, well done
Assef Al-Jundi replied
Great… Thank you~
hsien-ku
death can come for us anytime, day or night, in ten minutes or a year, ten years. but we live as though we were immortal. if we can remember this every day, that death is beside us at each moment – that the person we are speaking with could die at any second – then we will live like true human beings and treat our fellow human beings with dignity and compassion. your poem reminded me of this truth today – and, as a result, i will live as a human being until i forget again. thank you. x
Assef Al-Jundi replied
may you always “remember”...
beautiful insights~
emel
ı love this..feeling!
Assef Al-Jundi replied
It is a feeling of being given several new leases of life! and it is invigorating!
Thank you~
Del Millar
There’s a fine line at all times; a startling moment is the profound thought
to be here at all, thinking on all the close shaves.
And the thought can raise a smile of gratitude to be here to enjoy the life we have;
rich sharings with people we love etc, not to take a moment for granted,
take good care of each other. Laugh much and be of good mood.
I enjoyed very much reading this and am glad you’re here to tell your story. oxo
Assef Al-Jundi replied
“a startling moment is the profound thought
to be here at all”
This is a true thought of awakening…
Thank you for reading, and for sharing your beautiful thoughts~
Gregory John O...
Good read…. I related, having been rescusitated 7 times …..... every shit day is a good one !!
Assef Al-Jundi replied
wow! more than a close encounter!
many thanks~
charliethetramp
the parallel universe`s that may exist or not exist due to certain outcomes of experience
i was once in a serious accident where i suffered a skull fracture i woke up in hospital didn`t know where i was or how i had got there,the nurse informed me i had been unconscious for a day and a half the next three days i drifted in and out of consciousness and sometime during those 4or5 days i had an out of body experience,
i was drifting and looking down on a figure lieing on a bed with nurses and doctors around him
i was pretty detached and unconcerned about events that were going on below me tho but then all of a sudden i recognised that the figure was me, thats when abruptly i was sucked back into my body
,so i do know what is loosely called our spirit or essence can exist outside the body,but where it goes after death i do not know as i only reached the height of the hospital ceiling
i get the feeling tho that we dissipate back into the universe from where hense we probably came?since that time i don`t fear death as it didn`t seem a bad place to be,but i don`t want to go there quite yet….... also during that period time went very strange for me it stopped being linear for a few months past and presnt seemed to merge and time almost stopped making sense or as i had traditionally used to experience it
i do find your words so wonderfully inspiring assef al-jundi and in a sufi mystical way there most definately is more to life than meets the eye
Assef Al-Jundi replied
the skeptic who had an out of body experience, felt non-linear time, AND witnessed past, present and future coming together into one NOW!
You my friend, never cease to surprise me ; )
Glad you are still here with us. nor reason to leave even when the afterlife doesn’t “seem like a bad place”.
You most likely have some important things you want to accomplish, or just more wine to drink!
Thank you very much for sharing your incredible experience…
cosimopiro
A wonderful write Assef. We live many lives….die but once….and in that death the mystery may show itself.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
we can put the mystery (!) so many different ways-
we live many lives… die but once
we live so many lives… die so many times
we live but one life… death is an illusion
.
.
Many thanks…
Skypilot
This is truly a masterpiece Assef….a wonder of words indeed…you have a wonderful gift my friend…thank you for sharing it with us…
Assef Al-Jundi replied
thankful and grateful for your energetically supportive words..
Kristin Reynolds
This is an absolute vision.
What a way to describe the record, all it’s infinite loops, it’s infinite mirror into a mirror lives living all at once, different stages.
this blew me away, amazing soul song here, love this. :)
Assef Al-Jundi replied
sometimes just the thought of our own (each individual’s) probable realities, and parallel universes, is enough to make one dizzy! But what else can we do but throw the doors wide open, and revel in the experience..!?
dleighted to have you here~
DanaMS
Wonderful writing my friend.. as always.
And I am dying.. every time my heart breaks.. I am dead right now.. waiting for spring in my heart to raise again..
Assef Al-Jundi replied
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”
-Kahlil Gibran (from The Prophet)
Thank you for taking time to comment…
Mieke Boynton
I read this poem when you first posted it, and it has stayed with me and I have pondered it so much so that I had to re-trace my steps until I found it again… A truly memorable creation – thank you Assef.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
Good to hear the poem left such a lasting impression!! thank you for letting me~
Gary Kelly
Bloody hell… that is hypnotically mesmerizing! I am so glad you wrote it.
Assef Al-Jundi replied
I suppose “bloody hell” is great spontaneous reaction to a poem!
cheers~
Jane17
a story of many deaths whether in other existences or in this existence. very mesmerizing read…
Assef Al-Jundi replied
Even a “traveling gypsy” can be spiritual…
No need to “work hard”, it is just a state of mind, and the heart trusting to leave the windows open…
Cheers~~
Shoaib .
wow this is a really powerful poem… i think our near death experiences always open our eyes to make us this about what life is really worth…
great work here
Assef Al-Jundi replied
I fully agree with you, even when revisiting a childhood memory, that at the time must have meant more to the adults than the child…
Thankful~
Graham Povey
Wonderfull narrative prose!....I too have died many times…and intend to live all the more intently for it!
Graham Povey
We are never more alive than when near to death!....don’t know who said that, but my experience recognises the truth of it!
Assef Al-Jundi replied
messages come to us in subtle nudges at times, and in forceful jolts at others…
Many thanks….
rubyjo
oh my. there has been an invisibale hand cradling you all your life, doesn’t it make you wonder what mysteries are still to come…
Assef Al-Jundi replied
I don’t know about the mysteries still to come, but for now I am thrilled to be basking in this one!
Cheers~
linaji
I died my darling.. and your work touches me deeply. You come from the ethers of my heart.
xxx
Assef Al-Jundi replied
Lina, Lina… what are you trying to do to me? ; )
May you and I live long and prosper in the ethers of the Big Heart!
Eternally grateful~