Beirut in the Air (A City Levitating)

Something blew up in the old port There's a scar in the sky It's been threatening for a while But they rather ignored What are the odds? they asked Now they watch from their windowless castles Nothing on the ground Beirut's in the air A city levitating 4th of August 2020 Charif holds some fruits in his hands The ground starts fading beneath him He let some fruits fall from the bowl Next thing he knows, there are 208 people Dead in the streets of Beirut 6 000 injured too Some of them will never recover fully A city is screaming People went out in the streets before They wanted to change things around Asked for a new regime, they Asked for justice A change from this corrupted society The Public Railway office keeps on operating in a Country with no train It's been thirty years now Since the last train arrive And stopped whistling See the public gardener in his watering truck Watering mounds where flowers don't grow That's the work after all You need to work To get paid Cement keeps on flowing on the shore Coming from illegal quarries Made for legal billionaires Privatizers of beaches Where no one can go A judge's working on the explosion Trusted by many, feared by few Militias took their guns On the road to suicide 4 gunshots were heard, people fell down Bring back the smell of civil war In a country that can't stop suffering Beirut's in the air Before the next explosion People went out in the streets before They wanted to change things around Asked for a new regime, they Asked for justice A change from this corrupted society The Public Railway office keeps on operating in a Country with no train It's been thirty years now Since the last train arrive And stopped whistling Lokman Slim was a bit too critical He was found dead in his car One bullet in the head, another one in the back Couldn't face someone who wrote books Joe Bejjani died too He was a photographer with an eye on the port of Beirut A bit too curious There wasn't anything to see For a camera now broken Put some flowers on their grave To make the blood bloom Words will make new authors Turn cemeteries into portals of Freedom Put some flowers on their grave And some Fairuz on Listen to Omar Khorshid Beirut's in the air Bring it back on the floor