Solemn Stream Mental Health Advocacy

10/16/2019

Excited to announce that 'Solemn Stream - A poetic journey through faith and bipolar' A collection compiled over 20 years by Bassem Elghawaby is finally going to be published and available by the launch event at Collabüro on January 31st, 2020 (Correction the book publishing has been pushed back to June 2020, and the event will rescheduled depending on when the venue will be available for bookings again). In this video Bassem talks with his colleague Wassim Abdel Khalek from his company Grassroots Multimedia about the history of the project and shares two poems from the book.

11/25/2017

We are works in progress
You and I
We are symphonies unfinished
Needing each other to fly
Transformation is found within
But, we must be willing to accept help without...
Pride, inflated egos, and entrenched self doubt
I speak my truth, from my voice, throwing caution to the wind
To liberate, revolutionize, and mobilize my inner roar
Lions, eagles soaring, and wolves moving in packs
Is our innate nature, what holds us back are fabrications and equivocations
So start your engines, and slay destructive dragons
Realize they were meant to push you to the limit before you could change your ways
Pain is not my enemy, complacency is
Comfort isn’t my end all
It’s a zone that must expand or die
If you don’t get it
Read between the damn lines
If you’ve read this far
It perhaps means this status was meant to feed ‘your’ mind
And stir your soul towards new heights...

10/02/2017

Foreshadowing a lifetime’s work

You think you could walk a mile in my shoes
I think you couldn’t lace up the boots without collapsing into...
A crisis of belief in what you thought to be true
I’ve been through the ringer; I’ve been baptized through fire
I have absorbed the ire of demonic souls and paid my toll
This ain’t no fairytale or mythic play
This is reality and this is today
You want me to explain what can’t be explained
Only felt to your core by piercing arrows and more...
I don’t shift; I shatter your paradigms and their chatter
I test your mettle like a boiling kettle
Releasing hounds from a nightmarish kennel
Don’t think I’m embellishing through literary device
For there’s no literature to encapsulate a thousand times’ death’s been wished...
And a thousand and one times I’ve chosen to persist
And I might be rehashing history and flashing my experiential credentials
But, it’s for a greater purpose and a calling not haphazard or coincidental
For 20 years I’ve chronicled a collection of scars and stars, arrows and lessons
Witnessing, feeling, flailing, and trailblazing through
Pain, growth, vultures, uncovering truths
Coming to know the Divine and what I’m meant to do
It’s almost time...
To share the full collection of these gems etched, sketched, and rhymed
For if you read and truly take them in en masse
Be prepared to awaken in ways you never knew could come to pass

08/04/2016

07/26/2016

A story that will make you search your soul

Damn
It’s like BAM
I have to swing for the bleachers from the first at bat
And not go foul, lest I be judged and counted out
How do I explain in a nutshell what’s pushing me to share...?
My journey, my mission, my TRUTH...
And it’s like Pandora’s Box has got nothing on the dimensions I’ve visited
So, tell me again why I shouldn’t have big dreams
The kinds which are boundless and free from others’ latching schemes
My inner roar can rival any lion’s shape and form
For I have slain dragons they said couldn’t be vanquished
I have won boxing bouts with jackals who never fathomed they could be worn down
And this is not hyperbole or delusions of grandeur
I have earned the right to these attestations and I make them to evoke a response...
From the complacent masses, the foolhardy, and the average passersby
For I have broken Matrix code and seen things most are not ‘ready’ to behold
So, are you ready for what’s in store?
The full story, years in the making that’ll make you re-examine and search your soul
Stay tuned, for it will be released when it’s needed most...

06/07/2016

To all my fellow mental health advocates, please spread the word about saving this gem of an organization that serves the people of Ottawa and beyond!

Imagine taking an hour bus ride to College everyday during your first week, only to be so anxious as not to make it to class, and quickly drop out during that school year. 

05/10/2016

Challenged by the page to paint a picture with words wondrous and strange
You will yield to my brilliance and my discarding of false modesty
It is time to use our gifts without fear of second guessers seeking to shoplift them before they’re used
I will unapologetically reach for my dreams, powered by defiance and moving past a past that thought it could crush my will
Vulture peers of Jekyll and Hyde cruelness ‘kind’ messed me up for a time
So, now I’ll check out from worries of being judged this way or that…
Go ahead and release your arrows of doubt and subtle threats,
For I will relish the victory that much more as I walk past the fuel for the fire inside me, you thought would engulf me instead
I will make mistakes, I will lose some legs of the race, and yet it’s all part and parcel of the journey towards the saving grace I chase

05/03/2016

I will conquer
I will achieve
So help me God
I’ll truly believe
I will avail myself of the gifts I’ve been given
And pay it forward to the world that we live in
I will vanquish any demons from the past
And rise with the Angels as we accomplish the task
I will become better than what you size me up to be
And steer clear from vultures trying to pick up the scent of vulnerability
Timidity is over, false humility is not needed now, it’s time to be bold and beautifully overpower…
The hour glass that’s accustomed to lay waste to dreams and lay traps and schemes
For no longer will I wait for ‘them’ to tell me what I’m worth, or give me what I’ve earned
I’ll show them what enterprise is really about, and how I get paid or compensated is something they need not worry about
For as long as I have food on the table, shelter and security until sunset each day, I’m a king in his castle
I’m blessed to have family, friends, and above all else faith that must be nourished and maintained
So, make way as my signal light is on, and I’m ready to pave my own lane towards destined terrain….

11/18/2015

Clandestine rhymes hidden behind an armada designed to blur the line between creative and disruptive over time
So, flash me the sign, the one conjured up from your mind, and I’ll telekinesis you if it’s true, that we’re kindred in our purview