Loving Beirut

Finally, after more than 9 month hiatus, a new post on Dear Theo,:
http://dear-theo.blogspot.com/2007/09/loving-beirut.html

No Longer

Observe.
This is how it shall be
when you are
no longer.
Murmurs of the everyday
mumbled;
just another picture
with you
behind the frame.

Come close,
feel the warmth
of his cheek.
Close eyes, don’t inhale,
just a film of heat.

Nothing

Nothing is needed.
The realization came quietly,
as a bird sits on your shoulder,
its relief almost forgiving in its lightness.
The absolution of a world expecting nothing,
because it is not paying attention.

Nothing to live up to,
no rock to roll up the hill.
Only strolling, rock on leash,
casually rolling by your side,
sometimes gingerly,
sometimes mischievously.
But even if it were to dash free on its own,
it’s not like it’s anything to miss.

Nothing but the grass, the sunlight,
equally unreliable, equally uncaring,
and yet there.
Soon, when the grass gets hidden under a sheet of nothing,
and the sun is nowhere to be seen,
and you’ll be missing them more than they’ll ever miss you,
there’ll remain nothing—
nothing waiting,
nothing wanting,
only you smiling,
for no reason,
at nothing.

A Day

Going through the day as if it’s endless;
looking—always looking—just beyond.
Blinders on, senses off,
trudging, oblivious to the sun.
And there it goes, somewhere else,
the same day, out of sight.
A thought crosses, reaching—
arms extended, fingers clasping
at the air.

If only an awareness of the littleness of it,
elsewhere:
a fridge opening, legs stretched over coffee table,
the door unlocking one more time.
The familiar hum of a TV almost muted,
head turning, a familiar face sighs,
a greeting grunted and a nod.

Listless and looking, out at the city,
from the backseat of another cab:
the underside of a bridge, mouths muted by the glass,
and then a cloud.

If thoughts could bind us, we’d be together then,
strewn across the day, on different faces of the earth.
But thoughts remain solitary, drifting
yet resonant;
and for now, again,
make do.

Lesser Creatures

Splayed
before you,
pluck them, the stars,
one after the other
from me.
For such things of brilliance
do not belong
in a soul so dark.

We are lesser creatures,
you and I,
from those up there.
And yet this beast in me
will not make peace
with its lower self.
It beats
at the cages of my being,
tight and ragged,
and raging.

Hypochondriac

He doesn’t know what ails him;
it will not rest until it has a name.

Or he forgets.

He thinks his knees are aching,
or his calves might be swollen.

He thinks he’s got a fever,
or a cough.

He’s tired of thinking.

It crosses his mind
that it might be his mind.

“But it doesn’t make it
any less real,” he says.

He thinks it might be the new job,
or the boredom;

a pill—any pill—would do.

He thinks he’s lucky,
and he’s sorry,

and he counts his blessings in one breath.
“I have you, and her, and her—

don’t make me cry!”

But it still doesn’t have a name.
Only sometimes it doesn’t need one.

We Did

We would extend our arms from car windows,
palms open, fingers stretched,
hands flapping against the wind—
that was the sound of our happiness.

The sunshine, the air,
the world supine at our feet,
the smiles that would never end,
and Amália singing of honey and water,

our names under her breath.
Parked in the middle of a field,
the country was just waking up,
smelling the dawn on our skins.

We stood over a rock
by a lake forced into being,
leaning away from each other,
arms taught, hands clasped, eye unwavering—

we would have fallen had we let go.
And we did.

First Friday at Milkboy Coffee

Bring your poetry and come join us on Friday, July 6 for what my friend Alrene so aptly described as "love-in" for "the battle-scarred veterans of so many open mics"! It will be an open mic, including but not limited to poets from the Mad Poets Society, Friends of Poetry and PhillyPoetry. We're scheduled to begin at 7 pm, and the address is the new MilkBoy Coffee at 824 West Lancaster Ave in the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

i-Outlaw 2.6

My poem, Naked on the Inside, is now featured in the most recent episode of i-Outlaw, 2.6 featuring Annie Finch. Please give the episode a listen!

You can also enter a contest to win a free book of poetry; listen to i-Outlaw now and find out how...
http://i-outlaw.blogspot.com/2007/06/
i-outlaw-26-featuring-annie-finch.html

And the Carnival is Back in Town...

Well, it's not so much that the Carnival is back, as much as it is that I'm back to the Carnival. So, jump over to Billy the Blogging Poet's home-turf:
http://www.musecrafters.com/bloggingpoet/926/A+Bard+Birthday+Party.html
..wish him a Happy Birthday, and sample the sweet poetry offerings at the party!

Cover Your Eyes

It wasn't for the lack of trying.
It was for the stillness in the night
when you called me your life.

But now, he sits there, oblivious,
my life,
and I wonder at your persistence,
as I wondered at the concept of evil—
some things even God falls for.

It is in this insistence of the everyday
that I most indulge your absence,
I let it fill me, like a rag soaks kerosene
right before it catches fire.

I still chew the ragged edges of my fingernails
hoping that in the dead skin
I can taste your insides again.

I have confiscated our words,
set them to oblivion,
that generations to come
would fall in their sweet trap.

I invented love in you.
I ignited you like an Indian widow,
bright flame dancing on supple skin.
And only when your float,
far adrift down the river,
burst the spleen of the night in color,
did I hear the wailing.
And it wasn’t yours;
one can hardly recognize
their voice in tatters.

Still scour those edges,
the banks I’ll never be.
I have tried to bury your eyes in the mud.
But they look up, beyond me,
as evil and docile as the day I buried them,
luring others with their stare.

Yes, I have learnt to forgive
ever since I saw my smile in the waters,
innocent and twisted,
and still covering your eyes.

Monstering

“Daddy, help me!”
“They made her stir a burning pot of shit until she passed out.”
“They tied his arms behind his back and hung him from them.”
“You could hear the screams all the way down the hall, she said.”
“They even had the human pyramid as a screensaver in the detention office.”

“And now to Mary Cantell with Shadow Traffic.
Mary, how’re the roads looking out there?”
“Ah, John, it’s a real nightmare on 76…”

Love Eviscerated

When I killed you, I didn’t cry.

I just looked down, at your head
listless, your hair wiry, your eyes
glazed.
_____I just looked down
with a semblance of pity, or
perhaps regret.
_____It wasn’t everyday
that I got to love this much.

When I killed you, a lop-sided smirk
dawned on my face, a smile
that was almost tender.

I didn’t look back
to see if you’re done.
I just assumed the best,
which never happens.

And now I find you’re very well
and alive.
There are worse things in life,
I imagine.
But the nightmare never ends,
out of boredom.

You'll get it in the mail
someday,
and it will be old and stale
and delicately fragrant,
and mildly haunting.
Like a piece of the cross,
arcane, and blood-soaked,
and generally irrelevant.

Such is our story,
mostly myth.