Peace comes from within

You ask me to tell you about my blessings
but all I can see is what I miss
a cup of coffee, a drink with ice on a summer night
and peace, just peace.

In arson

Nothing left in my brain
but a child, lit a-blaze
like stars in the night sky

it all happened at night,
the glow, the extra heat
as if July is not sizzling enough
it never was a good month

this morning some wake up
from a nightmare,
the bus was late, the train ran
without consideration of sleep time

the luxuries of some are the basics
of others. Some woke up this morning
from a nightmare, apples were falling from
the sky. while some woke up into a nightmare

there's nothing left of him
but the months not lived,
a bottle half-melted,
and an inability to tell his mother:
Good morning.


This poem is dedicated to baby Ali Doabsa who was burnt alive this morning. The picture bellow is from the press, not mine but I don't have an idea of the photographer's name. The bib that's left of the baby says: Good morning mama.

Trying, too hard

It is inevitable to climb a brick-wall
like the end to a metaphor, normal
for the completion of the day, transgressing
into an indigo of nightfall and nightmares

there are a few things left inside
your swift shutting of the world
a little bit of dust, for glorious deserts
there are lizards to announce the winter

there are a few things left for one human
the attempt to leave
and the power to stay behind.

hair like gold

maybe someone is losing themselves with the details of your face
the mole on your left cheek,
the high brow
while I hug the sheets contemplating
the curls of hair blonde and ashen you call
waterfall

Unbuckle

sometimes sunlight serves us more than we know
like the revelation of hidden shadows, you try to skim out
Unbuckling the night

Worn out Women

the women on my street are worn out 

inside out, there is breakage of flesh 

and gathering of old, shriveled roses 

at their doors but I cannot tell why 

these are the women of my street

too proud to ask for a hand with the laundry 

or an ear for the language lesson

they rather burn the cake than bake slowly

I watch them move and hear them sink

it is the wearing of these tongues, sharp and pointy

that keeps the women faithful 

to the talk and wears the rest, gradually.

A Palestinian bike ride

On the bike from my house to my head

I hear, thuds of English words dropping at my back

and wonder what is so foreign about the right to normalcy

One day I asked my mother why women cannot cycle the streets

in a city that brags about nightlife in a non-comical way

that lights the street green when fasting and sips beer

by the dawn breaking all tradition of wonder

so my mother turns and says to me,

there is enough woman to tell you what to do

enough to tell you what you cannot do

and only one to carry out either way

so I rode onward beneath blazing sun

screaming kids and the braying of donkeys

till the cows came home

Honky blues

the dust falls from the stage light to hit the floor
guiding with ease
a foot that shuffles to the honky blues

Conversations before dinnertime

Your family is ok?
yes and so is the exchange of salt for the rough times
making bread the companion of good times
you get this, don't you?
stop asking about the weather when it is not raining
alright
but this is too good to stop, too short to make do of
answer what is demanded of you, not more
not less. those far away keep the thread back to you
by thinking, too much, too little- I know
I worry- friend.

The art of simplicity

The art of simplicity is difficult
you need to strip out the extra layers
present well cooked-meals, accessible to young teeth
without feeding too much

the art of simplicity is difficult to maintain
like choosing the right hour
nothing less with seconds or minutes
no less drama and tight-fitted ropes that can hang

you by a knot made by scouts
little kids are more equipped to life than you are
stumbling at your own feet for fear of a
long lost story of legs caught up

between the fern and the morning song
that burns your chest. you cannot chose to adorn much
the others already offer gradation of colors
red for envy and blue for the balance of your feet

the art of simplicity is difficult
to be you let go of dear faces and extras
reach the core and keep it tender
simplicity starts and regrows from your bones

Gazelle hunt

Do not refer to the gazelle 

with the mention of old sharpened daggers

just mention enough pastures 

for easier gliding and a fair hunt.

tell you why, woman

They tell you to look behind
each time you take a step
expect you to walk straight
 when you have to bend your back
enough to get past the two walls
creeping in on your arms

tell you why woman
keep the doors shut but the windows open
doesn't the sunshine get in anyways
from both panes and thresholds
but you know best the direction of your sunshine

tell you more when you listen woman
to the warning of do not parade the streets
at night, because night-walkers can be mistaken
for love sellers, a beautified word to the shame of slick women
never walk a street alone

and then when you fold yourself together and think
woman, why this has always been a different walk
you will realize, with your breast
with your high-brow that it is this destiny
that lets you sleep
with a knife near your head
and a rose planted inside of your
for comfort, and nothing else.

This is how I shelve

Most times I don’t know where to shelve

the parts of me that I meet every day

read the rest of this poem here: http://twopoetswrite.tumblr.com/

Poetry is our city

Poetry is out city
where I strolled the streets
alone and left you to gather the feathers
donated inflight

poetry is our city,
there are no walls and entry is free
yet the corners will not be discovered
no matter  how much the tourists pay

brine, blood, metaphor
poetry is our city, our son
unnamed yet to my laziness
inheriting all your failures

with little luck and fertile sand
we make higher towers
for the late watch
and the easy bread, made without winning

know this, my lucky one
that this act of writing towards your image
makes poetry our city
shared, split to fit our devices

Poetry is our city, far from the harbor
pregnant with foreigners
birthing a local with every labor
not broken, not prolific
just genuine, a city we own.

to think about my middle-east

to think about my middle-east is not a central
line from my navel to my tongue
a pool of blood gathered, I think
and people losing whole heads
to gain a tongue
that is why I lent myself to misery
to lose, gain a song.

The griever

At the bottom of your grief
there are sediments you never knew
you would be capable of, like
the trickle of tears dipped in a flash of  voice

turning the night into a festival
of colorful song and stale,
malfunctioning clocks that point
towards more tickets for old watchtowers

at the bottom of your grief lies
all the little lies you tell yourself
like, we will come again as flowers
that our bodies will house the stupor of a bird

coming home, thirsty and shocked
from the fall of his feathers,
there will be a return to origins
uncharted by vacancies of limbs and lumps

 at the bottom of your grief lies
some things you have always wanted to achieve
without the mercy of the sun aging your skin
like jumping into the air and expecting to meet water at your feet

at the bottom of your grief you will find
an intense longing to smell, home-cooked food
slowly baked, never fried. To long summers
smelling of strawberries and sweat

dripping to wash out the warmth
leftover in your throat for the voice you
had only knows its power at the hour
of grief of the little things

you will lose again, and at the bottom of your grief
find yourself unable to close your eyes
to the waves of restlessness, fatigued
by a grief that halts to resume again
at the bottom.

peace a-sail

A pail has many uses
when combined with sand and starfish
peace lapped between two children

Capacities, not always safe

I used to hate the word capacity
takes so little, gives out abstractions
of ideas until I saw the surge of blood
it was only then when I realized
how capable is the man with the extra
bullets

The day sometimes starts with lonliness

Black to the taste of envy
these grinds, swimming in my cup
reminding me that only coffee starts my day
no stray cats to feed,
no hoarse throats to worry about fixing with my fingertips
just a faint woosh of the machines
to start a day

A search goes on

sometimes I wonder
what a young woman finds at the belly of the night
the pitch darkness may swallow her fingertips
the stardust holds a few thoughts
leftover by the residue of the morning

I know this for sure
a woman at the heart of the night is
searching for something she has lost
perhaps a key, fallen between layers of grass
perhaps a speck of hair one held
on a midsummer's night, after a bonfire

sometime, what we look for finds us first
our feet before we walk
the keys before the light turns out
I wonder if someone else looks inside
the belly of a monster for cranberries
the teeth that cut into flesh can also tear
treats dunked into sugar

my case is different, I am aware
I am searching for a way
to walk back my tracks
without widening the gaps I stepped on
once a long time ago
in the middle of the night, without a flashlight.

Impose

No one can impose on you,

the number of times you catch a breath
even if they are living inside your lungs
providing oxygen

No one can impose on you
the way your body curls
into a surprise
unfurling to the answers

no one can land on you
what you don't give
normally before noon-time and after-lunch
the sipping of hot coffee,
a dress or pants
such silly things
or other significant kicks
for the start of the day

clearheaded.

Anger

Wash me clear and white, please
take away the sediments of these
smatterings, flustering I got while digging
earth with bare fingers
once. twice, once more
maybe if you wash me I will lose
what I have stored from anger inherited
from previous eras.

Our names

Use a modifier they say
to tell apart one person from another
like ends of questions, commas or apostrophe
the grammar of our names is made up from simple meshes:
our memories, our legacies, our nightmares
that is why you should use the modifiers,
at times the mixture of many things
leads to none

End of days

The world we know will end one day 

it will seize to be, the clouds white and cottony 

the buildings, sucked into earth like dust and thunder 

and all signs of living 

they say the world will end one day 

when land covers seas 

but I know otherwise that the world has already ended

at least for those who do not wait for big signs

let me tell you, it has all ended 

when you can not quench the thirst to life 

it is the end of days

then when you cannot pretend that the things have

indeed stayed the same 

never deviating from the original gaps unfulfilled

the world has ended

specifically when you die of hunger 

whist the fatter cats lick their paws 

from the excessive fat that stays on their 

ends, like the closure of all days. 

Heaviness of humans

If a human breaks he becomes
rounder with bread on his sides
heavier for others to hold up, once more.

on differing by nature of poetry

She touched death with his hand

cold and hurtful, so they called for the snow 

to manage to take her back from her 'state'

she was mad, they said

I am a poet, she said

meeting of bodies

they say that the meeting of souls is 

like the meeting of families

there is a rush to something relevant

airy, and windy

there are soft vein in the toughest bodies

no one thinks when you hug

another that you are accepting everything 

all the living cells, the ones dying 

the ones about to become something or someone 

else. This is how the meeting of souls 

happens, brief and brisk 

you decide to abide by the laws

that everyone resents yet no one 

has stated true. This is what happens 

when my soul meets yours 

there is a hint of the wind

as I embrace your cells

all of you and none of you too

this is how souls meet, a little late 

to the parties surviving 

purring, in a time and

a body undecided by 

circumstances. 

war-lands

At eight years old I knew death was a journey

somewhere where angels await, my mother held me to

her chest as I sobbed for my grandfather's blue eyes

he is well in heaven she said

At twelve I knew death was a braid detached

and picked out of the rubble

I cannot forget my mother's

rush to close my eyes

Don't let the kids see

Don't let the kids see

she said

A little bird

She arrives at the exit of the cage
thanks its bars for the warmth they provide
the threshold is too warm, outside the wind blows

Ignorance is a bliss

It is average, to want to know

to open your fist that's been too closed to 

the outside wind, the sky's calls

but trust, the things unwanted don't arrive to you

they say ignorance is a bliss,

when the number of the corpses rises in 

your backyard, when the sound of 

the bombshell drowns people somewhere 

you will tell your ignorance is a bliss

the newspapers don't speak ill of the dead

they detail everything to perfection 

the fall, the breakage of the bones 

never an ill adjective or an expectation 

of what might have been rambling 

inside a dead man's brain

but your ignorance is a bliss

when the leaves are filed away, 

without your knowledge to the houses

you've destroyed with your desire to selfishness

you will know that this ignorance is a bliss

bone or a bane there are things you are not

supposed to know, nor guess, nor make use of 

like the mysteries you seek a lifetime at exploring

the breaking of the elixir into main ingredients 

the gathering of your belongings to cook the potion

add a little bliss, with ignorance 

the picking of flowers

Small, the concentration of flowers
in a patch, close to everything natural
easy like picking out plastic stems and patches of sand.