Tonight at No. 29

Tonight at No. 29, your presence is requested in replacement
for someone who talks a little slower, with less of an accent
but more of a truth that everyone can see, tonight we replace
the way you speak, because you are not bright enough,
or shy enough to stop where you are supposed to and acquire
the liberty to confess of your shortcomings despite
your pure knowledge that you are not perfect and you will never be
significant to another human soul other than both your reflection
amid your shadow. Tonight at No. 29, it is an invitation to
bid part of you goodbye, letting go is easier than most people's
desires to stay put. So come, bring your sacks folded neatly
with desire and disaster and drag them behind.
No one understands the poet, not fully
tonight at No. 29, reinvent yourself, tell your face a lie.

The bellydancers

they will know you blood by history

of gossip and long, long words 

justifications that ram the corners,

never care lady

shake- shake- shake 

your tiny spaced waist. 

poems that come from places unknown

Days when heartache is longer
it takes a bit more to keep
dragging all that it is hers
the words, the objects
into the mud, unfinished

A visitor everywhere

Stamp for an entry
your day to day being,
a touch of the woodlands in your hair
caught between the locks
a touch of the lakes at your eyes
and gone tomorrow, you will be
to the origins and the roots that shaped you,
visitor

Bella Caledonia

To Scotland,  thank you.

Forth bridge shining, many have been floating in the water
this is what you see from Queensferry to Edinburgh,
the way land allows to the sea its distance when it needs
to breath and meet new faces, it is different how we see
when we are looking.

In the garden, there is thistle,
purple and green that reminds the stranger
of torrid landscapes, ones you never look into when you travel
the distance between paying attention and falling asleep
to avoid catching yourself in too much motion

in the hall, there is music,
there are voices, some singing, mine screaming
shouting basic sentences, in an attempt to pledge
to the higher gods of creativity and self sustaining habits
like someone patting you on the shoulder and telling you to
be happy, then disappearing

in the flat, lots of laughter and conversations
of real importance, of nuisance, of ignorance
we hug one another, carrying the parts of being
of a varied, diverse world but working on one
tongue that shifts from city to another from
one confidence to the other

in the end, a friendship is forged, that transcends
the boundaries we set to create
by attempting to let language lead the way
 we resist melting into everything
bagpipes at every corner
I leave with the Edinburgh horses hooting me
the Scottish warmth beneath my neck, huddled like a scarf
lighter, dreamier, always tracing my steps backwards
to the castle, to the faces, to the knowledge that a dream
once became more than a vision with closed eyes.

photograph is mine, Edinburgh 2015.

Hands

You give me one palm and I wonder
how much it took for it to shape,
the scar on the left, the mole beneath your finger
the cords you held, sometimes I even think
of the hands you caressed, softly whispering
in the ears some details, of hair-color, or lips
or new fashion, I look at the back of your palm, clean
lean, long fingers, only to want to tell you
I work hard at the details I place between your fingers because
I love the details in you,
the way I love your hands.

The ripple effect

blow on a wave, it ripples
this is how your breath grows
one circle after the other, slide over the waters
all the parts of you, the lunch, fuming with tomatoes
the hesitation between telling and holding back,
the story within the lie, and the lie that lays in between
the story and the water,

blow on a wave, it ripples,
skin and dribbles over your body
your thoughts belong to someone else
not you, not me
this is the ripple effect,
blow on a wave, harder
watch yourself grow.

delay

Sometimes one feels like a need for apology
declining  like a fall to the ground
there will be no time to sadness
not enough for it to stretch its arms like wakefulness
what will happen is this
lost connections and late late answers
nothing has been in pigeon mail
but the words have been travelling,
faster than those melancholy for a reason.

the palm reader

he stops me and says, may I read you by your hands

I nod, too fragile to talk back

he doesn't not offer a map for the future but an explanation of the present, uses words like: passionate, respected and honest

then he looks down to where the lines meet and says: Loss creeps under your hand, in the form of distant obstinate cry-

bottled up, careful

but then miss you are intense, passion driven and those are mere consequences 

photograph is mine, Edinburgh 2015

Human/none

Humans are what human you treat
like water to desire, if you deal the cards right
you gain, human, what you treat

like the way she once moves her hair
like the way water ripples over your skin
when you say hello, or when you let go

there is a fine line that separates human
from another side-effect of the streets,
one sun-kissed, and one over-pouring with rain

Vices

I will walk away from my vices
when I have the time, we say. I will stop
smoking on the way back from the breath
that is split between sunset and gutter

fuming with nothing. other than the
whiff of blended beauty and otherness
you feel the trees magnify
when you are held

I will walk away from my vices,
next month, next year
that never comes
it is easier to fall and never look back

conversation

Sometimes I fail at talking to you
like knowing I purposely couldn't ask
why and where you married art
and birthed little versions on the same theme
like how it feels to be someone, else-
beautiful. This is why I fail at reaching
anyone, you- them,
there is a lot to say, little to keep
and room for me to not say what I can.

Kindness

A mother's touch on your shoulders
when you shiver, bones first
these are the little acts of kindness that make us
one

results of alientation

No longer homesick
I have built enough brick-walls to say
I am home

In this life, in another

You ask what I would be in another life
and I can barely cover up this one without
falling short on the edges or straying long enough
careless to the sound and the fury
in this life I am trying to be myself
but if you are really interested,
in another life I would have loved to be Florence Nightingale
with a lamp half filled in oil
ointment painting what couldn't be restored
I would have been a nightingale of hers
if I didn't fear the sight of blood

Watadd Shoutout!

I rarely speak directly to my readers but this one is for Watadd

 UK based poet Steve Willey and a few creative people have teamed up to establish Watadd / وتد a poetry, performance community workshop in London.

 As of September I will be volunteering as the Lead Artistic Coordinator for Watadd's Palestine Team.

More exciting projects coming enjoy the good work we are doing and check it out here.

Question on an assumable womanhood

They ask and all I do is answer, like I don't know- these questions

they throw towards me

like

do you know to roast a turkey into perfection?

or grind hummus they ask

take that time, divide it by half and you've got enough

to survive for a week

do you know where the money goes? not in bags

they accuse, full with gleamed up shorts

and colorful gadgets, you work and be responsible

for tomorrow's laundry there

there is where the money goes.

on the streets, something else

You can tell a city is merciless by its streets,

cloaked in open spaces, lamp-posts here

half-chipped, tree-old stones there

paving the land, for the feet’s joy

read the rest here: http://twopoetswrite.tumblr.com/

Place

This place confuses me
with its high palm trees
dust and olives, yet I call it home

home is where you lay your bed for the night
says the travelers, the lost children never found
but home is a variation of colors of your bed sheets

this is the idea romantica you have of everything
there's nothing with the slumber but an insanity
this is why home, this places confuses you
an quenched thirst to newness

home is where you pick up your failures
like olives picked out late September
waiting to roast,
clearing from the dust.

Mindfull

Close your eyes and concentrate
on the breath that leaves you
to forget the guilt at your nose
the chant at the doorway to your heart

practice mindfulness by being easy
the less you allow for your body
the more you see
be mindful to the atmosphere around you
shut the sounds out,
but keep listening to the others.

something light

tell me something light
to clear those ears from the words heard
unnecessarily

speech doesn't always serve the speaker
there are times when the break for breath
comes equivalent to approval

for denial and for all else
the blossoming of language and
pauses

tell me something light you say
weightless on my woman skin
so I open my mouth and address you
with a smile, better leave
the words to their weight

explanations, for children

positives are welcome, like cards
like lemonade when mothers
resort to revolutions instead of jokes
to explain to their children
why there are dead pigeons on the side of the road
but hawks in the sky

bombs-drop

the war is over, the troops have gone back
gone but not forgotten, these leftovers
the radio sings of joy while the bombs drop.

Panics in lonliness

Do not panic if you wake up
alone
the end of the street, mulled with yesterday's moon
there is nothing bad about staying behind

you say it is moving that scares you
because you retain the right to finding out
what you don't want to see
some dream, some desire

you won't budge
forwards between brick houses
with others, because when you want to move
you need direction and you can no longer

pretend you are lost
there are many things that will leave you to panic
if you wake up alone,
a continuity of some sort
maybe there will be softer ways to take the same road
and not by yourself

reservation, special

reserve a cloud for my eyes
between the opening of sun and the closing of day
for my eyes, reserved
for the future, just a soft, fluffy cloud.

Things you don't approve of

the things you don't approve of don't come in lists:
- like this or that
- like the marriage between religions and forgetting God
- like these stupid values someone sews in your head
- like the dreams on hold
- like sunshine in rain, and summer rain
- like plotting your life into a rythym
- the tick-tock of the dying clock
- stopping time for someone who cannot give a moment of thought, to you
- like the aforementioned lists
- like words, too big for poems
- like little thing, like big things

a life lived in the margins of lists cannot handle all this approval
or the lack of it, think about it!

You are now here

You are here now, but how many times 

I have not been, here or now, 

it takes a glimpse to get here 

another to leave the now 

you are here now, do not think 

of anything else, sometimes I 

think of privacy  as the contrary to 

being alone, do not count me in on your thoughts

you are here, now, 

think of nothing else but the breath 

that leaves you, the shadow that is by your side

you are here now, alone

you are here, now

the power of your lungs never fails 

there's wind coming from somewhere you won't know

and a drifting feeling, that's why 

I am here, now, breathing

it makes me cry. 

horses

I keep referring to humans like animals
like horses, strong and yet soft-spoken
for tasks humanly obtained
deny humans water and grass,
let them graze on sunshine, the horses would say
if they could speak,
too long we have invaded their spaces.

What the nation wants

It escaped us, the want of living

to him they said, they just wanted enough bread

to feed the chicken, seeds to exchange for beds  

to her they said they just wanted language, 

storming the nation, mistaken by the difference 

between biscuits and bread. 

A return to water

this time I come to you, silent

but not heavy and you,

you greet me accordingly  thrusting bodies

and old flattened glasses at my ankles

read the rest here:

http://twopoetswrite.tumblr.com/

Sleeplessness

Lately, I couldn't sleep

there were far too many stars to count 

alone, like pearls on rings, steady and clear

Sleep never visits those seeking the light

it is born out of the darkness, so sleep

creates more darkness 

less light, what if this was the secret formula

for a better night's sleep? Let the light in

turn off on the darkness, and the dull lull of humidity 

engulfing my chest.