New years

the year treats us
like a day
long and short at the same time

pace, day break

On the break of day

A daily, long  line of papers fly

at the perfect pace

friends or lovers

A friendship, however hard it tries,

Will always be romantic.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the friendship,

Gently it goes

the injured bee

My head stings
says the injured bee
to the hand that hit her

Desolate rain

Desolate  rain

A menacing fox walks

covered by a box

The horses of Bruges

The horses of Bruges
tell a long story
of a lost princess who chased the geese

Doodles, peace

Doodles on the paper
this is how the artist
lets go of the tension

Snowy trees remind me of sparkles

On her nails, the sparkles
glisten like a tree
left in the snow all night

Falfafel of those who left

The falafel of those who left
is richer with their loss
than it is with olive oil

I cannot let go

I cannot let go, you tell me
pointing at the photographs
behind where you spend your time
head first in the notes,
I cannot let go, you tell me
of the ghost that was her,
my mother who died in an accident
twenty years ago

over the sting

My scorpion, you inspire me to write
in secret about the times I have held your hand
without the sting over my skin

rocks, bellies

Originality is keeping space
between the pebbles
knowing that dirt can creep under the belly

girls on the side of the road

To the girls left on the side road

that I cannot help

I cannot even pretend

to know how you feel

Appreciation

Saying words of grace
takes time
to arrive first to the heart
the black hole of all things

this flesh, like a leaf

A strip down
like a leaf left over
like meat, this flesh

Smells like Christmas

It smells like Christmas in my kitchen,
smells like the time I stopped
in the heart of the house

right in the middle like a clot
not moving nor let anyone move
to make Christmas over cold stoves

here is a list of things you need for cake
that serves 6, realistically
even if you are on your own:

* peeled apples
* 3/4 sugar
* flour
* cinnamon
* nutmeg
* salt (to taste)

I stand on a flat corner
kneading the flour
needing a listening ear

I stand in the corner
in my house,
shaking like a belly dancer after a long show
cupping powdered sugar to an empty heart

Pumpkins carvings

Tastes like a potato
this pumpkin
carved with a strong arm

an iron fist
that knows how to manage
a kitchen and three children

Leaf poem

                               up                        

                              if                         
                             the                         
                            lean                         
                           round                         
                        all round                        
                       a cauldron               the      
      so               all round             round       
      lean   do      rather round        all soft        
      all round      very terrible   we all soft         
       all round !   rather green   rather small         
       ever so soft  ever so lean  decidedly lean        
        all strange  thin fore moving, lovingly          
        its littler veins tapered, wordlessly            
       ever so weedy theme drifting, lovingly            
        ever so haggard bow drifting, lovingly           
          its skinny fore moving, lovingly               
           twiggy stem vagabond, lovingly                
        do    wiry base moving, lovingly     !           
   do    ever so gangly base floating, lovingly          
   ever so slender-waisted stalk floating, lovingly      
    ever so spindle-legged radical moving, lovingly      
     its narrow-minded veins constricting, wordlessly    
       ever so slim-waisted radical drifting, lovingly   
       ever so slim-waisted bow floating, lovingly       
        dire, light, common dire, light, weird           
          extremely green !   a cauldron                 
          lean  a veins   !     all soft                 
               green!     !       a veins                
               lean       !           lean               
               so         !                              
                          !                              

rain or shine

Why would you think the sunshine is small?

Does the sunshine make you shiver?

does it?

These passing winds are ice-cold.

winds are you,

do they make you shiver still?

This is us,

Shivering come rain or shine

Longing for you in midwinter

Foxgloves in hedges,

Surround the farms,

This is the charm of winter:

People fall in love

And I long for your arms.

Calamity

There is calm in calamity
the way there's a pip in an olive
lodged right in the middle,
felt at only when bitten into.

He is born

Rest assured, for He has been born 

the one who created heaven and earth 

the one who saves heaven from this earth.

No appetite

there is no will
you tell me after I nudge you

to eat, to drink
even to live

this is a deep hole that you've sunk in
there is no one to claim

parentage reasons
you hear of wired words hanging:

triggers, envy, exhaustion
fatigue, lack of color, heavy eye-lids
unmatched skies, refusal of entry,
change, chaos, relaxation

the set continues
while you've lost the appetite

to even breathe
call it desperation, some say

but it is all in the gut, I answer.

open questions to love

Is this punishment
that the way you move
impact my vision, love?

Surpassing heartache

Too long we have been on this road together;
you and I

we passed on another
on a cold winter night

we walked with awkward feet
colliding first into each other

too long have we been on this road together
but tell me how do we surpass

all the heartache that is there
with just a simple photograph

of you in a museum
smiling at a complex painting

folding into your hands
all the errors of my past.

Question to the wind

What is it like to kiss you
I wondered
asking the wind

a quick ride

The roller-coaster

tugs so high to sink again 

that's love, I hear you say

time and this body

Age is a reference
to the relation you have
with a timely body:
ailing, wailing, slowly failing.

voice, women, faith

A woman's voice
moves mountains
so does faith

an aerial view of loneliness

There you are 

standing tall like an elm 

overseeing the crowds, like from a plane 

an aerial view of loneliness 

you come up

You come up,
like the treasure found at the end of a box

you come up,
like surfacing for oxygen

you come up,
like a word in a dictionary, looked for not found

you come up,
like a wind floating by quickly

you come up,
like the end of a choir

you come up,
like a sentence out of place

you come up
in stories, like a heavy character

you come up
in memory like its companion

you come up
in red and blue bruises

you always come up

even in tea

The tea here has your name
so I no longer drink it
dark, tall and handsome
the glass in my hand is empty

Elephants

Nothing more regal than an elephant
another sign for torture,
for others to be happy.

birth and baptism

you sing about baptism before birth
how glorious, it is
the water

Rock heavy

my biggest fear
is that each time I harden
I will turn into a rock

observations

From the sky, it all looks small
especially humans, like tiny ants
the ego dissipates

A wedding, unnecessary

There's an air that surrounds you
when you sit wrapping the night like a shawl

- that there have been silver linings, yours copper
- that there are smiles and expressions of love, yours void
- that there is another way to pick roses, yours is to plant
- that there are memories made between the laughs, your phone saves coversation
- that there is a new beggining

the night, cold wraps itself around your shoulders
when at the wedding you sit to think
of different ways to spell love
without slashing your wrists open by its glass.

Fear and fire

Like a wildfire, it will eat up with its arms
all the sides of yourself you were keeping safe
this fear

a country of 3adi, normal

Adi', is the way we spell normal
like it doesn't hurt to breathe at times
Adi' is the longest wait before going home
not because the traffic is hell but because
the sea of cars isn't moving. Adi, is the youth
wasting hours of their lives struggling to be
clearheaded enough to take a jump. Adi, is a country of normal
where everything and anything is of itself a story
Adi, is the country where death walks hand in hand
with life, like an old bride and a groom.
Adi is the abnormality, of getting used to normal.

When I'm sick

When I'm sick
my mind is at its sharpest in math

calculating distances without touching
 on the times I shivered like a leaf

near the black board with the thought
that a pit of numbers will take me down

my dreams are different now
they are closer to touch

salty on my tongue
yet it remains a sharp brain in math

and a poor lung.

if all of this fighting went to rest

If all of this fighting went to rest,
he asks, face twisted like three branches loose
where would we bury newly minted weapons?

Things to do with anger 3

of the things you can do with your anger
is stop answering the phone, hang it up
with its own chords to choke away the noise
of the requests lining up on your door.

one hundred and two years old

one hundred and two years old
we are turned away from the face of the fire

by virtue of one document
oh, how important is paper to this land

taken out of the roots of its olives
splashed with the ink of hundreds tears

black as the day we were signed off
a place for no one, left for everyone

this is the fate of nations
for their kindness, a blow on the head

an increased hundred and two
years of pain washed out with sea-salt.

going back home

I am finally back 

you write to me 

I slip between sleep 

and waking to ask you 

what has been the most apparent 

difference you've seen over 

my body, the trees or the clear skies 

I hear you say 

the air, its different

smells like my childhood and your perfume. 

things to do with anger 2

of the things you can do with your anger
is stand atop of a mountain and shout it out
hoping that the echo doesn't just
bring it all back.

Things to do with anger 1

of the things you can do with your anger 

is make a ball of paper 

throw it out in the nearest bin 

Chores

The pan's lifted out of the fire
no burnt, the food filling stomachs

the sheets dry with the tinge
of the sweat that lined them for days

the boots all sparkling clear
of the dusk walked over in the streets

there is so much order in the house
where does this silence come from, then?

wearing pain in a disguise

Three blows and a pinch
on the cheek

you still think
your hand is kind

wearing pain in a disguise

repetition, creation, repetition

The will to create
evaporates
with banality of repetition

for my birthday

The ink poured
out of my hands
ruining all the paper you gave me
for my birthday

Sunday, olives

The ladder positioned between me and the tree

tells a hundred stories 

of running away to hide in branches 

where only the imagination would find me 

scrawling a plan on torn pieces of paper 

pretending its animals skin 

that I am a queen from olden times 

fallen into the recent age by chance 

this is childhood, now older 

with the tree in my hands 

instead of me in hers 

picking its sons and daughters 

how much have you both grown! 

question on origin, once more

I have once asked earth
am I from you?
when I do not have dirt in my hair

it laughed,
all I could know is that
I don't not know for sure

where I descended from
an earth or a sky
or probably a bit of them both.

Drifting in the wrong waters

How many times, would I have had to die
because my ship drifted to where I didn't ask

tornado at sea,
I, am the difficult storm ahead

how many have to go, so I could feel
the wind as a brother

on my neck,
because my ship drifted to the wrong waters

like your life is of no value

You point at an empty frame I haven't hung yet

asking 

what would an empty womb use it for?

Banal

The fights you pick

using arms, extended, legs bent 

over things that cannot keep up the whole 

banal the verse and the firearms

thinking about recycling

Dusty evening
a flat water-bottle pours
oxygenated breath down the amphitheater 

Fear of force

I fear
the force that causes
death by inconveniences.

ask and you will be answered

This is the fundamental lie
that questioning leads to an answer
maybe it is not that great, the answer
that arrives.

Hug

A hug, that binds
the pieces crumbling
that's all my heart needs.

Gypsy music

The nomadic in you
asks you to run
the music demands you stay.

Freedom is restricted

close your mouth
put tape over its corners

tie your legs together
with a stone, send it down a lake

put your hands to other use
than typing on a keyboard

avert your eyes
from areas marked with "caution"

cut all buddings of feather
growing between your shoulders

this is natural, a redefinition
of you being free to be restricted too.

Strike

It is all closed, the storefronts
the streets, all void of people

it is all kept at bay
the cooking, the school-boys running with burdened bags

it is all left behind
the tiresome, slow hours of work

it is all closed off, striking
except the windows to my heart, open.

too much excitement is not good for women

because the rational cannot compete with the tender 

because the excepted cannot grant way for those unable to beat misery 

with the back of their hands 

because like little glitter you cannot box smiles 

because there are things needed at the house 

because the washing up will stay unwashed 

the dishes dirty, the kids unfed

because it replaces the heart with a butterfly 

because it is not acceptable 

because it preludes to bad things 

because it requires energy 

too much excitement is not good for women.  

olive picking

Three on the floor
legs between buckets and century old trees
olives pitted and non pitted
let down to earth with nimble hands

wedding rings, not needed

No wedding ring
on her fingers

incapable of loving
herself first

maybe it is not about
loving what's inside for once

maybe all this love
has to be splayed open

for the world to see it.

a challenge

Put in to paper
he asked
a challenge in words

Look at the birds flying south

Pointing to the birds in the sky you said 

look at the birds flying south 

an act of migration 

I said, it was a dance 

a murmuration,

an act of togetherness 

into an open sky, 

into the sunset the birds 

move together 

next to me, you were silent 

your eyes on the horizon 

its beautiful, you whisper 

I'll think of birds now 

of glorious sunsets 

when I think that you left

fifteen minutes after the birds flew

Not the world ending

In simple few words, you say
the world is not ending

your face under the birds of paradise
framed well with the notion

that the world lasts
the distance between two eyes

it will not end, this world
because of loss

because of a few tears I've shed
while you were sitting across from me.

to get to you

To get to you
I'd have to cross two oceans
I am not a great swimmer
I am also afraid of sharks
I am scared of the high tide
I am captured by the night

to get to you
I'd have to let go
what I have built slowly
an empire of bonds
writings on long summer nights
dancing bodies that excessive love
the difference between the moon and the night sky

to get to you
I'd have to give once more
without expecting to take anything back.

Mission completed

The harsh hand
on your chest, closing in

like an end
it calls onto your senses

love is another way to showcase
violence

package it differently
with roses and determination

wills and vows to change
this is a new mission for you

with that harsh hand
a mission completed

wrapped on a delicate throat.

all that's broken

a constant need of repetition
they call you obstinate
for trying to fix all that's broken

a power for a woman

a woman is half a head
left open on the table
without waiting for a saving hand

A stop on Earls Court Corner

Tyrian purple I decode for you, the name I read from right to left on the street corner
a tale before I pretend to lose my native tongue to process exile
even the bread we break later we don’t offer thanks for properly
to the gods that have kept their eyes open while we spilled out

read the rest here: https://crevice.ro/a-game-of-hands-rock-paper-scissors/ 

Aradi: Territories

Call it peasantry, the practice of hands turning the soil for air
dirt capsulated under fingernails:
a primal attachment that keeps you standing

gone is the old wind trapped under earth
leaving a new face out sunning
the arriving faces, like soil and oxen, turn over these small pieces of ground

Read the rest here: https://crevice.ro/a-game-of-hands-rock-paper-scissors/ 

A game of hands: rock, paper, scissors

it used to be a childhood play
that my hands would tell
your destiny

Read the rest here: https://crevice.ro/a-game-of-hands-rock-paper-scissors/

other versions of a nightmare

I had a dream in  which  you died
when I opened my eyes
you screamed at me

after the heart is open

After the heart is open
I tell her, a wildfire

sweeps around the edges of the room
taking with it, the clothes

the photos, the gifts,
all physical beatings over memory

after the heart is open
a hurricane storms

in its belly there is a calm
unlike a storm, safe from a rain

of stones and waters
things taken from other people

after the heart is open
there is a vacancy

like there never was
wildfire, hurricanes and earthquakes

all forms of natural disasters
caving at the touch of a lover.

Flights,Birds, Skies

There is something the jailer does not know;
you can take the birds down from the sky

yet you cannot take the sky away from its inhabitants
it stays in them, because it has always been home

this is the sense of wings, there's a new power
that is given by virtue of the space that opens up

to contain the power of the flight
once taken, like a release, like freedom is to life.

a king

A light afternoon
glides like a caring king
because of the wails

Daisies

Ring around the roses
but you pick daisies

not in season, these flowers
that are a wild spring breathing

daisies, daisies
denting on your window

this is age, you sleep
with the daisies looking after you

breathing.

in the room, a woman

She stuck in the room
like a cigarette
in a pile of cigars

less expensive
yet still destructive

recycling

reuse, the minute because it doesn't come back
reuse, the things you'd throw to others to handle your burdens
reuse, the power of the muscles on a human body
reuse, the weight of a summer's sun on your skin
reuse, the way you turn around to the sound
reuse, the births and deaths of hope
reuse, the purpose you've made for yourself, revised
reuse, the minute of eliminating burdens.

a song on motivation

Tools to make
the space is an open floor for you
to create, just start

left on a table

His breath in the coffee
her shades kept close by
both took a flight
up into the day

poem and picture by author 

this is art

watermark, is what's left
a splotch
onto dark paper

Eyes

Hazel, like warm honey
these are the eyes I was given to look
I sought: the sun, the reflection of leaves, sunsets

Blue, like the ocean
these were the eyes I looked into
he sought: ice, skies, dusk

it was a matter of where
the eyes fell, for with the same shape
we still see with different colored eyes

minimal life

Try looking at the things you keep
unlike humans, you are able to discard
items that are shelled-out

fished from other people's pockets
or dreams, broken up stones
end of evenings, boring conversations

try extracting the old
out with it and in with shiny things
against the rule of your head

try looking at things you keep
to add onto you, like boulders
on your shoulders 

despite the hammer

tedious cold, end of summer
a common, textbook image flies
despite the hammer

battle warrior

a warrior after a battle
I stand without comprehending
how your voice rose
but I fell

has this autumn started yet?

Has it started, a season like autumn
hot like summer, heavy on the heart
why then, does all this death look like a joke?

it has then started, the cycle of regeneration
fitting into us, a skeleton into the trees
like finger for wooden tables

does it have to make sense?
this destiny, this end
this vacuum?

the issue with poetry

is that it says too much
in too little, yet
abuses your comfort, this poem.

a bad day

a bad day is a day
when there is no room
for a folded smile to unfold.

me, you and a birthday

like a betrayal
this day dawns again
when I had asked for complete darkness

No one has loved enough

No one has loved me enough
you blink and tell me
to name stars after me

as if stars are lovers
when the night sky is lit

it is little moments we will remember.

like odd birds

Yesterday's discarded clothes on the table
you speak of desire like one speaks of birds
flying at odd directions, in odd hours
I listen as I put the clothes back in their shelves

To ease death we say

to ease death we say, all sorts of things
valid or just left there in the space that has been opened

to ease death we say
the baby was incomplete

the heart couldn't function anymore
fractured around its edges

to ease death we say
it was a disappearance

journey completed
from the East to the West

to ease death we say
the loved ones are gathered

somewhere that's boundless
maybe this is how the verbs break in on us

to ease death
regardless of what we say

waiting in a vacant time, lets us expand
into easier versions of the same death.

rejection

Discarded are the hours
you never slept
judged by a mysterious hand

givers and takers

- practice an open hand
- practice taking something from an open hand
- practice slander
- practice remaining silent
- practice safe arrivals
- practice late text messages after worry
- practice love
- practice another version of love
- practice being present
- practice absence with an excuse
- practice snipping tree shoots
- practice planitng trees.

Inappropriate time

The open curtain lets in the wind
her bare body baring itself on the bed
you leave to pick up a call.

hunger

I've seen the orchard
filling with apples yet denied myself
picking the blood you've planted for the season.

The girl behind the camera

The girl behind the camera
is the one seeing you
not seeing her

it hurts to see the stars
yet only feel their glow from afar

After the music, bodies

Your body, left like yesterday's clothes
old music, neither indie nor popular
some form of a symphony that bridges 
the space left on the bed

Dream ciphered

How this, I can see it clearly,
your arm, warm and hairy wrapped around my shoulder

I know it is wrong
the feeling that comes without my awakening

even with closed eyes
I can tell another woman's ring is on your finger

I don't budge
I don't open my eyes

instead I turn to look at your face
its details crafting a new explanation

to the term between the sheets
to synonyms to making love

an orgasm for the lonely times
without feeling the pangs

a throbbing of a definite sin
on a last day of fasting

but in the dream world
coded as in I want you

as in I need you
as in let me touch your body

or allow yourself to touch me once
again, even if I am sleeping

in my sleep.

a writing in the head

How frustrating
is the process of writing
something that you cannot hear in your head

Peace with a native tongue

The horse in me stopped fighting
for a greener pasture
made peace with the rye around because it was always home.

Modern friendship

Break
yourself open, like a walnut shell
you still dance in the shadow
become a hazy memory that calls nothing for glory.

& pride

That I step behind you when I could have stepped beside you
that I learn to look at the same things you see with an extended pair of eyes
that I take myself away from the floor and give you the dance
that I compensate of speechless moments with time
then call it a change of energy and something like love and power
packed in a cloud

Grandpa on the chair

Like a guard lion I sit
near the window that looks out
you sit before me on the street
holding all the dignity in the crook of your arms

little fingers over the pedals and you roll
into the direction that goes outward
there are chairs that have been made for us
to wear them even if they fall upon us

but he was steady, the mark of youth
sitting directly like a carried gift
a boy in your lap, yellow haired
smiling as you carried him

like a vessel sailing toward the sea
you move swiftly enchantment
against a wind that rejects your bones
this is the love of a grandparent, it lifts outside of the waves.

like a diplomat, lover

You speak with the mystery
of a diplomat
because I don't complete your circle.

Scout girl in uniform

Girl scout in uniform
beret in hand, smaller than half my waist

lifts her head up, demands
a treatment that is fair to her

despite the lack of fair skin
long hair, night-dark

a mother behind her, makes a scene
with her projected speeches

about respect. I wonder
when will I be able to raise a woman

of steel and feather
able to love and break as equally

as two sides of a coin
a woman unlike me

that has no bother with the things
left behind sunny days

this is the effect of one girl scout
asking for a glass of water to quench my thirst.

demanding parentage

Hard as stone
her demands, I complain to the wind
it hears me back with a song
she's your mother, isn't she? 

a battle against tongues

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
one my mother gave me that contains
enough expressions to make possible, life
with the others I have gained along the way

collecting like star-dust
meaning, word after word to make sense
of other ways to say the same things
but with gentleness, with vigor, with insanity

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
that get out of the way when I love
because I lose language in seconds
before I fall

stammering at my basic ABCs
that are replaced by music,
butterflies and somber lyrics
one I call softness

I feel like I am running a battle against tongues
as one leaps to the front at the very minute I push it backwards
biting down on sailor language, wrong adjectives
in fear of the sharp blade it has

making peace in a battle is impossible
but living like siblings has proved a good use
for you cannot hate on your own blood
even if it flows through different veins.

Dream

I hold no awakening
the minute you catch a sun
as it falls in my head in sleep

stress

the weight on your chest grows
by the number of years you add

subtract the way the world moves
outside of you

trees, clouds and the stars as they align
the plans you make and keep denying yourself the chance

to make come true
this weight on your shoulders

these long nights
these thoughts that belong to humanity

coming back only to find you
lying on your back, breathing slowly

once more 

haikus for an uneventful evening

A hazy evening
a mad hairy dog moves
like wind melting chocolates

what does it mean to not hold a destiny?

it meas another definition
of the verb roll

like throw carelessly into the pit
where you cannot see the end

this is what it means to not hold a destiny
said the beggar who sits on the doorstep

distraction

distraction is the gift of those
who are willing to buy time
to save themselves

at a party, your voice

at a party
your voice follows me
the falafels are present
you scream loudly
like I would hear you,
over all the versions of music

facing fear

like the start of a new month
like standing on a high tower
this is how we face fear

with a head that's never ready
with a heart that's careless

citywide

I have been thinking about this word for three days now
how can something be wide as the city

yet small enough to contain a sack of old marbles
crossing the pit where they were thrown

I have been thinking about this word for three days now
how a thing can multiply and find itself similar

in cities that wear different capes, husky
brawling, windy or plain desert like

I have seen people describe cities
like they would a lover

with soft eyes, with skin for stones
but I have seen cities eroding people

like lime to acid
like our city to our heads

this is a citywide gathering
for town-wide hearts.

things I call autumn

once more left
to this rush
the fake leaves I make and call autumn

in the bottom of a glass of beer

The world flips, languages change
yet here you are
stood in the bottom of a glass of beer

falling stone

There's a stone that fell
rolling with it
a nation

words or selves

I got written a poem
to save my soul

you tell me and I am not surprised
you feel touched

I haven't written
to fill your voids

but should up at your door
wearing all the past you don't even remember.

fighting laziness

I am not lazy
you say
to a sleeping head floating in the bathroom

an almost knocked over glass

Almost knocked over the glass
in anger
these hands

blood moon

a blood moon
eats our skies

eats away the clouds
another face to the same star

eats away the anger
keeps still the pain

a blood moon
predicts

the end of an earth
with an earthquake

not a bang
not a whimper

not big or small
just a little shake

who said earth isn't allowed a dance
for her lover,

a heart-torn
blood moon.

what continues

what you allow is what continues
this is a case that's almost the truth

cursive painted, how many times have you
stolen kisses in the elevator

called it a love, how many times have you
caught a wrist in the kitchen

grabbing hard the stick arms
bruised, called it another form of kindness

how many times have you told someone
who was uncalled for, it was called for?

what you allow is what continues,
touch, kisses, a word slanting sideways

you are what has been kept happening
a little less kindness, a little less love.

as I wait for an official paper

I wait behind the desk
as a starving cat jumps
into a void trashcan

an awkward second

Are we related?
the question comes up
as the waffle gets colder

prolonged reunions

Your hug is a prolonged reunion
that waited five years
over bird-sat wires

an east wind in summer

standard summertime
an east wind blows my way
it's only an hour's timezone difference

the rule of three

the rule of three tells you
it is better to have only three things arrive
like lines in a haiku

a nightmare of hallucination

There's a jaguar that follows your son
into a mouse hole, same available in cartoon
but you are real, flesh and blood in my arms

there's a daughter holding a teddy bear
crying about unborn children
yet she's unmarried

there's you, Kohl filled eyes
brown like pine cones
caressed and written for, for years

there's a moment of fear and love
wrapped like a blanket at once
like it's a thing we cannot deny

existing in the midst of all unexplained
switches, trees swishing over in seconds
transported into another space

that has no bitterness
you are real, flesh and blood in my arms
the jaguar gallops
your son goes into the mouse hole and wildly I wake up.

not a portrait

tired eyes that cannot look ahead
this is your body, heavy and lumpy post the morning hours
yours and not yours at the same time
the way it is fixed : not a portrait
not a painting, just a mere reflection.

letter, words, thoughts

you can say a lot
in so many words, thus poetry
still never lacking in power

sickness strikes steady

you say it swiftly
like a sword it cuts

a sickness strikes steady
unnamed, a little virus

knocks down a fort
that was being built for five years

in limestone and alcohol
in abstracts and foreign words.

late poems, as per normal

it feels like a chore
this
late poetry

mid sentence

interruption
is never appreciated
especially when it is stopped
mid
sentence

noise licking my ears

I can never get used to the sound
arriving after glory of silence
with many tongues licking my ears

with driftwood

We drift, each talking at a higher wavelength
call this another form of love
I call it another form of painting with blood
we call this a family swayed with driftwood

heat and cold

how to do deflect from cold?
try a sheet made of wool

how do you deflect from heat?
try a bit of water for better measure

how do you keep a heart warm?
try small things

how do you keep a heart cold?
try the wrong statements

an if clause

if you are satisfied with my pain
don't then think
that there's more space for you

human formation

today I saw with my own eyes
how a human is formed

tiny dot, black in a black space
that falls into a void

tiny dot in a black sack
will arrive with a stork

when we stop waiting.

dandelions, or mixed names

what do you call it,
she blinks at me

the flower that you puff
the one for the horses

we call it horse flower
what do you call it?

a dandelion, with mixed names
clear genes to hold its spine up.

Reputation to uphold

this is what is said about reputation
it has to be upheld
like a coin into the sunshine

the poet on the job

There is always this fear
that you will get caught first

writing poetry, a virtual nonsense
or dreaming in a language of speed

type one word and quickly hide
as if lines were a bad reputation

that will follow you everywhere
that open you up, like a second tomorrow

there is always this fear
that you will have to recite verse

like you say your prayers
in silence or before everyone else

a new stop to shaky tunes
this happens when poets do work

manual in dirt
or in offices

this is the fear
that only stems from an imagination that knows

to write in short lines instead of long ones.

Motherhood

I damned this motherhood
the time I saw you in my arms
lifeless, even in a dream

privilege

is to think with deep considerations
that none of your shoes fit you
when the children of your neighborhood walk the streets barefoot

Sent to the swift wind

Sent to the swift wind
these locks
golden hair into thin air

in translation

For Z, the better poet

Your words have despair
painted over them like a flag

all I have to do is be a vessel
that carries you across to the other side

with clear thought patterns
copy and paste your despair

over the towns and trees you've cut
with the edge of words

all I have to do is be the eagle
that looks with a sharp eye

on the nuances of what you don't say
does it make sense to paint the desert sand blue?

this too, is  vain, that poetry speaks
better truths than drunks

the truth is, in poetry we are both drunk
enough to reveal our biggest fears

etched with the sense that I lack
this very moment I am addressing

a body of words bigger than mine
washed out like a sea of treasures

fished out like the ways we spell
Baher, the sea, big and understanding of us both

this is what it is like to be someone's despair vessel;
attempt to cover the holes the wind insists on getting into with only bare hands.

Lifted

I get lifted, in comfortable arms
a little darker than mine

a little less sure of where they are placed
adequately to not cause me pain

a little heavier than me
but strong enough to make a house from scratch

this is a scene: I get lifted in the sky
you stay grounded to this earth that holds you.

worthless

Like a tidal wave
it washes over the shivering bird
worthless feathers is his only adjective.

a modern array of love

Your hands in mine, laced
you've touched me
but I felt nothing.

gems, music

There's gems in music
how a breath plays
over a warm arm

hide your sons

Tell me where do I hide my sons

When you come at us, inspired

Tears and fires, hands and sticks

I don’t want any bones broken

This is what happens when sons 

see their mothers beaten 

with a stick like the end of a scarf

dangling into fire 

wild and unforgiving 

I don't want this to happen to my sons

tell me what to do 

when you come at us, while we are chanting?

this is the price we have to pay

those who stand between the curb and the stones

eroding voices to get at the end of a song 

that doesn't play but for some ears 

tell me where do I hide my sons

from all this madness, this anger?

A search

I am looking for something that I miss

Made out of clay

Like a barouche, or maybe the end of the day

Presented before me- I know what I am missing

But I don’t want to go seek it. 

a cold birthday

Eyes drooping with liner,

Cigarette at hand and her birthday was very cold

Spent moving between the rock and the harder place;

I haven’t been home- she thinks

Because home’s sunshine was the answer

unsolicited advice on love

 In love, she tells me

Be content with the minimal

You are of an age that allows you

access to minimal sources for the same waters

use the little things you get, without sacrificing the rest.  

even the things termed perfect

Even the things termed perfect fail;
in peak minutes

my hand stops writing with the same curves
poems for your eyes

you stop responding to steady walking feet
because yours are too heavy

the sun shines in all the wrong hours
causing us an excessive tan, unaccounted for

bodies get drawn to the wrong bodies
without just reason

even the things termed perfect fail;
there's a hole in happiness' belly

there's a hole in the pockets of the clouds
that's how we get the rain

there's a missing piece in all that's perfect
for even the narcissus' flowers lost their father in the pursuit of perfection.

Damning Cupid

This is the failure of the lovers
once sifted on two floating boats
the damnation follows cupid
who ties and separates bodies

Delayed, for a hundred years

I am late
once more, it seems like it's been
a hundred years capsuled in twenty days
my bones ache
but I'm still breathing

I am waiting

A vacuum in time
heavy feet continue to pace
the same small space that becomes more familiar
while we wait

Gender roles

In the kitchen we talk about
the placement of our hands, our forks
speak of the way men sit and women pose
your voice gets louder, blaming me
for the spots on the dishes
while mine grows into yours spotting a cloud in your eye.

it's calm

A thunderstorm beats around the edge of your balcony
it is calm, we say, this potential gathering of clouds

the wind blows eastward, taking with it leaves
shoots and dust, it is calm, a quiet noise around the house

it is summer and the streets are boiling
with a hint of those who have started to feel, it's calm

we speak of the sea that is high and infested
with jellyfish and human skins

it is calm, how we raise our heads to face mornings
that are full when they bend us in half

all is calm here, in the safest points of the mountain
where we overlook the sleepers and refuse to see

how calm turns us over in the head.

miscommunication

I know how to cry
in so many different languages
none of which you know how to speak.

my life these days

This is a life now

delayed at waiting 

there are no trains to hop on. 

Don't write

Don't write when you are angry
the words will slant

Don't write when you are happy
the words will buzz out

Don't write when you struggle for words
you cannot create what you don't have

Don't write when you want attention
it arrives with other means

Don't write when you are sleepy
you will rush the river

Don't write when you just woke up
the river will be lazy

Don't write when you are sober
the words will be messy

Don't write when you are drunk
the words will be honest

Don't write when you are in between
if you are unclear, how will you be?

Don't write when you are clearheaded
where is the fire?

Don't write when you are hungry
how can you arrive at the word when you cannot lift yourself up?

Don't write when you are full
the words will be sleepy

Don't write when you are unready
things will look like this poem

Don't write when when you are ready
because there will not be enough time

Don't write for a situation, be every situation with words.

patience

is another name
for a death that slowly takes advantage
of time's upper hand.

a hand in fire

I walk hand in hand with fire
you say it is not equal to water

who is crazy enough to compare
fire with water

equate the cause and its effect
the setting and the ending?

I walked hand in hand with water
you say it is cooler on your tongue 

I articulate my vowels differently
how then, do you want me to speak to you
like fire, or like water?

solidarity with feeling

The voices that say
you have no space for feeling 

despite having rubble in your lungs
it doesn't matter

this is the truth, no gas
no envy for the shortages 

as if there is enough day
or night to cover the world

bone for bone
a cloud in the day

the voices that chant in marches
you have no space for feeling 

turning a head to me
if only, they read.

Apology to the pens

I can no longer
generate poetry
the same way I can emotions,
I am sorry, pens

work backwards

I work on your words
backwards,
from finish to start, this is us
two mad lovers who fail at conversation.

Accusation

A mother with error
does not look back
retrace her steps in space
before her hand comes down on the child's shoulder.

what are you waiting for?

Before the sunshine
before the husbandry
before re-learning to use my two hands for things other than typing
before drafting notes to be sent into space
before cracking a heart like a walnut
before break-age
before everything

what are you waiting for, now you see the end?

speak of the gypsy

you speak of the gypsy
with complex paragraphs

you assume that like all others
a gypsy won't understand

because he moves too much
hauls the houses on his head

march, tell me,
do you think its easy restarting somewhere after your roots hit earth?

bad internet

This is the result of a third world country 
an internet that cuts
mid-song, my chain of ideas

coming your way
your voice is ill-prepared
to the temperament in mine

this is all the result of a bad connection
blame the internet for it
blame us, for not beating our skins enough
to reach one another.

14

is the number of day
for the silence
that fills me when I watch the news

stagnation, lies

How can one tell a lie
based on its size
as big as the ocean or a sea that doesn't move
this is how stagnant the words become, quickly.

who wins against time?

Who wins against time, 

if I leave the minute to look backward 

at your body walking into a lit room

no one, 

I hear your laughter 

commending what I have left of bravery 

that I have loved a ghost 

dedicated my life to the shadow of a star 

because it was easier to be in the dark 

morbid, I know 

but for some reason I think of you

young and raw, like a new apple left to nature

no one wins against time

it is the only race 

I have been running for years. 

untimely leaving

a departure arrives
by way of summer
I keep praying it changes
the first swallow has just arrived

another anniversary for the ones gone

for T, twenty years onward 

Soft blue eyes,
pale to the understanding

a little girl
with her hand in yours

jumping over a moving stream
picking up the clothes for toys

because she would not have know
motherhood then, like she does now

soft blue eyes
never letting her cry

because tears are made with our most precious
pain, that reverberates

when she thinks of you
away from your city

your old bones now,
tired to the call of a voice

tender to the fact that you
her protection is the first true father

she's ever had.

the tongue in you

Your language gives me a boulder on the shoulder
breaks my arms
but I have to learn to speak with you like I would
an indentation in the silence

Commonly Royal

Horse drawn carriage arrives

just like in the movies, except 

the common has become a royal 

with the bond of love 

a decade, outta line too

Things I learnt ten years after High-school graduation: 

1. Time flies, literally and you grow older.
At 17 thinking of the future was just an exciting game, guesses, chances, potential was all dreams. But one minute becomes an hour and then you find yourself ten years later with memory. Adult-life is hard and time is precious, so is energy, this is something I learnt the hard way and because before you know it, ten years fly by and because time is precious those who surround us should be as precious.

2. You will never be perfect, but you can be your truest self
Your flaws will never disappear so if you live with them that's the best solution! Grow, give yourself the chance to laugh at things you thought were central to your being 5 years ago because they make you "perfect". So much into the idea of "Perfect" comes from the world around us, exposure to insane beauty and thought standards changes us. Embrace yourself because your own arms give the best hugs.

3. Everyone is insecure, even the most confident.
This I've seen all over the world, I’ve even seen it with officials, successful authors and stars who are as hesitant and scared as an average 17 year old. Fear and the feeling of a compromised confidence is universal how you deal with fear is how you cultivate the facade of confidence you project to the world.

4. Speak up and ask for things that are rightfully yours
When I was bullied, all I thought was: I am better than them. What I should have told myself is I have a voice that’s uniquely mine. Overcoming shyness is probably the best thing I've worked hard on for the past few years. Ask for things that are rightfully yours, don't be shy. I am still trying.

5.You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress.
It is not a cut-clear process. Growth is a work in progress. Allow yourself time to give and receive, time to be a couch potato with crazy childhood-patterned PJs and allow yourself time to wear the Julian Macdonald gown and flaunt it.

6. There will be friends, there will be lovers, there will be leftovers.
Life is unpredictable, always easier with friends: exciting with a loved one and boring with cold leftovers. The thing is, be conscious of who your friends are and don't measure them by years but by situations and the same thing applies to love but not for leftovers- eat good food while you still can!

7. Buy the shoes, take the trip, learn the language, follow that dream.
In essence, don't be closed off to change. Don't deprive yourself of the things you love because passion gets you places. Passion about changing the world took me to Japan, to the States, to the Fringe Festival. Just believe in chances.

8. Life is about hard work, but also about luck
Sometimes you work hard, it pays off. Sometimes you work hard and life treats you with a broken heart, camera and laptop (yes, that's another story for another day!). Sometimes life gives you a once-in-a-lifetime chance which can change your life in a minute like a year abroad for example. Take the chance, jump at things.

9. It is never "too late", except in cases of apologies
it is never "too late" to wear bright red, to get married, to pull an all-nighter. I rode my first rollercoaster 2 days before my 24th birthday. I saw the ocean for the first time at 25. This also applies to thoughts, it is never too late to change your mind about pre-held "set-in-stone" ideas. It is never "too late" except if you've made a drastic mistake then waited six months without getting in touch with someone then it is "too late" to fix it.

10. Face your demons to become free, then smile
Face your issues head on, don't let them pile up and do it with courage and with a smile, with a good attitude.

at twenty seven

I, the ultimate spoken
no longer look at my reflection
ugly duckling in my teens
a swan but not with beauty, with a pride
a step taken at twenty seven

a weekend displeasure

that I care not to what you say
that's displeasure monitored closely
the minute we both step in ice-water
on the only weekend we had freely to ourselves

Going back

Going back, I find myself walking backwards to the sea

mixing fact and fiction, stirring tears in tea

going back, I dream of potential lives

various definitions of normalcy:

a radio playing a midnight love poem-

music to replace shrieks,

 stories about dancing bunnies

instead of departures for a child's memory

a piece of orange melting in my mouth

 abstracts beget less blossom in using the right verb

 even the church's bell isn't shy from chiming at mid-day

 I count family members and pray in silence

 use verbs like reduce, to tie my blessings together

that I have language,

 that I breath,

that I have stories

 but I know nothing is normal

and I know the verb return

 is a synonym for stay.

a renewed faith

for miss B

You had a spark
a touch, that's always been different- you tell me

I shudder at the faith you give me
one I lost when I last saw you.

help

is the word we use most
because every day
we look for exits

comparison

You look at your own eyes
to make a match of which is different
by virtue of an upper pupil
this is what happens when you compare
your old self with your new eyes. 

fatigue

a sense of old bones
fit into this young body
without a real purpose or sense of time

for hope has more than one definition

The painter's tools before your hands
sparkle
when I ask you say;
there's more than one definition to hope.

on the brink

on the brink of an upcoming death

that swears to not sound so negative

we find ourselves talking about a life

that waits for the decisions of those granting us time

not God, not nature, but others who like us

think they are above nature, above an all-seeing-God

because they hover in their steel planes over the clouds above our cities

Too many dates to remember

The time of birth, an exact moment,
coupled with the time of death- another
these are the dates you have to remember

a centennial of laughter and forgetfulness
what happens to the years in between,
is it just happenings or a time-filled question?

there are simply too many things to keep in mind
and there are things to evade
let slide like old mud, like nature taking care of its own

there is a time for birth of new ideas
there is also a time for death
there is a space for remembrance
yet there is a bigger space for forgetting

this is a poem that comes on your birthday
this is a poem that co,e on the anniversary of a death
dates to remember and forget at the same time.

protection, speech, silence

This is the notion that is left for us
there is no protection for those who speak
no more for those who are silent,
what then, do we do with our mouths?

Amina, a girl

You look like what my grandmother 

would have looked like, small and contained 
like a shipment box on a rickety boat
aren't we tired yet of talking about the sea?

maybe we are but we are still unable 
to find dry land, because drier lands breed 
no future, just bucket-loads of dust 
that piles to become make-shift houses 

scary, isn't it? These thoughts coming from everywhere
and nowhere. From a lack of sleep 
that characterizes itself in heavy eyelids 
matching creativity

Amina, the name is a story
like my grandmothers' 
to keep you awake
a child gets reaped

by will or by war
this is a story that births itself 
in my water-filled lungs 
everyday

awake

this is what your voice does
calling in the night-time

it is always beautiful to know
someone else shares your loneliness

in between the hours
you should have been sharing sleep

a dream that reaches
around all the heads you wear

but there you are, tiny, sitting voiceless
listening to a description, while awake

looking out on a nocturnal village
that rest at 3:00 am.

When does it come to life?

You ask, when does it come to life,
this passion- words exploding like sugar
when, you ask again
I tell you when faith returns once more.

Piano-man

Your fingers, an instrument,
playing at their own pace
a heart of a rhymer, pacing
the notes, fall like water.

sleepless in your own bed

Much misery happening in your head
it is a shame
you lay sleepless in your own bed, every night

writer block, once more

Like an ink that's dried out
completely
I run out of words

courage, my girl

Push yourself
to be more like your poems;
a piece of courage jumping out of the window.

Goodbye, to a friend

This is the status of departure
a dull goodbye
with bags dragging behind us both.

A dancer in the mirror

Feet shuffling left and right
there's one rhythm,
does your heart beat to it?

Jericho, a day out

The walls tumbled down
for too proud of kings
walk over their nations,
even in the desert

Acre, a fort

Strolling by the port
midweek, the sea is the same
strong like the fort it lives on its feet.

Haifa

We return, once more
to where we belonged,
after stealing an orange from a holy site.

Bethlehem, a visit

Bethlehem,
here, He was born- a child
there, His Mother breast-fed him, on the road
while our mothers recluse to homes, in comfort.