What do you make on your scale?

Hair falls, wrinkled forehead
I say it is the age
he says, don't compare
what do you make on your own scale,when you leave out grace?

Not for the play of a broken heart

Take a lover for the sake of play, a friend tells me using the verb take
I pause a minute to ask, how taking can lead to giving
when things arrive into your lap
how the verb take pertains to  denying someone else an opportunity
to taste the same graces received to you.
take a lover, the sentence strikes in the ear
I shake my head, for the second bit
how can I offer the energy I have to another without a heart?
to make use of the bridge of the body
for play, for a story. This is it, isn't it
we are at the age crucial enough,
we either want a love without restrictions
or complete freedom from love but a nagging when it goes missing
a relationship to freedom. We want that relation or total freedom
there's no in-between. The reason haunts me, for play
with a soft body prone to bruising
a softer heart that bumps itself negligently against a wall
what play? an act or an indentation to mask drama?
we know what we want, don't we
maybe this is the reason to how lovers use the verb take
with force of ripping apart from others, another; man, woman, boy
a chance at a play regardless of broken hearts.

The doe by the river

The gazelle has taken her neck down
ti drink from the river, preceded the sunlight
heart of doe, she became the light
when death tapped her heart

a theater difference

There was a time when people got out of the theaters
having memorized the music, the lyrics,
that was before the theaters closed down
sealed with red wax.

the taxi tells me

This is what this modern city has become, he says bitterly
stones upon stones, like pillars made to make the city a space
but it is all built on our traditions and ancestors bones
just like this shifting culture we are making tells me again,
the taxi driver who picks me off the street.

This spring, something like love

Mason jars lit with candles
to make way for entry to the part area
only her heart is empty of love this spring.

waiting for news

waiting for news
is like exhausting time
for desperation to knock on your door

Clean, lit place

Over the desks, clear
with a space for the thoughts to arrive
like a bullet train heading to a known destination

Jalad

Jalad, is the Arabic word for patience
but as with Arabic, it carries within it stamina
power to those who are impatient

Jallad, is that who is a flagellant
with a whip strong enough to lash
at one's flesh, cracking with pain

there's a lot about self- flagellation and patience
that there be power and pain
a pinnacle that those who flog themselves and wait

will arrive at their destination
longer and stronger
bruised with beating.

No longer

Is the voice using
the words like can and cannot
these are auxiliary verbs- words that keep moving.

Another way to look at the question

Create opportunities
is what I hear being said, every time someone mentions
another building has effectively fallen.

The Laureate's birthday

This is the day you were born
a quote to celebrate your achievements is dotted over space

your vices, are kept hidden, like the same answer formalation
we give to tyrants and presidents at the same time

they've broken us, but we refused to break
this is something only you would write

only a man would write
only a man with a messy desk would write

only a man with slanting glasses and exiles would write
only a man with torn out passports and detention orders

it only took one man, to cover on a national level
causes that are ours and not ours at the same time

without blanketing but with the written word
the word that had descended first from a mouth holier than yours

having never kissed as many women
from both sides of the equation, yet remained grounded

it will sound sacrilegious if I speak of poets- national- like I would speak
of excuses, long and unbending

there are days where I work in your shadows
there are others where I taper into your spirit

a butterfly effect from a man's heart
crawling lightly on a woman's chest

from a balconey that overlooks
your grave, I will whisper today,

Happy birthday, restful laureate
for in death only you have found your peace.

in my birth city, without you

In my birth city, without you, there's a tightness in my chest
you are over the clouds but it feels that I have kept you inside of me
somewhere exactly near where I keep the affirmations
that are developed across mirrors, chats and wine glasses
I am in my birth city, without you, in our birth city
one we call hometown, the mighty Jerusalem that still stands
minus the towers of the fort that hold her protected.

How close, how far?

I stand near where I buried my dreams last,
the vast space overlooking the hill
and a long street that could have been a high street
there's something inspiring about the state of poverty

it moves with you regardless of where you find your footing
in the world above and beyond you
close or far to the point of origion
everyone has a root, essentially

but this state of poverty never leaves you
the runs in you are bigger than ladling with dirt your hands
your land has been sown and replanted
over the years yet still you cannot cover yourself from the sun

I stand near where I buried my dream last,
a cotton candy seller walks past
hauling pink-puffed promises in plastic bags
I lift a prayer to present myself into the chaos

please preserve my dreams intact 
beneath realities rained by rubble 
let me be, vast and rounded 
like the eternal sea in me.

plant in a pickle jar

In the name of keeping the environment
from turning its head around us
a bite on our skin, they plant trees in pickle jars.

A day, selected for women

Selected, like a hand picking a flower out of its stem
is the day made to celebrate a majority
the inclination towards saying words that mean little on the ground stifles
all hopes I have built with imagination all those years
but a flower meeting my fingertips should be enough
to inspire me to make something valid at your hand
a celebration that fits me with my curves-
hugging me from head to toe.

the houses with a hilltop view

Over the mountain that we debated could have been a hill
it stands, rows of houses, near rows of houses that look the same
identical in means and measures clearly cut out of stone
cut out of the valley, that has taken centuries to become ruined
by a past that is neither ours or theirs
nouns and pronouns that make nothing essential come to mind
over the mountain it stands, like a falcon
but all falcons are due to fall,
where does my fear stem from then, that it will stay?
the houses that were built over my people's bodies.

river-flow

without force, it will arrive
the flow of the river
that bursts in you.

this dash

A space divider, is a dash/
like this one to assure where I can put down the space/
a place for you and me /
that are just pronouns/
that pertain to no one/
that become part of the larger space/
that contains us all under its wings/
that merits no need for love or hate/
appealing opposites of same force/
that I am the space is in you/
that this dash makes no difference/
in the way we speak, the way our hands move/
yours on top of mine, mine searching for yours in the shadows//

The news, this week

It is again, the news, that takes you by storm 

even when you close your eyes

it follows you, like a shadow, 

a bird that flies very close behind

this is it, a bomb falls somewhere 

children are bleeding, mothers losing 

but there you stay

in your comfortable bed asking 

God for reasons you have left to live 

to receive voice

to speak in it for those who have 

been swept over by the news 

taken into the hands of their maker 

once more, tales, memories 

personal artifacts: old clothes, missal, TVs

photographs coming into ash

to bring about other photos 

newer and fresher the wounds

blood, tears, gas

photos, stories, soundbites

you turn the news off and close your eyes. 

read your book, without hurt

You read the scripture that states
"never hurt your brother"
to clear your mind out

oblivious to the fact that there is a knife
you stabbed in his back
without duly noting

what you say can and will be used
to turn your story around
to the direction no one had wanted

to begin with, start again
where you left off,
a knife dug deep deftly

not to remove things you planted
without hurt
that is bridged over

like an end of a disaster
or a destiny carved in bones
this is how you treat failure

an instance of regret
is a moment that will fleetingly
pass, like everything does

you read the Scripture
with a clean conscience
don't then hurt your brother.

Reconnecting to the spirit

it is a process, your hands on the mat
kneeling, stretching to make way for the energy
to connect into you the dots, for the spirit
 a heart beating under your hands.

He understands

The man understands
like the end of disappointment
that love, like sunshine, comes and goes