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

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.

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

voice, women, faith

A woman's voice
moves mountains
so does faith

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.

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.

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.

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.

as I wait for an official paper

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?