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.

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.

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

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! 

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.

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 

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

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.

an awkward second

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

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

Motherhood

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

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.

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.

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.

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.