The horses of Bruges

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

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

Jericho, a day out

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

Haifa

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

The ringer of the bells

"All Paris was spread out at his feet, with her thousand turrets, her undulating horizon, her river winding under the bridges, her stream of people flowing to and fro in the streets; with the cloud of smoke rising from her many chimneys; with her chain of crested roofs pressing in ever tightening coils round about Notre Dame. " Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris. 

Notre-Dame's old bell calls me
around the end of the day I wait
to see Paris give me a sign

of a new beginning
but the story is the same with all graygoles
that they speak only the truth

there is no problem
to wander without finding a way
just assure you are not lost

I can feel him in my bones as I walk the stairs
where he swung rope to rope
the ringer of the bells

Quasimodo, the laid, bete
the ugly, the stupid,
the one who fell for a woman with a voice like crystal

with a tambourine and a smile
the ringer of the bells who announced the news
talked to the shadows until he even fell shadow of her heart

Quasimodo, my enemy, myself.

Diversity pick

There is a bell sounding in the distance
when you mispronounce my name
that is as common as wind on your street

there is another sounding bell when you speak
of my language as a sister to the one
my enemy uses to force me to subdue my anger
into a little ball of stress

there is noise and hunger
when you paint my features
with lighter colors to make sure they fit
your designated rainbow

there is screaming when you tell me
you mention me to others
the way you mention a badge you've earn
running marathons for cases above you.

In London, you apologize

Too many times you apologize
in London

when the train is late and you are early
because you think you've mastered the time

when you run under the July rain
three stations later to find the truth you seek, already exposed

when you accidentally race toward your favorite shop
to find it closing for tourists

when you use the old currency
that has changed while you were not following the news

when you bump into someone
who has bright eyes but thick hands

when you turn into a corner of a park
to realize this vastness can swallow you

when you stay near the roads that are lined with people
who speak your language and yet you refuse to share your tongue

when you realize that time passes and that you grew
older not in reverse to the days

when in your heart you know cities that make you apologize
have the potential to change you

in London you apologize because you are a stranger
with a most familiar face.

Iowa city, in memory

The fall with its colors 
Canada geese flying in the Tom & Jerry patterns, 
The English V the Arabic 7 
Corn-fields and grilled cheese sandwiches 
Red glasses by the river,
Midnight evacuations, hold your passport and run
Words, words, friends and utmost kindness
Iowa city, a year later, in memory

in a suitcase

it is hard, you tell me
the different ways one has to fold
a homeland and stow it in a suitcase

Aphrodite's island, this night

Aphrodite
born on the rock, off a cliff
it was not a dangerous labor to be born over water

to have earth and the cold sea
at your feet, yet still be beautiful
with a piercing heart

divided is this shore
that once belonged to her Aphrodite
cut out with an invisible thread that was once her hair

emulate good women,
this island sinks in olive groove, silence
the sea echoing a siren song that divides
makes whole the seashells.

G, lies softly

between lads, lie, softly,
like a waterfall that is loud to hear yet oddly sensory

like love, be forceful
an indentation before speech

between the dance-moves become
a pain dried up, like a well that hasn't seen rain

like dewy grass, attend to the possibility
of containing little things; laughter and bugs, children and adults smiling

sailor, you are, between the lost lads
waves lapping on tomorrow relying on yesterday

you become tongues unspoken and bottles unbroken
not sealed or sent to perfection but a space

to find possible this leaning forward,
that prancing, that dancing, the friendship that stays.

explaining a jukebox

I would have liked to walk with you that day
instead of walking with lonesomeness, the whoosh of autumn leaves
behind me and a turn at every corner, to imagined otherness
I would have like to walk with you that day

arrive exactly where I found you, at the end of October,
with a cigarette half dangling in your mouth
smoke inhaled, not yet exhaled, until you saw me
a dress, short with pride and patches of black and white

you carried around an intense energy,
yet bound your ankle a shade of guilt between the beads of your anklet
of things done in secret; lovers kissed on the mouth when marriage
was the only tie that lead you home

still I would have liked to walk with you
to the end of the crowded bar, where you asked
for the source of music, pied-pieper, piped to the wall
before the dingy bathroom, behind the pool table

across from the bar where we sat, served expensive alcohol
in cheap glasses. You protested, again, on the sound of the Beatles
not coming to your years and I had to explain
how to flip years of music-making into compact CDs, black on the outside

holographic with notes and somber melodies. A dollar in and a few arguments
over whose music suits best the minute,
for each minute has its song, each memory, river-long a piece
to undress it to its core

I turn my head and explain how row behind row
like schoolchildren the songs line up,
from the belly of the old-looking machine that matches nothing
in the bar except an old sofa, this is not a place for youth

but it is a place for the present
for a few moments a jukebox, I say, is the world.

Egypt, my child

Christians of Egypt,

I fear for you

the wrath of the Pharaohs.

Travel and read

A ticket to a land, I leave on the table
I see the question in your eyes
have you read another book?