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?

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.

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.

battle warrior

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

falling stone

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

14

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

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.

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

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

Jerusalem, the heart

Eighteen times, built and destroyed

imagine the damage 

I have only once built 

one sandcastle then jumped on it 

imagine, seven doors 

open then another six waiting for Judgment Day

I have only once waited

for a letter of your judgment, never arriving 

imagine a bullet-hole in a metal door

marking the wars on the land

I have seen a war rage inside of me
on the seven doors of the city, where I walk and weep every day.

Warplanes

I sleep to the sound of a warplane
hovering in the sky above me,
can the loved ones I lost pull it by the wings?

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.

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. 

A war on your doorstep

As war approaches

I don't know what is worse, my childhood memories 

or what it carries in its belly 

a blackout of houses and memory

Speak in a nonlinear language

about the first flower in earth this season

but how can I forget to mention 

how this land has been cultivated 

with blood and sweat

kisses and hard blows to its guts 

how can I switch the ways 

in which I think, only worry about which flower is first to bloom 

out of the same earth that contains 

the ash that had been once human, lost without question 

with the fever of a thousand houses 

collapsing at once, a blackout of live and memory.  

challenge to pick sides

It is a challenge
to pick up a side, in a battle
if you are always looking at it unfold from outside.

checkpoint in the rain

The sunrise is different when you are on a mission;

the clouds seem to give way for enough beauty 

to offer other than rain and darkness, a possibilty

silver and gold lined, for the eyes 

yet as you walk or sit 

you know it is bound to happen

long lines of cars listless 

like a leftover loaf

inside, screaming children who want to run 

women restlessly switching between radio stations 

men nodding behind the windshield 

and you, between the bus chair and the novel in your lap 

there is something about forced waiting

like there is about rain, it pains the head harder 

a tinted shade of purple 

nothing happens, no one moves and yet

time is happening; 

life swinging and swishing like raindrops 

whizzing between the points of destiny

A to B, B to A, where there should never be a space 

to be forced to stop 

behind a checkpoint in the rain.

hometown

I have seen a different rain this winter
mothers' eyes clouding over
sons screaming, fainting on the tarmac where the warriors once walked
locking children in the houses
clouds lifting from earth- skyward
this is my hometown, midwinter. 

hum-drum

Hum-drum 

an impeding storm 

the sound of war 

rings the doorbell

it will find me sleeping 

these days for winter has already begun

it will find me 

in my own peace, dreaming of walks by the shore 

a hum-drum

the sound of war 

breaks down my door

finds me cowering in a corner 

with a book and a flashlight 

like I was twelve again

running from lava

on a speaking mare 

a hum-drum-hum-drum-drum 

the sound of war 

shoots over my head 

takes down the kites I painted all summer 

takes down three trees that stand 

pregnant with fruit 

takes down the quiet, the child, the budding rose, 

the burnt-out books, the land, the hands, 

the music, the days, the nights, the ways 

the times I counted in reverse 

brings me this fear in my bones, 

the sound of the drum never leaves me alone. 

Repainting the roundabout

Paint drips over the end of the roundabout
fresh, like a surviving ice-cream

the flowers have been tainted too,
a little red on their summer-white petals

this doesn't save you, the face-value of paint
in the morning hours, there were thoughts

about a special occasion, made for the purpose of visitation
but the paint keeps dropping without guard

they said a king was visiting,
let's paint over this city;

repaint our tears
repaint the tank tracks
repaint the lovers night walks
repaint the tainted ugly faces
repaint the lack of air
repaint, let the red paint drip over the flowers.