Us, romatinca

The people we know deserve a song like us 

with jazz notes and high end music, 

rose-petals crushed to dust over tables

but the smell remains the same 

this is how you play with form 

the way you play with meaning, the same way 

you play a heart, everyone we know deserves

a song like us, coming from the reverberations 

of the samba, Brazilia, mi amore

faked accents to make a woman believe a man 

is more than material he wears

everyone deserves a song like us

filled with high-noted violins, trying to be easy on the ears

optional: stay or depart?

this is the distinction of options
you are born here, in a place that binds you
to stay, to live, to never think about leaving
or belonging

this is a reality,
the walls will always be low around you
higher around other people,
ground to water and sand to stone

gibberish, what is spoken to convince you
against migration, or imitation
 because sometimes birds
are more comfortable in warmer weather

and if you set sail, call a place home
then you can truly never leave
it is not about departure
we are sick with language

ill with too many metaphors
this is the only option: no way out
you circle around yourself
to figure a way, a thing out

this is the new reality,
the homeland will always stay the same
uncaring by change itself
too easy for a comfortable living

crunched out, a history, mine

Stop relying on technology so much 

to predict the foul weather, our forefathers

one tells me relied on stone and cloud

to tell, to reveal, to reflect 

all synonyms with one meaning 

and a result of vain, rain and storm 

stop keeping the files written in words

typed into switches that can be 

erased without a trace

this is the advantage of history 

that it was made over the years

brewed, sugar-coated and sometimes bitter

but still keeping a record 

of possibilities, like math

what could happen, should happen, would 

eventually happen

here or elsewhere

the story is the same

it is how you tell it, it is who you tell it to

that makes the end 

lasting 

Ars Poetica

After Dalton

Questions, he does the nature of a poem
an ode in between thought and matter
that there are things coming into birth
no one knows of, but does poetry know
it is more than just words?

at a late late stage, some words

This verse got delayed again
by the fowl weather that stopped
the river from gushing forward
grief at the center of a glass

in Cursive

Hand double twisted,
one would say it is not normal to write like this
slanted to the left, bent double- faced

double clustered, all in one batch
these letters folded over one to another
you, unable to read, hunch over my shoulder and ask
is this cursive then?

The boy in the picture outside the house

The smile, no ease

there is sadness between wooden cupboards

like dust, take it out to find it piling up again 

slowly, over the counters in the house 

where one slept, ate, thought 

this is the extension of glory 

that now the walls talk about bluntly 

without need to seek advice from the inhabitant

the house talks, for this is not a cobweb 

that can be blown out by being blown in 

this is cement poured in, poured out 

a few hours after dusk, all dust

the rooms talk well of their inhabitants

the rooms leave space for the clothes 

piled, unworn, unwashed on the shelves

kept to cover up his bones in the winter

enough talk about the boy, the deaf

ears cannot do anything to one who hung 

his smile by the door and went to school; 

like yesterday, like tomorrow, like any other day 

there will be a return that is set for later- 

four months later, covered- iced

the boy. His smile will take care 

of the house, of the mother, of the father 

while the Quran plays in the room 

the dates are distributed and coffee, 

of course for the better, 

for the bitter occasions.