Sunday, October 18, 2015

Stray Echoes


Stray Echoes

One too many
faces, plights and things 
that make up this realm
racing to agree
and may be commence  
but whose moment is long overwhelmed
by a stray light not free
of what she brings
and what might be
now then and hence
empty like the old sea
whose stray echoes are frozen 
and forbidden to be
as they remain cold but tense
Count me always
in this and the next
but do not look me in the eyes
insisting to makes sense
of it all, of one thing
this time is too dense
and this space is too vexed
to reach that lull
where the fence sits
and where time subtends
one plight too many
whose pain is too heavy
and its dull face lends
nothing to this beginning 
or to that null, aching end.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

My Fair Lady Fairuz


                                      My Fair Lady Fairuz


Young and old and in between
your voice was is and will
always be
a phoenician myth
transcending all
sea and mountains
and all that was
or yet to be
It shines like translucent warm rays
from that eastern surreal sun
touching this sorrow and that joy
serenading their lonely lunes
in their lonely desert
to gentler mornings and hazier dreams
from them they hide and they run
But your voice my fair lady
is always there
like that eastern surreal sun
to give life back its vow
again and again
to words and tunes
that tell tales
of love loss
hope and pain
as only angels know how
Young and old and in between
my fair lady sings
as only angels know how
and as time brings
once or twice
every millennia or two
a phoenician myth
only heard and seen.

Monday, April 20, 2015

"A Cosmic Portal" (by Muthaffar al-Nawwab in translation)


                                                "A Cosmic Portal"
                                  (by Muthaffar al-Nawwab in translation)


Light not the night
in the guts of the damp alleys
but with tears and fire
and escort your young forth
as sorry trophies 
on adorned rebel prey
spells for your newborn
from the valiant checkered cloth 
A chaste dagger stands
against a different time
but this stale rhyme
whenever the bursting arrows 
make it heed to a wider swath
Like a vessel concedes
not to epochs or ends
and raises its arms
facing fates and winds
They gather to carry her 
to her resting place
while she to their dawn
The martyr's wing is as wide
as their ways are wrong
for he's not down or out
if he wishes so hell is more
Yes. . .let your guns go free
let them go forth
wrong are their ways
for the stars are still stark
despite their bark and this dark
for he won't be stunned  
but by a chief who cheats
and I know of one
whose tails the winds beat
Light not the night 
in the martyr's home
but with his wounds 
that glow and from his head shone
only the wounds stay lit
his way in his eyes 
his fingers knit
and his heart straight
like a mare's burst
Its pulse to this earth he had lent
to hasten its chores
his land is their final
and their fore
A cosmic portal opens in song
Bisan is still in his eyes
in his cheeks lips and forehead
waiting for her dawn.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Your Eyes


                             Your Eyes
I see them now
as clear as ages ago
and many blurs since
drowned in hither darkness
and forbidden glow
I see them now 
as I saw them then
to shine and see none
but me this vow and us
never forgotten and always mine
to hide and stow
between this moment
and the next
despite all 
this fall
this vexed silence 
and this unheeded call
I see them now 
...your eyes
forever as my only poem
shining through and through 
this foiled soul
as my only meaning 
my rhyme and my clue
stolen is my sun
without them
no time and no being
and all is numb
untrue doubt and lies
I see them now
...your eyes.