Encounters
In the tower of a restored Italian cloister a bourgeois restaurant
flourishes in its loggias I meet the high dignitaries of my adventures
my djinns and afrits
We're trapped in the basement of a building in Beirut with many
unknown families we'll have to cross the street at dawn
to change shelter during the next truce
In a car parked in a dark alley a hand slowly outlines my eyes
the bridge of my nose lingers at my lips and neck
everyone hears my heartbeat
Alone in my bed again crying I hit with my fists the indifferent wall
On an indefinite sheet of water surrounded by two lines of rowers
she watches the rhythmic synchronized movements
of their gigantic oar
the boat barely touches the surface
Your smile tells me in a stairwell "You haven't changed in twenty
years you stood it all well"
it's getting harder to sit i become heavier every day i'm no longer
good for anything anymore i'd like a small drop to warm
my heart up children bring my shawl please
We walked hand in hand over brittle pine needles wild oregano
in bloom thorny umbels swarming with shiny ants
its impossible my house isn't for sale i'll never sell
First published by Linden Lane Magazine
From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)
How the Song Turns into a Legend
We all have but one song, spend a lifetime
looking for ways to say it,
as one recites an unending poem,
a chanson de geste,
a canto, or an epic.
What happens then if you whisper it only to yourself,
burying it deeper every day?
Wouldn’t it wilt as petals pressed
between the pages of a book?
And couldn’t a garden die of indifference?
But take any couple, an encounter, turn it into a legend,
make it last... Their story told and retold,
ritualized by repetition,
until their stature grows, their eyes brighten,
until their voice is heard,
their sin forgiven...
Recount tales in tongues, in parables, uttered in public squares,
whispered in corners
in sotto voce,
from mouth to mouth,
hear a mother’s voice warn her children
with a half-smile,
witness puppets parody star-crossed lovers in street fairs,
in jest, in awe,
in ever-changing roles and settings.
Watch words form lines, notes, scripts, scores written in scrolls,
in parchment, in manuscripts folded in folio,
in quarto,
scribbled in notebooks, in recipe books,
in brown paper, engraved in stone, in bronze,
gold or ivory,
transcribed,
transformed,
until only names are left untouched.
When so many variations deafen the original song,
then, and only then,
the images retain their spell,
become universal,
art legitimizing what could never endure
First published by Puerto del Sol
From Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013)
Encounter in the Yellow Hour
You’d think we’re about to engage in an elegant minuet, right hands
raised in the ritual sequence of honor, yet her left hand waves the
bouquet of wildflowers away from me as mine struggles to hold
down my vest blown by the wind: but wait, rewind the tape to when
I first saw her walking towards me, as though floating in that sea of
wheat, holding wildflowers gathered just for me, for she must have
mistaken me from afar for a pirate with my kilt and wide-brimmed
hat: how I fooled myself, falling into my own trap, a motionless
ready-made, unable to take her into high seas like a one-legged sailor,
nor make love to her in the golden swaying waves of wheat, I, the
trickster would-be scarecrow won’t come to life like the fairy tale
frog, even the scorching heat won’t cast away my self-inflicted spell:
this is the end of the minuet, the last farewell steps of the ritual
sequence of honor, she’ll let the flowers scatter in the wind, the still
dance lasting for an instant merging end with beginning.
First published by Poetic Diversity: The Litzine of Los Angeles
From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)
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