I carried something deep inside
my pocket like Frodo's ring
with the cruel gravity of Jupiter making every step beside you a slog through Russian snow
I never told you
I couldn't bear the thought
you wouldn't fight
and oh how valiant you were!
Even that French emperor that I have in pewter in a box in storage
would have thumped you on the shoulder
Oh tu as un cœur de lion!
yet a lion had already clamped its teeth into your shoulder
such pain
and you fought impossibly
until you finally fell into that shadowy shaft without knowing that I had carried a secret for eighteen months
that you, mon brave soldat, had only six months to live
May 31, 2017
May 31, 2017 at 5:31 AM UTC
A shofar blown in an empty synagogue
— a pursed squeeze of ethereal meaningless
is the sound of my abject failure to pull her back onto the boat
A choking cough in the dawn adhan reminds me of those gasps
the sinking and the stillness
and the defeat of my best intentions
regrets climbing atop
most things when I pray
blocking the sun as they stretch and writhe
but cold prayers are better than none and those moments pressed flat
fill my empty flask with the warmest of things
May 30, 2017
May 30, 2017 at 9:12 AM UTC
We can't take a thing on our tumbling rabbit hole trip into the opulence of recompense
Even our book of deeds exists there before a warm breeze lifts on that great day of winnowing
Yet you lie like Moses in a willow basket in the depths of the earth in that dress that made you look slimmer
Your nails are the blood of the Nile during that failed first plague and your eyeliner sits like Pharaoh's kohl
Nothing matters but what is written and the grace of the all graceful
yet a constellation of young stars
sit on your ring finger
and above your heart the name of Allah glows yellow from a pendant like the oil lamp of a lighthouse
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 4:05 AM UTC
I gulped to inhale her soul
as she sighed while it spilled
as the blood of birth
and I cried at the absence of her future
I reached to catch it before it slipped away
but these sin-slick hands couldn't grip such purity
What would I have done with it anyway?
Kept it like a genie to uncork whenever regrets weighed most?
Whenever my shame crept out?
It escaped faster than I had imagined
though no feather fell
or flutter caught my eye
into a spinning growing void in which only one word is ever said
and always in a whisper
May 28, 2017
May 28, 2017 at 3:55 AM UTC
You smile in a picture on a shelf
and whenever I pass I greet you
as a boy passing the waiting dog
that Dad had said he couldn't play with
until after homework
I salute you with a sigh that climbs a long ladder from a deep pain
though the Lord of all worlds
had slammed shut in my face that most unlovely door
leaving you in pearlescent light and me inside the shadows of a willow weeping
An eyebrow arches to hold aloft your eyes like Chinese lanterns glowing as they drift away
soon to fall
And no one but me will know
that I'd taken that photo on the very day
your left lung collapsed
cancer clutching like coal in a cave
May 27, 2017
May 27, 2017 at 3:50 AM UTC
Everything is out of place
a curiously dead wife on anyone's bed in a city long forgotten
her soul departing from an old people's home
lip hanging lower than it used to
new running shoes in the corner
disposable nappies next to a bra on an unused food tray
eyeliner on eyes that hadn't opened for days
cold skin in a room into which the sun streamed
morphine flowing through a tube into a life that had left
devotion from such an imperfect husband
who knew she'd hate her hair like that and stroked her fringe back into place
May 26, 2017
May 26, 2017 at 2:23 AM UTC
From your bed in the ward you saw a modest ribbon of pale sky through a window that could open only slightly, like your eyes
a high sky as achingly thin as the skin of your arms bruised like rain clouds
Yellowy eyes revealed what lips never uttered
a beaten acceptance that the sky will exist long after you do not
and your eyes fell on me like a child rushing for a tight hug
and mine swept you up like a father who'd failed to stop you tripping
Oh you patient soul who had never asked for more or complained of less
that same sky will also stretch above my grave
but until I fall into shadows I'll never forget you
an easy companion who said little during drives and nothing during pain
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 6:20 AM UTC
Night crawls like lizards
with tongues of opalescent horror
Sleep is a blanket on someone else's bed
and I jolt and gasp like she had
connected by that plastic tube
to a life finally withdrawn
Sleep is torn from my lungs which choke on fears that close around me as coal dust
and all I see in the dark are the
worst things she suffered
from cancer's tongues of horror
Then radiance reaches from your woken soul and you recite Quran over me
like a Southern faith healer
with laying on of hands
They slither away from the light you've conjured and I sleep oh I sleep
Daylight memories appear as camera flashes
petty poltergeists easily banished
Yet darkness always follows day as an anxious housemaid
Memories slip their skins and crawl from discarded scales again where they shouldn't
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 1:02 AM UTC
The Good Lord drowned you in dreams of our best times
I couldn't save you from that clutching thing that had stolen far too much
yet I am caught in the happy moment when you bobbed on the surface for three sunlit seconds
saw me from eyes that had closed forever, I swear, and blew me a kiss
with a hand from your lips that had forgotten how to sound even the smallest words
before sinking back into the depths of the peace that enclosed you as a shroud
Apr 26, 2017
Apr 26, 2017 at 5:57 PM UTC
Uselessly I watched you
glide with her
holding her tightly
while she sank into your embrace
You drew her breath
made her heart race
placed a hand upon her shoulder
It hurt
You cast me a you-can't-do-anything glance
and I winced at how light-footed you are
It was obvious
you have done this often
thief with a devilish grin
crusher of hopes
When you left with your arm around her
you looked back smugly
You're used to getting what you want
Your gloating broke me
I curse you cancer
brutal romancer
irresistible lover
****** good dancer
Apr 23, 2017
Apr 23, 2017 at 5:08 PM UTC