12:40 am

this is not sadness
I said wrong
this is pillow, pen
a patience of time
in between its clicks
like a chess move halted
for a carriage of thought
this is books
I never read

this is not the books I read
they sagged
to stale pale stories
but this is a passage one forgets
among a pile of others
like this
this is the stillness that breathes me
in and out
through the night

this is not sadness
this is… like tea

02:30 am

something of tiring
soothes the soul
lemon eyes
lettuce body
and yield

when thoughts swivel,
as vision bugs, in moving mind
when the cradle of the heart
rocks
and bed
becomes an anchor
a tundra ecosystem
of surrender:

the breaths
faintly white like
gentle ash
ruffle around,
and something little of the jaw
lets go a little,
and the fingers
stop fighting

time disperses
and all writing stops.

11:25 am

some stillness here
that I fear to break
some gentle memory
of the body
some luciferase show
of a little plant
something still softer
and still small
like the tickle of an ant
before it is revealed
or the startle
of a single hair

say

I spent years trying to break
the horrible spell of past
to free myself
from its shame
but such nights
bring it back
like an abandoned baby
in their cautious arms
and when I take
it does not cry
or scare me with frenzy
it sleeps beside me
chubby-lipped and pillow
and the nights do to
beside me

I don’t know…
some stillness here
makes us one

12:43 am

the glide
of a good pen on paper
is like freedom
like the graceful slide
of a kite
as she searches for fruit
sometimes
writing becomes a predator
and I become its gaze
I watch, yes
and I see too––
but come to the strike...
that is not mine
sometimes
tens prey I see
but it will not stop for them
and sometimes
it wants all
and will dive before I can focus.
and it is like ageing
this motion:
with every word, I know
a little more;
and freedom
it is a lot like freedom

01:00 am

it was faith, I think
it never left me so lonely
as when it was mine

say— prayer
like a dance I did all alone
grasping limbs
in an auditorium of echo

my sajdah
never mine—  the
surrender of ruku
and the chant of Fatiha
my tongue moving
with the coded keys
slurping, slipping
tumbling over words
that like malignant came
incomplete and too many

it was faith, I think
it was like love
of paper
dampened with blandness
it was sugar
that turns mouth to moss

it lingered
after I was done

and it was faith, I think too;
for while it was mine
it haunted, and haunted too
with a haunting
of something lost

and all age long
I chased it reckless
grasping in takbeer
and forgetting
before the salam
had even opened its wings

12:15 am

now the paper
feels as gentle moss
beneath the feet

and now I have
no words to write
for the night

is the body ever quiet?
now the wrist moves
and I become a crowd again

and
now
one

and now
I am a sea
(I have never met a sea)

and now sad—
swear I do so
every night

and it is not even mourn
but just a hue
in the hues of the sea

02:20 am

need a poem be good
for it to be true
good poems resonate
but need all always do

were the heart a still
forlorn principle
need it know no moving
of a tinkling ripple

what of machines—
do the gears not rhyme?
and must they really do
for the flowing of time

for how a young girl
lost in fear
so intricate delicacies
of secrets must hear

if a poem be hard
to achieve a task
where must one turn
to evacuate the flask

that bubbles anew
every new day—
need a poem be smart
to hold it at bay?

need a war be fought
to sing of a war
and need warriors,
comparing, spar?

is not a poem alone
as is a man alone
must then we all adorn
the sounds of a mourn