for some reason,
i’m infatuated with libraries.
so many thoughts, so many voices, so many dreams.
all collecting dust

in one
quiet
place.

no rest
for the wicked
or for
me,
no my
dreams keep me
tired,
no fire
has burnt my
bed yet,
no i’m
watching
laundry line
silhouettes
from:
the shadow box
of my head,
no this
isn’t pain
as much
as its
disorienting,
no i
need medicine
something to
keep me
awake
because
i forgot
to blink,
no it
makes no difference
whether my eyes
are closed or
open,
no dust
left
suspended in light
over the ocean
trenched
darkness.

tiny. little. indivisible.
                                      —moments.
frame real. for the first time.
                                      —suspended.

I fed. five thousand.
                                      —of them.

we escaped
the ravenous crowds of the beach
the secrets seagulls screech
that discussed the implausibility
of you leaving with me
you walked
with the sound of the coast
the deep ancient sea
clearing its throat
to call you home
furthering the distance
from me
to you.

Daily,
Anna Tole
rides by me.

sitting up straight;
pedaling awkwardly.

she looks down:
maybe at the dirt
or a stone,

but it’s most probably
something i cant see
with glass eyes
alone.

she sees things…

like a seed taking root
or a nest where foxes
chew rocks
in constant costly pursuit
of that elusive sharper tooth

clouded. constant. clarity.

she looks closer
to see grains of sand
much darker
than her pre-disposed
pre-dawn
darkness

the kind
that attaches itself
tangled up behind her

she might as well be
tying soda cans
to tap out a
telegraph message

s.o.s…s.o.s…s.o.s…

Mostly i hate to shiver, but
as of late
my mind floats
like a glacier

on a tundra. it’s almost as if
i long to be frozen, of finally

crystallizing.

spread thinly across a moment. For

what is winter but
a season of correction and
what else does snow
hide, but warm seeds
not yet equipped or

ready:

to make an assault;
to reach for the;
unfolding firmament.
and how else:

will white blankets behave?
then to collect and save
every prism of light”
crawling toward it,
like the pilgrimage of a wave~
no longer discriminating].

against boundaries:
past, present, and future
and (all at once).

&latel;;, i cannot
quench my thirst
for the ice 0f eternity
to melt f1rst


our corporeal frigid for/\ /\s


into puddles of everlasting
currents.|||\/\/\/^\/\/^\\||||\/\/\/^\/\/^

it was on all the news channels,
your shipwreck.

for miles,
and from distant lands,

whose soil
you never even met,
they traveled for you.

all around us
the promised ringing—

circle of:
banshee sharks,
phantom whales,
and reaching shadow tentacles.

glimmer—
you are sunken treasure.

but either from
the weight of your necklace,

or the summoning,
voodoo grasps of
gravity,

we were:
entranced in depth
and the fleeing
whiteness of your dress,

both them,

and me,

floating…

knowing full well,
where you go,

and that we could not venture there,


as our body-suits
could only take so much
pressure.

this, my dear, is madness:
the scent of your blood
drifting

in open water.

the world;
and my bed.

which
is the refuge?

and which
is the storm?

when
long time friends:

are inward
projections;

are simply further proof
of myself;

are shadowy
conjugal visits:

holding hands
with their phantom limbs.

every day,
dissolved and disillusioned,

nails rake
dirt

and it
doesnt feel real

i'm
poking holes.

into

shrouds! fogs!
lights! atoms!

im confused

when i think
of the flicker
of my existence

when i think
about how i've
treated it like a joke
like something that comes around
revolving in the ends of bicycle spokes

when i think
good things come
to those who wait
and not those who take

when i think
all is fair in love
despite the fact
that every dosage quickly dissolves
and divorces
it's original qualities

when i think
nothing is quite as it seems
when every surface
conceals denser meanings

when i think
smoke is a sign
that homes are burning
places that i once loved
are changing.

i remember childhood
like i forget most moments,
something
is always missing

like every autumn
i'd go upstate
to pin ornaments onto trees
like they were war veterans who lost their feet

and rake
stockpiles of leaves

(i can hear their tiny spines breaking)

the ground crackled
because i walked on fire
it was easy
it smelt stale

i recall the fall
in mounds.

i never landed .

i remember floating.

When I was a kid
My old friend, Hashem
Broke an egg.

He watched
the yoke
madly spread out
and stain the white
like starving dogs
would chase
stuffed prey.

I often wonder if
He wonders

What could have been
If He had left that Chicken

Alone.

If stars
with all their
burning vanities
and distant individuality
can gravitate
to form galaxies,

I think maybe,
just maybe,
we can
make it
through
one *******
wedding.

we are dinosaurs.

me and my friends:
are chalky ***** figures.

spine-braced--
in a claymation display.

you will never truly
know us.

we are:
not
living.

we are:
the insides
of buildings.

we are:
a main exhibit

watch:
the stutter
of movements.

cold,
lucid,
lizards.

every shroud
thrown on

only invokes
the wrath
of the architecht

after all
what is a body
but a bag of bones
wagered to
break
or tossed on turtle shells
to predict
great things.

did you come to be alone?
when you first came to my room? i no longer see you
as something relative in
space, but more the opposite.

time snakes your trailing coordinates and occupied
places. you are fleeting.

you are
gone. all i see are
the empty spaces,

eyes in love with the wall who
wove wounds
into
itself: to silhouette you.

but you go on, peggy, you insist much like the rest
of them
to make me wish
with a most wishful
wit we have
all had the good fortune to witness.

but how can i shoo you away?

your beauty perches and whines into the night
beating my window
as she stalks the walls beside my bed,
perching, but also,
purring.

&above; all things, peggy
learn to live,
patiently.

because you cant

leave,
i have not washed that sheet;

⁢ still holds you
i know you wrap it around
you like you
wish it were a
woeful
and warm
me.

these are things i know.
but did you come here to be alone?

its cold out here
and me on the other side of space
opposite of a *******
exploding star
what was i to do?
but not say a thing
and take in all the bitter temperatures.

peggy shannon,
wont you share the covers?

you were always there
sitting in the study
rainy window pane eye sockets
persistently looking past me

like i was just someone who died
a year ago and came back to visit you
from the grave
a spirit you could save

or shove in the right direction

you were always there
presenting the necklace
like it were strung with pearls of air

like someone didnt pay
6 weeks of pay checks on it
just so some men half a world away could
walk on ocean beds
and crack the skulls
of those chattering heads
of the sea.

for each and
every bead

wrapped around your neck
ms. fleming,
you'd do well
to-

...forget that
and all other things
if i could just
have an inch of your time and gaze
i may not be this wicked
astral projection
your aversions
have yielded to my name

no i might be something else

like a guardian angel
who picks up rusty tacks
and puts out your cigarettes
who pulls up your covers
and presses lips to your cheeks
oh i could be this all
if you would for once look when i called

'susan fleming
if you can be a
pleasant host
i can be
a friendly ghost.'

i would like to stand beside kathryn burke.
well
only if You
can promise
it wouldn't hurt.

a promise: is a
promise: and You
promised: You would.

i would just be happy
if she would sit beside me
on a park bench
under a sky
as absent, as dark
as the black lace that chased
her skin

and even if You were
really dead and gone,
(or so says Nietzsche,
a fact i still find hard to believe)
even then,
i wouldn't mind.
as long as that rib
was returned to my side.

then i wouldnt be so half-
empty.
so inside:
out.

then maybe the mirror
would bare an image to me.

boy, i'd finally be living!

who would of thought
a sorry lot
like me
would be
a **** worth giving?

surely
none of the Lords
that are still
living?

but a promise: is a
promise:
and she always

promises.

like those pretty eyes of hers
i couldn't keep

in pockets full of posies

kathryn burke?

does it hurt?

to stand, to sit, to lay
beside me?

Every night you can paint me the fool:
with wide white smiles,
under a punctuated brow.

I can feign happiness,
without expression.

My face burning red
like this ball nose still.

What would be said of an actor
and his stage,
without a performance?

The show persists itself,
and thusly must keep going on.

Line, after practiced line.
Tangled in a web.
With spiders closing in.

And their laughter approaches as a storm:
teaching me humility, in all of its forms.

Flushed egg white dripping down my face,
as the ink, shameful, sinks into permanence.

The spot light flickers,
as the dust, suspended, sinks like a swift snow.

I should of known, fame

like love

doesn’t last forever.

you are here
with me
in theaters,
watching old films,
looking past
the close ups
of pretty actresses,
searching for
cigarette burns.

some sort of warning,
to see the story
is close to ending,
or the reels are
just changing.

pictures wont stop flickering
and i wonder who you're
pretending to be
now.

but i'm afraid,
alone, in the dark
i don't have
the patience, to wait
for the curtains or the credits
so i'll clammer my way
down to the exits
and continue
to pester the quiet projectionist.

autumn has come again
so the leaves
are soaked now
with all the colors they have
kept  in.

and people frolick while nature
is dying

and under every mask
the eyes, still gleam like they belonged to children

every trick
deserves a tiny treat
greedy gloved fingers are scythes
they are hungry for the harvesting

of rotten teeth
of breathing ghosts
of temperatures dropping

the naked trees
start their shivering
and the cold
cant hold them

the kids carve their names
in vain attempts to console them
as if to say,
"we're all trapped
in between
the shadows
and the seasons
we're all frustrated
and on the cusp
of becoming
we're all waking
and forever waiting
to be born again
curious, brave babies
in the blooms of spring"

i think i
would like
to fall

into love again,
like a deep dark well

i
could
descend
in.

the days light slipped out--
gravity calls
it in other directions.

i do not miss it,
but sometimes i do
get reminiscent.

passing stones, gray--
far past illumination.
and for moments, forever:
i feel such
a heavy weightlessness.

my mouth agape,
but fear isn't a voice here.
i yearn for impact;
i howl for it.

when i am aging
at this velocity,
every futures growing
more and more
present.

and so
i break fingers
on every lonely stone,

and i bruise, like sunlight
thrown on
smashed human bones.

i drip,
like rain that longs
to be a lake again.

but for now,
i'm reflecting on
stars
burning holes
in the reservoirs,

because
i think i
would like
to land
into a heart again,

splashing,
like a rock dropped
to see where
a deep dark well ends.

If I asked you
would you let me
affix you to chains?

And if I pleaded
would you take my heaviness
overboard with you?

Would you be the anchor
that ties the vessel
to the ocean bed?

The voice that
quietly lays down the word:
"sleep,"
to my ears?

When the gray sea of life
lurches to and fro
with its infinite unrest

with every droplet quivering here,
and despite my years abroad
I still cant decipher
all of its erratic movements

Oh, Al-Mateen,
Will you hold me still?
Because I think I like it motionless

why yes
i am

the one; of many.
the prince; of pennies.

counting copper pillars
that cage tiny
dead symbols

of Lincoln
of freedom

i invade quarters
and pillage coffers
hidden in dry wall
and buried in floorboards

those secret panels
where you also hoard
i am also moored to

and if someday
Charon, extends his hand
and gravely states the price
i just may finally be able
to afford an eternity:
of laughing at this carnival;
of screaming on this ride.

A poem
is like my breath
on a windowpane,
a condensation of my soul,
developing only to dissipate,
leaving dusty ancient clues.
Fingerprints of my true name
point back at me.

the page shivers under my pen
like soil when the dam breaks
it knows it must change
like tinder to my flame

inhaling, i consume it
and make it a starry night
but keeping my ears, to hear the light
swell and ebb out

beside all hope and along all doubt
my brush paints the darkness, colourful
and knows it is not ugly, knows it is not cruel
but oriented

towards the last ocean
where the world
is but a molecule among it's
infinite
directions.

I imagine myself
anxious and digested
in the belly of a 747,
constantly falling.

But outside this hollow cabin,
in the clouds, hidden:
i see the love of a great child
whose hand holds me up
as he runs the course of his backyard.

My fears
are a flock of blackbirds,
that swarm
the extremities of tree limbs,
but by your grace they dissolve into the sky,
their low caws dispersed by the brushing of the wind.

and there,
in a house finally my own,
no longer supporting there taloned feet:
i am thankful.

Come now:
as the night inhales,
and while the guards rest.

Wearing shadows
like loosely fitting robes.
May each footfall press
lightly, like a thousand soft kisses
across a long sleeping body.

Come now,
hold my hand
when the world, for once, is silent:
Al-Khafid, take this city.

you, my dear:
weighed heavily
on my heart today;
your sadness
blanketed me,
and encompassed
everything,
that had led us
astray:

the drunken
bath tub shipwreck,
and the cracking
of our compasses.

what maladies
only a year adrift could bring?

but you
having appeared before
like a bottle
that had washed ashore
sent by the sea
with a script
so often read,
that my eyes
would sore
over and over
once again,

with hopes
they were addressed,
just to me and my absence.
pulling apart every vowel
with deeper hopes
to pick apart
their meaning.

but between
your words,
and between
you and i,
and the half-filled emptiness
of our loose leaf lives,

i've heard
these tack-hung pictures tell:
of your voyages
and the other captains,
bound for hell.

and so
i sent this note
and map, in faith, afloat.
to help navigate
your journey back.

and though
today you did not ask
me for a raft
or for the truth:

yes,
even on dry land
i still hold my breath
for you.

i would like
to treat you sweetly
but you pull away your cup
almost on cue
your tongue extends
its protests
to sugar
mixed with the caffeine
morning aches
of days to-day.

the world spins
like **** in your coffee
poured deeply in
like rain redirected
by the water drain
and still, daily, you wonder
from whence all this drunken bitterness
came.

my father says
you spread me thin
he doesn't want to see me
dying over you

but my throat swells
with your name
and my heart throbs
with your beat

you only say
you miss me
the ground you stand on
is not a necessity

the liqueur
is your blood
for now the absence
is your love

i built you
eternity
but if that is not enough
please, feel free

to tell me
anytime
now.

posed on the rocks
my madonna

twists her ankles
and knees in

the whitewashed
masterpiece

unpainted
and uncertain

the waves
lay siege

they only want
to lay under your feet

a thousand voices
assail from the sea

they too, like me
only want to be slain

by unending beauty
still unconscious

to me
and a clothed manufactured happiness

the wind
only wants you to undress it

and bare all its love
in nakedness

and just as the forest
dances

to be a gleam in you eye,
jamilah, so do i.

It occurs to me now,
set before a table of endless feasts,
that i have always been hungry,
and even as i eat
i cannot be sated.

The restlessness cannot be laid down
on any torn spring mattress;
it cannot be deep fried,
or burnt, in the stomach of a gas oven,
but rather, plucked from the tree,
or gleaned from the wheat:
you, spinning so gracefully, sow
and so lovingly, let fall
to a dog like me.

Finding strength stitched in the hem of your robes;
you, my procession, celebrated:
on a sunday, through the narrow alleys,
you slowly strolled,

tying opposite ends
of a wick, lighting the street lamps, so they too may live,
sweetly humming my beginning,
that i somehow forgot,

as i scurried along,
you, waited
for me to catch up.

The darkest humorist:
makes light my fears,
so that this floating ship
will not sink
some 20,000 leagues
under it's panicked weight,
pointing to six exits,
laughing, she straps me to a chair
and tells me,
"The place we are all going--
soon, we'll be there."

I sit beside you,
and your beauty is terrorful;
like frost on a window pane,
it keeps me still,
like the bouncing of the plane
that reminds me i'm falling
through a cloudy world
that hides flying dangers like you,
and though without the brave voice of the captain,
silently, i say to you,
"You are beautiful."

Eternal wheels spin-
connected by wooden spokes.
The center remains still.

Air moist with dry hopes,
boils under jealous Sol,
and softly rain falls.

We found our way in-
to gutters, in search of food.
Their scraps are our meals.

Fires burn pink gray sky.
Dusk pulls night's blanket out west.
Her death is Golden.

Insects mimic man,
swarming the street lamps warm glow.
Only G-d knows why.

i want to stand like a boy on a rock,
in the middle of rushing water;
unafraid of snakes;
and holes and the unexpected whale.
shouting, "Here, look at me now."

diving down
into brackish transparencies;
chasing bubbles
and rippled light,
and all the while wading out
to a smooth dead tree,
that stood long before you,
or me,
or this hushed river,

d
  r
    i
     p
       p
         i
          n
            g

                 off
                        
                        of this lonely
                                                   sphere.

Abbye says i am a finch
because i can swallow thistles
and other things most birds can't.

me and my steel esophagus.

So am i the finch?
or the cat that digests it?
or the dog who eats others excrement?

even if this poem is neither deep, nor strong enough
to answer that
at least my stomach is...

i've sung to you at traffic lights,
accompanied by a fanfare of car horns.

all our lives:
intersected and interwoven.

longing the measurements
to cross over,

as our impatience
collides with travelers,

also lost
without an atlas,

all so concerned
with where they are going

and not where
they are.

inspecting fashion and make up
in rear view mirrors,

intoxicated;
by how they appear,

and not by who
they are.

so it is there,
in our most rushed hour,

i ask that you
hold us still,

in suspense
of your orchestration.

For a year now,
that cat balanced on the fence,

mewing the distance
of the alley ways.

Oh, how that animus
loved to complain.

his lonely cries
and the sound of clocks keeping time,

could keep me awake,
my sleep scattered for days.

Unprepared,
my eyes form rivers

spidered into tributaries,
that ***** out, in search of Your Seven Seas.

my hands treading the water,
attempting to pull out consistency.

i am amazed,
how at once You can both

stand me
and buckle my knees.

Quiet, now.
The Conductor speaks,

wet your mouths
and reeds,

for soon,
He'll point to you

and say,
"sing! small child, sing!"

i want to stand like a tree
and reach my limbs out in every direction
i will let any breeze brave enough
shake these branches and flap these leaves
i will let every last drop of precipitation in
because whether you believe it or not i am thirsty
and whether you believe it or not i am searching
every root and every seed is probing
looking for heaven somewhere in this earth
because i know it cant be made of clouds
No, no, its more likely made of dirt
and I will stand still for the lovers cut
as they carve hearts and letters into my bark
because it is through the pain that i find love
indeed its beneath the cuts and under the bruises
where butterflies slowly devour me, inside
oh how i dream of pinning their wings, to a slide
and through careful meticulous interrogation
i will find the reason they fly, flutter, and burn up before
they migrate
to the poplar, to the maple
anywhere far from me
to any other home, any other tree
i suppose they too are searching
circling the globe
these hitchhiker bugs
creep into the skin, hearts, and stomachs
of many
but oh, how i wish
oh, how i dream
that they would
stay
stationary...

Lately when it rains-
Your articles on the floor.
The whining pacing dog,
relieves himself, what can't be stomached.
No, I don't think he likes your work.

sandra, darling.
you're a vacant house
you're a purring creaky floor, quivering
under my searching foot
this flimsy flashlight leading me
as i charge further into
the lowly lit caverns
and further down
to the shivering warmth
in the back of these
smoke filled
hotel rooms

sandra, darling.
you're a midnight meadow
you're a great escaping sound, flickering
under the persuasion of the wind
sinking silver shears
cut gleams into eyes
but this has never been explained.
why are we holding hands
if just to keep me grounded?

i was just visiting
you and this town
sandra, darling.
its morning
and i am leaving now.

sandra, darling.
you're a unique and special snowflake
but i dont fear these
southern blizzards
or the flurry of rhetorical sound
enough to stay for breakfast
enough to stick around.