I suppose you could say that this is who I am
                                                  
                                                           (I'm the "Why have you forsaken me ?")

Then again, you could say that about a whole number of things I do.

                                                           (I'm the "Hallelujah")
          
This is who I am:

                                                           (I'm the funeral and the baptism)

Someone capable of such atrocities and genuine kindness at the same time.

                                                           (I'm the Messiah and the Antichrist)

Someone who says he lives by an unyielding code that he breaks on a regular basis

                                                           I'm the tears and the smile

Am I a hypocrite ?

                                                           (I'm the motion and the silence)

Am I that which I am most loathe to being ?

                                                           (I'm the left wing)

Am I a good person ?

                                                           (I'm the right wing)

Is any of us good ?

                                                           (I am not the bird_

What is good ?



Are we nothing more than shattered pieces of the mirror that we saw ourselves in ?

                                                           (I am what makes the bird sore)
I see a bulldozer lifting an uprooted tree and it reminds me of Christ on his way to the crucifixion.
                                          (A walking contradiction....)
The workers leading the bulldozer are the Romans in a procession.
I think of the tree and I think of Christ, and I wonder, who is it that can bear to be nailed to so many branches ?

It is 1969

A man set himself on fire today
To protest the war

My cigarette sympathizes with him,
its ashes like burnt out snowflakes

Falling
Dissolving
in a puddle of rainwater
Going home

My heart is fleshy and soft inside like an orange.

Beating with the morning and acidic in the night.

My heart, you peel it slowly as the spray hits you with every rip.

Fill in the gaps

You dig your nails into my heart almost as deep as into my back.
It's marked with little red crescents like a Californian sunset behind blushing clouds.

Fill in the gaps

You and I are an orange ripped in half begging to fall in place like puzzle pieces.
Like mountain ranges on orange peel.

Fill in the gaps

Invert me and let every peak meet every crevice.
Seal the nothingness between us and make it full and dark and beautiful again.

Fill in the gaps

And let us rot together until we're swallowed whole.

And here in this windless hole, I sit and wonder where I had left that which mattered most to me under the starlit fields of Montreal. I crave it and yet wish to God that I had never been the man who held you close to me. Everything I had in my arms in the parking lot outside of that hotel dash turned dash residence. A messy room and a crowded cafeteria. A hotel dash turned dash residence dash turning dash memory. And here in this wonderless *******, in this airtight cabin of past fantasy’s design, the rent keeps piling up and oh the dishes are due. Half-finished paperback classics flapjacked on top of each other in this white shirt no sweat world with the sleeves rolled up. This pill form city with all the charm and magic of an after dinner mint. Take a walk with me, let me tell you about this dream I had.
It had wine
and white sheets and tables.
Paintings that I knew
but did not recognise,
gasping under the grip
of yellowing wallpaper with pink flowers.
It was hell,
hell I tell you.
waking up with fever thinking I was portuguese and that there were three of me
Remembering when you sat me down,
and told me who I was in all of
two paragraphs- underline this underline that.
Black and red LEDs in full contrast of the room turning real again.
All I remember is you.

I wear white
I wear white

I wear white and stare right back at
the other end of the world

The hems of the loosely fitting traditions
Barely touch the ground anymore

I wear white
I wear white
White like the chalk on the blackboard switched from
right to left.

Aimless and bereft of the desert I once called mine,
I walk alone

I wear white, I wear white
As I have done for 14 hours
and 14 years

7000 miles on the screen and 2 more up there
to be precise. It faded for every mile
Just as it has been doing since the day Darwish died

I wear white, I wear white
A different breed of Semite than they're used to

Not walking but flowing almost
as contradictory as "poutine Arabesque"
The routine wears my jaw out
as the vowels twist from right to left

I wear white, I wear white
Not just quite there yet
Not even close
Not even halfway to the surface but then again
I suppose we've always been at ease at the depths of the sea
Pearls and black gold abound

I forget that sometimes in between
intermittent bouts and doubts of "3arabiyun ana"
As if that's what makes up the anatomy of an Arab
As if that's enough for you, Khaled

I wear white
I wear white
Or at least I tell myself I do
Leave myself open to the prospect
of life starting anew
Forcing myself to see it through
See life through your eyes
Or are they my own **** you ?

Tell me for the love of Christ
Call me by name and don't
bury me under the empty discarded photo frames
that you stockpile

I'm calling to you, Walid
And will keep on calling
And trying and burning and aching and failing and dreaming and irritating
like a bad itch

I sink under it all and push it all off step 3 repeat as necessary

I scream in the tongue that you deafen your ears to and pull at the beard you've tried to shave off
I pluck at the horizontal heartstrings you've tried to mute

Above all, I wear white...
And I fight.... I fight.....

I FIGHT

It is 2010

A man hung himself at Chestnut today
To ease the pain

My grey jacket sympathizes with him
its sleeves like arms letting go for dear life

Waiting
Standing
on a pillow of thin air
Coming home

(---------------------------
------------------------------
-----­------)
Punctured silence

in a room
untouched by
light’s fingertips
for at least
a streetlamp’s slumber

He saw green
in glass bottles
And green on the rug
When he hit the floor
knees first right
before left

A mountain

reduced to

a house of cards

Wasting words on half thought speeches,
and steps on roads we walked together.

I waste my time in empty parables,
in parabolic signatures that trace my life from one loop to the next.

Me, the black dot in a line of ink drops from the tip of a pen in God's hands.

Gone are seven dirham taxi rides in Broken Arabic.

Wasting furniture on empty apartments,
and music on crowded subway trains.

I waste my time in black-and-white fantasies,
in bucolic boulevards that draw my life out like lines on a map.

Me, the modern Mediterranean man on the Eastern end of Cabbagetown.

Gone are the nights of grape-mint sheesha on quarters of round tables.

Wasting memories on that "American Dad" episode, and memories again on events transpiring when the room went dark.

I waste my time on lofty balconies,
on silent poetry that recites my life from one page to the next.

Me, the unfinished Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist.