if my words find no
melodious note
without accompaniment
then they are no poem

if they drop the chalice
meant to hold the last drop
of beautiful
then they are no poem

if they cannot feather in
the edges of madness
with strokes of reason
then they are no poem

if they gush unrestrained
and i cannot direct their flow
so they merely flood one's mind
then they are no poem

if they cannot pass
the judgement of their maker,
the Bosporus of his craft,
then they are no poem.

To my friends
who can write
fresh-smelling
bouquets of words
with splendid color,
I offer my envy.
Mine are the blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the cracks
in pavement,
or forcing their way
to light around
overbearing rocks.
Some useful
in their own way,
edible or flavorful,
some with a
pedestrian beauty,
but few that one
would bring home in a bunch
with a box of candy.
More appropriate
in a grimy, young fist
crumpled in love,
destined to be vased
in a water glass
by a doting mother,
or shredded petal by petal
for the sake of soothsaying...
he loves me, he loves me not.

Threw his heart like fast ball
bad call sitting very high on his last straws...
Nothing really changed ;
continued broken cycle
His fortitude deranged

Why bring pain on yourself like that
better to have loved than have just sat back
Cookie crumble crumbs didn't feel very filling
arms outstretched to embrace empty feelings...

Usually he saw very far in the path
lately lacking nourishment his eyesight has passed
Crutch grown weary as the burden grows more
flower full bloom turned to an eye sore..

Water erasing stone,
Color uncovered with each intimate drip
Sandstone? Granite? Clay?
Always shifting.

Life shaping faith
Beauty revealed with each piercing drop
Belief? Truth? Hope?
Oh, how it keeps shifting.

Life sanding stone
miles traveled
conversation, laughter, grief
all sacred sanding, dripping, cutting.

Absolute? Sorry. Safe? Please.
African refugees
and Muslims and holy characters of all walks
sorting, sifting, shifting me and my deepest held belief.

Kneeling on a roof in Delhi, bearing witness
to a thousand rasping coughs offered to heaven
as one desperate prayer,
ascending with the eternal incense
of countless cooking fires.

Simmering in the Carolina sun with Waleed
warm words and a tender heart
intimacy, intimacy with Allah
present the way Aquinas could only hope
for all of us. For me.

Certainty may resist dripping
but the cost, the cost.
Forced, formal, cheap, and cold.
A fearful response to the stunning destruction
of being created.

What if your faithfulness is foolishness? Who are you,
if you miss
the beauty of every drip?