There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself --
Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.
Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.
They are my medium.
The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.

A grey wall now, clawed and ******.
Is there no way out of the mind?
Steps at my back spiral into a well.
There are no trees or birds in this world,
There is only sourness.

This red wall winces continually:
A red fist, opening and closing,
Two grey, papery bags --
This is what i am made of, this, and a terror
Of being wheeled off under crosses and rain of pieties.

On a black wall, unidentifiable birds
Swivel their heads and cry.
There is no talk of immorality amoun these!
Cold blanks approach us:
They move in a hurry.

I Am Very Refugee
We protest and communicate
We back off and disingenuously disjoint
“You have potential.”
He says as he smokes a joint.
“Where has that revolutionary spirit gone today?” It is victim to my apprehensions
I must suppress them.
I must suppress my apprehensions
And the electrifying feeling of anger surging up from my stomach; but never out
My anger is a fiery, vivified ball of red and black electricity surging,
Heaving,
Every bone and nerve ending coming close, to stumbling,
Burning out in the intoxicated hope of it all, but never touching
And the trippy glow, the burning fireworks climaxing perpetually never ends,
it is subdued without the chemical element to release my apprehensions, the doubting gone.
The wheels must turn; the machine keeps turning
Does it matter? NO!

The policeman looks at me and says: ‘’a ******* refugee. You don’t get to be angry at your host.”
It hit me.
I see activists
Typing , gathering, yelling,
Barely smiling,
Privileged

While excluding me, of course.

I wanted to scream:
Please consider me another fixture of your time here
I am the battle every day. I die every day.
I am searching for words to describe how you, citizens of the land, reject me
Much like the letters I will receive from the journals I send this to,
I want the marching, the marching,
walking in everyday and touching my feet in my black secondhand fake leather shoes
I want to march in and step in and feel the constraint of my blue ID
Telling me that this land isn’t mine
“How will you change your life, Islam?”
I ask  myself how am I spending my time?
rushing
fleeting
drinking
contemplating suicide
paranoid,

I am tired, scared, weak, flawed, human, a desperate refugee intertwined with the poor hopes and regulations of humanity, and I am dying,
You are dying!
I will die soon,
Go ahead! Smoke your oxycodone pills,
you are dead, you are dead, you are dead! You are all dead!
My father killed himself because of me and so I will blame the system.
You are dead, from the moment you confine yourself to the poor reality that there are just too many of us and that nothing will change!
So yes I will leave the protest.
I will sit within your dreary cubicles walls stained with the fabrics that I horrifically glance at, sneaking, beating the freedom,
Embracing constraints of social and financial necessity.

I
run, run, run, run,
screaming madly about our dissatisfaction and our satisfaction?

my anger is dulled;
nullified intricacy, blazing, twisting and winding its' way down my heart,
to the frayed edges of my perceptions, drowsing off into the last fixtures of the solidified realm
in which  I find myself; and eventually.

Can I  say something?

I am a refugee. I am so refugee, refugee, refugee, refugee.
The vast expanse of illusory getaways are the only thing for me.
There's nothing else but to escape this vast and dreary landscape of perpetual minutia, to escape my insanity.
Time stretches on and on, I am very tired.
Palestine still occupied.
Yes I’m screaming, screaming, till there is no me, and my voice will not reach you

I will never reach to you. I will never touch you, hold you, love you, I will never have the opportunity to feel the electric race of mindless sensation make right the ticking

A white friend asked me on twitter
“What’s  it like to be a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon?”
It means that you cannot do anything but carry on pathetically, with a drastic furthering of lust and selfishness, into your devotion. Psychopathy is more common than you'd think.

I want more to talk to you but there is reality, and the sea is not green
It is red.

The beach is cold and the sand sifts beneath your wait, it is tan.

Dear,
We are all comrades when it is our rights for which we ask. We are all comrades when it is basic rights for which we ask.

I don’t know if my words make sense because honestly they shouldn’t.

I am manic. I am loose. I am dangerous. I am high.
And I am terrified.

797

By my Window have I for Scenery
Just a Sea—with a Stem—
If the Bird and the Farmer—deem it a “Pine”—
The Opinion will serve—for them—

It has no Port, nor a “Line”—but the Jays—
That split their route to the Sky—
Or a Squirrel, whose giddy Peninsula
May be easier reached—this way—

For Inlands—the Earth is the under side—
And the upper side—is the Sun—
And its Commerce—if Commerce it have—
Of Spice—I infer from the Odors borne—

Of its Voice—to affirm—when the Wind is within—
Can the Dumb—define the Divine?
The Definition of Melody—is—
That Definition is none—

It—suggests to our Faith—
They—suggest to our Sight—
When the latter—is put away
I shall meet with Conviction I somewhere met
That Immortality—

Was the Pine at my Window a “Fellow
Of the Royal” Infinity?
Apprehensions—are God’s introductions—
To be hallowed—accordingly—

This is my modern English translation of Paul Valéry's poem “Le cimetière marin” (“The graveyard by the sea”). Valéry was buried in the seaside cemetery evoked in his best-known poem. From the vantage of the cemetery, the tombs seemed to “support” a sea-ceiling dotted with white sails. Valéry begins and ends his poem with this image ...

Excerpts from “Le cimetière marin” (“The graveyard by the sea”)
from Charmes ou poèmes (1922)
by Paul Valéry
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not, O my soul, aspire to immortal life, but exhaust what is possible.
—Pindar, Pythian Ode 3

1.
This tranquil ceiling, where white doves are sailing,
stands propped between tall pines and foundational tombs,
as the noonday sun composes, with its flames,
sea-waves forever forming and reforming ...
O, what a boon, when some lapsed thought expires,
to reflect on the placid face of Eternity!

5.
As a pear dissolves in the act of being eaten,
transformed, through sudden absence, to delight
relinquishing its shape within our mouths,
even so, I breathe in vapors I’ll become,
as the sea rejoices and its shores enlarge,
fed by lost souls devoured; more are rumored.

6.
Beautiful sky, my true-blue sky, ’tis I
who alters! Pride and indolence possessed me,
yet, somehow, I possessed real potency ...
But now I yield to your ephemeral vapors
as my shadow steals through stations of the dead;
its delicate silhouette crook-*******, “Forward!”

8.
... My soul still awaits reports of its nothingness ...

9.
... What corpse compels me forward, to no end?
What empty skull commends these strange bone-heaps?
A star broods over everything I lost ...

10.
... Here where so much antique marble
shudders over so many shadows,
the faithful sea slumbers ...

11.
... Watchful dog ...
Keep far from these peaceful tombs
the prudent doves, all impossible dreams,
the angels’ curious eyes ...

12.
... The brittle insect scratches out existence ...
... Life is enlarged by its lust for absence ...
... The bitterness of death is sweet and the mind clarified.

13.
... The dead do well here, secured here in this earth ...
... I am what mutates secretly in you ...

14.
I alone can express your apprehensions!
My penitence, my doubts, my limitations,
are fatal flaws in your exquisite diamond ...
But here in their marble-encumbered infinite night
a formless people sleeping at the roots of trees
have slowly adopted your cause ...

15.
... Where, now, are the kindly words of the loving dead? ...
... Now grubs consume, where tears were once composed ...

16.
... Everything dies, returns to earth, gets recycled ...

17.
And what of you, great Soul, do you still dream
there’s something truer than these deceitful colors:
each flash of golden surf on eyes of flesh?
Will you still sing, when you’re as light as air?
Everything perishes and has no presence!
I am not immune; Divine Impatience dies!

18.
Emaciate consolation, Immortality,
grotesquely clothed in your black and gold habit,
transfiguring death into some Madonna’s breast,
your pious ruse and cultivated lie:
who does not know and who does not reject
your empty skull and pandemonic laughter?

24.
The wind is rising! ... We must yet strive to live!
The immense sky opens and closes my book!
Waves surge through shell-shocked rocks, reeking spray!
O, fly, fly away, my sun-bedazzled pages!
Break, breakers! Break joyfully as you threaten to shatter
this tranquil ceiling where white doves are sailing!

*

“Le vent se lève! . . . il faut tenter de vivre!
L'air immense ouvre et referme mon livre,
La vague en poudre ose jaillir des rocs!
Envolez-vous, pages tout éblouies!
Rompez, vagues! Rompez d'eaux réjouies
Ce toit tranquille où picoraient des focs!”



PAUL VALERY TRANSLATION: “SECRET ODE”

“Secret Ode” is a poem by the French poet Paul Valéry about collapsing after a vigorous dance, watching the sun set, and seeing the immensity of the night sky as the stars begin to appear.

Ode secrète (“Secret Ode”)
by Paul Valéry
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fall so exquisite, the ending so soft,
the struggle’s abandonment so delightful:
depositing the glistening body
on a bed of moss, after the dance!

Who has ever seen such a glow
illuminate a triumph
as these sun-brightened beads
crowning a sweat-drenched forehead!

Here, touched by the dusk's last light,
this body that achieved so much
by dancing and outdoing Hercules
now mimics the drooping rose-clumps!

Sleep then, our all-conquering hero,
come so soon to this tragic end,
for now the many-headed Hydra
reveals its Infiniteness …

Behold what Bull, what Bear, what Hound,
what Visions of limitless Conquests
beyond the boundaries of Time
the soul imposes on formless Space!

This is the supreme end, this glittering Light
beyond the control of mere monsters and gods,
as it gloriously reveals
the matchless immensity of the heavens!

This is Paul Valery’s bio from the Academy of American Poets:

Paul Valéry
(1871–1945)

Poet, essayist, and thinker Paul Ambroise Valéry was born in the Mediterranean town of Séte, France, on October 30, 1871. He attended the lycée at Montpellier and studied law at the University of Montpellier. Valéry left school early to move to Paris and pursue a life as a poet. In Paris, he was a regular member of Stéphane Mallarmé's Tuesday evening salons. It was at this time that he began to publish poems in avant-garde journals.

In 1892, while visiting relatives in Genoa, Valéry underwent a stark personal transformation. During a violent thunderstorm, he determined that he must free himself "at no matter what cost, from those falsehoods: literature and sentiment." He devoted the next twenty years to studying mathematics, philosophy, and language. From 1892 until 1912, he wrote no poetry. He did begin, however, to keep his ideas and notes in a series of journals, which were published in twenty-nine volumes in 1945. He also wrote essays and the book "La Soirée avec M. *****" ("The Evening with Monsieur *****," 1896).

Valéry supported himself during this period first with a job in the War Department, and then as a secretary at the Havas newspaper agency. This job required him to work only a few hours per day, and he spent the rest of his time pursuing his own ideas. He married Jeannie Gobillard in 1900, and they had one son and one daughter. In 1912 Andre Gide persuaded Valéry to collect and revise his earlier poems. In 1917 Valéry published "La Jeune Parque" ("The Young Fate"), a dramatic monologue of over five-hundred lines, and in 1920 he published "Album de vers anciens," 1890-1920 ("Album of Old Verses"). His second collection of poetry, "Charmes" ("Charms") appeared in 1922. Despite tremendous critical and popular acclaim, Valéry again put aside writing poetry. In 1925 he was elected to the Académe Francaise. He spent the remaining twenty years of his life on frequent lecture tours in and out of France, and he wrote numerous essays on poetry, painting, and dance. Paul Valéry died in Paris in July of 1945 and was given a state funeral.
Along with Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé, Valéry is considered one the most important Symbolist writers. His highly self-conscious and philosophical style can also been seen to influence later English-language writers such T. S. Eliot and John Ashbery . His work as a critic and theorist of language was important to many of the structuralist critics of the 1960s and 1970s.

#VALERY #MRB-VALERY #MRBVALERY

Keywords/Tags: Paul Valery, French poem, English translation, sea, seaside, cemetery, grave, graves, graveyard, death, sail, sails, doves, ceiling, soul, souls, dance, sun, sunset, dusk, night, stars, infinity

You transformed my freckled neck

Into a strawberry field

Last night
Transplanting puckered lips
Into planting pink rosy kisses
Across my skin
And down my chest
Like
Cherry blossom petals that

We picked

Because we  
Just don't believe that they could be
Anything more
That how they feel right now

Its too inconceivable for us
Its too contrived   


I mean
Its like
Trying to grow candy apple love
In greenhouses
Or just houses 

Painted green
With synthetic sunbeams
And pesticide ridden wishing seeds
Planted with high doses of expectations
And fertilized by things like
Movie Scripted
Kissing in the rain

And all the other high fructose corn-syrup cliches
That only let you come down
When your brain washed loving
Is washed from lusting
Trusting only the sunlight
Rising in the morning
On a clear day
Because thats when you can see
Whats real and fake

But it doesn't matter

Because we just don't believe in things like that
Its to synthetic
For starry eyes filled with falling satellites
When its still too cold for sunshine


So we
Just believe in things like
Twisting our tongues 
for the fun
Of seeing
How quickly we come undone
When we touch

And breathing

Out then in and in again
Breathing uneven breathes
Into each others mouths
To feel what its like
To come to life
Then let it go again

And we always
Always
Color outside
The rib cage lines

(and heres why)

Because ribs
Keep people out of our hearts

And cages
Keep us out of their

And lines
*******

Lines are for strictly straight people
Who can only see one side to everything
And everyone
Knows
Rules were meant to be broken
And lines were meant to be crossed

Cross eyed
Crooked teeth

That can never be bent back straight
Or scraped pearly clean of
Imperfection
Because they are already
In perfection
Everyone is just too blinded
From staring into the sun
To see it right now

But tonight
Tonight
We are two crooked lines
In a foreign vineyards of twisted grape vines

Fermenting into a wine sweeter than our lips
And we fit
Together
Like two broken puzzle pieces
That wont ever complete each other
And you know what

That's ok

You are not my missing piece
And I am not yours
Because we are not
Puzzles
We are people
And puzzles are just broken paintings
To be put back together
And we are not broken
There’s no completion left

To who we are
We are infinite
Never ending in our potential
Never lacking in what's essential
All we are doing is adding colors
To each other

And tonight
You color me inside out

Crossing every line on my skin
With you paint brush lips
Like strawberry red rows of
Red wine
Dipped lips
Planting painted
Red lipstick kisses
In each others mouths
The way
Sweet-bay Magnolia petals
Are pictured in puddles
When they look down
Seeing their own refection
And letting themselves fall
Getting bruised by the gravel
We are each both petals and pavement
When we fall into each other
Tonight
And I remember one night
A while ago
We found an old telescope
Made out of plastic
With this incredibly inaccurate scope
That focused in sudden little jults
And it took us forever to find the moon
But when we did
And zoomed in
With one eye squinted
You
Looked up
To the night sky
And I
Have never seen anything like

The way the moon filled your eyes with stars
After you peered into each others faces


All the way across the atmospheric dimension
Sendings whispered apprehensions  

Of a pretentious existences into each others eyes
Every line had a wink at the end
And every wink had
A sly smile in between the chimney and the roof

So heres a little truth

Sometimes I wish that we
Could telescope each others sunsets
And find our own sunrises in each others eyes
Behind every blink
Orbiting

Fixed fastly to this axis
Through outer space time lapsing
Across boarder lines
Even though 
I know
We already beam every time we see each other
Like spring sunshine on icicles dripping drops down to
Oil spilled rainbows

We bowed our selves

From the glowing belly
Of our laughter induced paintings
Coloring waves of light
Overlapping though space

Traveling
Faster than the speed of sound
In our own directions
But our travels are soundly set
To inter-exist in this second
And I dont want to let go yet

But I will
Because we cant believe in things like this
It too much risk  to trust the
Daffodils blooming in the brisk
Frosty March mornings
Between bits of icy earth

So we pick them
And put them in little jars with stones
In our kitchen
And smile every time we walk by
I dont even really know why actually
I guess

They are just so pretty
And they smell nice too

Right next to the stems of
The white cherry blossoms
Which bend across our wooden window sill
Next to our sudsy little sink
And we know
That they wont grow anymore
After this
That this is their only glimmer
Of existence
So we hold them close
But time alway slip through our finger tips
Letting go
Of what we cant hold on to
Pulled farther apart
And I havent seen you 
In a while

The other night

I tried to telescope your eyes
Across boarded boarder lines
But I couldn't find you in the skies
And the moon only winked in my direction
Leaving me

To plant wishing seeds

In the ashes of 

Every wished on fallen satellite
I could find
Grown
In green houses

When its still to cold for sunshine
On a clear day
I still wish
That maybe
After
You’ve cleared away all the dead daffodils
From our dusty windowsill
And planted a orchard of candy apples
In the ribs of your new lover

That it will still make you smile
Every time you see
Sweet-bay magnolia petals bruised by gravel
And it reminds you of me


                                    The End.

Alice sits in the large
window of her father's
library, looking at the
garden and trees and

fields beyond. Silent
except for distant voices,
from the billiard room,
where her father is

with friends of his.  
Laughter, deep, haughty.
She hates it when the
men see her, and want

to haul her, onto their
laps to play horse riding
and over hedges in the
fox hunt. She pretends

not to hear. The garden
view brings Dougridge
to sight; the gardener
pushing wheelbarrow

of manure. Seldom speaks,
nod of head, touch of
forelock type. The men's
laughter gets louder; she

imagines herself tucked
up in her mother's arms,
safe, warm, and out of
harm's way. Mother is

out for the day. Taylor
drove her; he of sour
face, dark eyed and hair.
Alice holds her doll tight

to her chest, arranging
the mother made dress.
One day, one time, one
of her father's friends

held her on his lap and
tickled her to tears, his
thick fingers squeezing
her thighs, his alcohol

breath in her ears, soft
wording sounds, she
didn't understand, she
wanted to get down,

and did. They laughed.
She still felt his fingers'
grip long after the laughter.
She sees the maid from

the kitchen throw stale
bread to the birds, thin
girl, thin arms and fingers
and features. Brought her

breakfast in bed once,
when unwell; sad, quiet,
sickly girl. The laughter
stops. Doors open

and close. Voices, greetings
and farewells, an odd laugh.
Then silence. No going
riding on a hunt today,

no horse-play; no perched
on knees with thighs finger
squeezed. She hugs her
doll and kisses its head.

Your mother will be back,
but not until you're asleep,
and tucked in dreams and
bed, her grumpy father said.

I pulled back the thicket
Brambles and thorns
Bordering my mind
Inch by inch
To let you slip inside

Hi

I hope you don't mind
The pestilent storm of neuroses
The angry winds whipping around
Eroding my cognition

(They all say
I ought to stop overthinking

They don't know the half of it)

Pardon the mess
The litter of apprehensions
Flotsam and jetsam of rumination
Tangles of tangents
Smog of chimeric thoughts
Sticky rambles festering in the corner
Acidic drizzle
Of obstinate wayward tunes
Insecurity and fear
Eating into the pillars and foundations

If you don't mind terribly
The clatter of sleet
The noisome fumes
The skittering vermin
The sheer clutter
That would make packrats shake their heads

If you don't mind
At all
Would you stay?

Strength is the ability to protect yourself
Emotionally, physically, spiritually.
You are strong when you need no one
You are self-sufficient
The desire is there sans the need.
Acceptance of lacking in one area
Will allow you and behooves you to
Increase strength in another.
Because without strength you are vulnerable
To external forces.
Like newborn turtles as they make
The dangerous pilgrimage to water,
Picked off one by one,
By carnivorous, unforgiving animals:
People out to hurt others to falsely improve
Their own self-esteem.

Strength is the courage to challenge your fears
And make an about-face to run toward them
Not away.
This abrupt "180" seems incongruent to our
Beliefs, desires and thoughts
Because our subconscious mind proclaims
That to confront our apprehensions deems us
Weak.
And as naive beings, we listen wholeheartedly,
Believing that what we ignore does not exist
And we regress to an age when object impermanence
Unsettled our feelings of safety.

Without strength we cannot breathe, eat or think
And without fulfillment of these basic human needs
The question is, Do we really exist?
So we must define and develop our own strength
In order to thoroughly define and develop
Our sense of self.

She dances so very softly.
Slender feet carry her across the
Infinite expanse of my mind.
Gliding, she's striding over pains and
Apprehensions as she brings me in
Closer, holding me tightly to her chest.
The heartbeat is soft, so very steady.
The eyes, like two beautiful stars.
Choicest of the heavens, none like them
Exist. They glisten, penetrating my soul.
Casting pure gazes upon me; so very beautiful.
I open mine, and alas, she is gone.
Yet I still hear that little pitter patter
The sound of her feet tapping inside
So very quietly.

Sinking my mouth and my happiness into this grapefruit reminds me of when I didn’t like them so much, with their jarring, acquired taste.

So misunderstood was I, since I now let his underrated juices drip down my 22 year-old cheeks.

I wonder how many walk past him for his more accessible brother, and other flavors so well-known.

I wonder what kind of role he plays in the thoughts of his colleagues.

A strange citrus with complex flavors they care not to taste.

I bet they find him arrogant, and too serious to break their inner circle.

They probably think his foreign blood would taint their personalities.

They don’t talk to him, I bet.

Schizophrenic gestures and paint-flavored greetings sum the daily conversations.

Maybe they assume that the least of their efforts might strike them fancy; make them seem nice and that I would think of them as wonderful and beautiful people.

Me and these flavors would never understand why you stand across the room and analyze me.

Me and these flavors would never understand why you wouldn’t want to indulge yourself in what you don’t understand, since you’re a scholar and all.

I would never get your issue.

I keep taking bites of this grapefruit; curious to know if your Christianity means more than your gender.

I imagine the scenario of you getting to know these flavors, and experiencing me with bliss and approval on your sleeve.

I imagine having a friend, that I don’t have to worry about scaring with all that I bring to the table, and all I choose to keep off of it.

I imagine you abandoning your opinions and assumptions and apprehensions about me, letting them seep down the importance of your uniform, and getting to know the God that you swear lives in all of us citrus fruit.