Before I drown in this shallowness
Can the promised sabbaticals be prohibited?
Before I drown in this shallowness
Can my nightmares stop adapting stories from your sweet secrets?

Should I be melancholic or ecstatic
For how I’ve unlearned to please myself?
Should I be melancholic or ecstatic
For how the firmament can replace every tiny particle?

Before I drown in this shallowness, remember –
No matter how blasphemous you are
Please do not urinate in our mosque

*** everywhere else.

If the snake bit me
Would you please mourn me too, or
look back, and forget?
~
If I hear church bells
But yet I can’t see the bells
Can you hear them too?
~
If I gave you food
Yet it was laced with poison
Would you eat with me?
~
If you love me so
Why did you marry the ground
When my hand was open?

she didn't see him slithering.
her heart was pounding,
but everything seemed fine
until she felt him
coiling around her
tighter and tighter
until she couldn't breathe.

she clutched a pocketknife.
with the last drop of
strength she had,
she slashed him
and he slithered away.
after she caught her breath,
she realized he was a snake.

I saw you. 
I saw you the other night, under the willow tree. 

You sat there,
laying waste to your day. 

You sat there, 
mulling your theories over. 

Ones about morals and values; 
about things you’ll never come to fathom. 

I stopped for a second. 
I contemplated walking over to speak about morals and values.

But then I saw it. 
That aura around you. 

The one in the shape of a snake, 
the one calling out to all your passersby
The one that is tailor-made to tempt, with the aim of seducing. 

So I walked past the willow tree and back onto the guided path.

The path that would lead the farthest away from the snake and tree.

I cut down the last tree,
   and ate the last apple...

I  wore the snake as a noose...


******* gravity...
  


                 I fell hollow and empty...

There is a snake there, waiting
venomously for an apple that makes its fangs fall out.
The first of sentient apes turn on immortal creators,
and are charged in the eye of Justice
for every extraordinary discovery in the ensuant history of
sin.

I) Eve

Eve became
Foolishly bold
To give up
Her faith in God.

Exhibiting lust
For a tantalizing apple
She opted to be
A dust;
Heeding a snake-
Incarnated
Devil’s word
“If you eat
The forbidden fruit
You will acquire
Wisdom on par with God.”

Duped by Satan
Unfaithful, disobedient
She turned a reason
For the lapse of man.

For lacking faith
She heard,
With jealousy
Her son Kane
****** Her son Abel
To death!
“Eve tarnished
The image
Of the womenfolk!”
We usually hear
In a religious talk!


II) Saint Mary

From Birth to death
Unwavering was
In God
Saint Mary’s faith.

In her youth,
Blind to earthly
Allurements,
When summoned
To serve God
Happy she drew forth
“Displaying alacrity
To the call of
The Almighty
Is my pleasure
My duty!”

Saint Mary knew
Miracles untold
Is capable to do God.

Acid tested like
Aglow set gold
Threatened by
Herod’s sword
Scorned by hypocrites
Hoary headed Christ killers
Her faith she never
Failed to tightly hold.

In Golgotha
The whiplashes all
Were scars on her soul!

Unlike many of us
It is not like a fiction
Or movie script
She witnessed
Christ’s crucifixion.

She reconciled
Man and God,
Till to date
And down the road
This miracle will be told.

She allowed a pride
Womenfolk could ride.

In the catalog of grace
As she won a higher place
In God’s face
Above angels and
Below God
Is the row
She was
Allowed to hold.

Like Saint Gabriel in the sky
Like Elizabeth on earth
Angels and human beings
Praise her why?
Doubt have not I
She is Holy
In a way description
That defy!

III) Devil

Duping Eve
The control on man
Devil got
Thanks to
Saint Mary ‘s obedience,
Before he realized  
The mystery of incarnation,
He lost.

For via
God- Saint Mary’s
Chemistry mankind
Is snatched from
Devil’s grip and fold.

To retaliate
To belittle
Saint Mary
Still a python
A snake,
A sanctimonious preacher,
A faithful
That has gone astray
Devil makes
A frantic bid to date.
In various religious forms
He seeks a vent
To disgorge
His hate.
Oblivious to
The ******'s word
“Generations will
Call me
The graceful, the immaculate…”

IV) God

Via Saint Mary
Once more
The Almighty God
Drew close
Mankind to his fold!

“For use and throw
God use Saints!”
Is the worst mistake
Believers  could make
Eating the poisonous cake
Devil in various
Religious forms bake.///

how much longer will I wait for butterflies bursting red at the wings, fiery orange curling their tips into flames

today is long and heavy like the space before a goodbye
i watch a moss-backed turtle float on clouds above the water and I think of you,
of coiled garter snakes and soft pink sunsets, of warm lentil soup and white zinfadel and fern forests and I know,
I would not be enough for you

settled in the space between sun and moon I am two parts water, one part fire,
I am boiling hot springs set on a river deep, bubbling and breaking and gasping for air,
I am summer thunderstorm, hot rain and violent life and love without control,
I am ocean fissure, the space between, red hot lava shifting slowly like a lover beneath the sheets
I am self-contradiction, all crab-shell and shape-shifter and the answerer of my own questions,
I am crystal cave heart and loose leaf mind, waterfall eyes and moonshine smile, you cannot tame me but you cannot let me go

Mamba
impossibly human
the bite, the strike, the temperament
When threatened, the mamba comes out
Strike, strike, strike, strike
The mamba is relentless
His venom coursing through the veins
Of his foolish challengers
His coal black eyes, hungry
Defeating, intimidating, vicious
The mamba bite is always fatal
For he has no antivenin to defeat him
No mortal power can wither him
To the dust
Strike, strike, strike, strike
The common name of the snake
Is given to no common man
Only the name of the fastest, most protective, most aggressive,
Tallest, biggest, lethal-est snake
Belongs to the man with the biggest, lethal-est presence
Strike, strike, strike, strike
Formidable anywhere he is placed
Strike, strike, strike, strike
The crown of the kingdom sits
Comfortably atop his temples
Strike, strike, strike, strike
How fitting
The world’s deadliest player
Be called after
The world’s deadliest snake