Please don't speak to me
about the universal movement of time,
I feel as much as the next human,

days marked by solar rotations
restless nights under changing lunar faces
and the chameleon nature of life as history etches a path in skin.

And while time will while away
pulled along by the ebb and flow of currents,
and history is lost on ancient tides,

pull away my new skin
and underneath as always
you remain the center of my gravity

an infinite pull I can't help but follow.

Your eyes remind me of the ocean
and I want to swim in them.
I want to be surrounded by your
cold water and windy tides,
until I realize that I can't breathe
and I need your waves
to carry me back to shore.

This is the last time I write about ships; the mighty seafarer, clasping in the deep. The last time the esoteric tides capriciously change their erratic minds, left torn between rousing up to fight and solemnly crawling into the shapeless night. I’ll haul, I’ll haul. Outward bound, I’ll haul away from the safety of the buoy, through a thousand spiralling knots, batten aground and set anchor upon the recondite bay. I’ll avast the journeys where the compass takes an unprompted turn, where celestial proves consort to nautical woes, awoke awash amidst the darkened shallows.

This is the last time I go back and fill vast depths, bearing right, then left, across the beating breadth.  This is the last ring of brash audacity resonating in chime with the gull’s hooded pride, the last of the salt and sway commandeering the longitude of each tumultuous ride. I’ll roll, I’ll roll. Hanging on behind, I’ll roll with the salted souls of Nelson and Hook as they furl and collide, hand over fist, drawing the curtains from their chariot’s majestic height. I’ll gybe and set back to sail, quarrel with the rushing sands, and grace every fractured notion that tooth and nail can siege the devil’s rest and forge currents capable of hustling both vessel and man.

This is the last of the gallant endeavours, set adrift from buccaneer’s voyage to a solitary pulse at the end of storm’s tether. This is the last stern embrace of Poseidon’s harrowing howls, the last of the rapturous applause mordant as it rises and swirls, the last time I wrestle away from his scaly hold. This is the last time I change tack and set course into the path of the sound, where finally, the tides settled

I’ll release control of the helm.

This is not a love poem.
That was not love I fell in.
Rose covered graves,
is it death that I'm smelling ?

Fate knocks on my door
and I don't bat an eye.
"Fate can't be ignored !"
well neither can I.

Winter spread across the world
as the days went by.
My men fled the lands
to catch the last of the tides.

Preachers deep in prayer,
seek refuge from the skies.
Monasteries abandoned
in pursuit of the tides.

Drowning in herself,
in service to her pride.
Not a law left unbroken
now show me one I can abide.

Mountains took shelter
where I chose to reside.
Born to the storms that
cast terror upon the tides.

The storms called my name
until I saw it in those eyes.
Disbelief had all but claimed
what I'd salvaged from the tides.

Innocence so fragile
Won’t last for a long while
Engulf yourself in this joyous ride
That will soon be washed away by the tide

Years later, when you are time worn
Let that innocence be reborn
Rewind back to those joyous rides
Before you’re hit by the last tides.

-Zainab Attari

Pinch yourself, resist the slip;
Give your body breaks on leather wakes.
Take stock within coal seams that quake.
Criss-croos, mis’lign and jump again.

Letting off the city sleep,
Or, mattress stuck in toxic seats;
A drug, it soaks as wheat, it eats.
A dream, it’s known, they start at ends.

Blinking eyes at whorling lies,
Or, telling words and shepherds’ herds;
Clearness burns within absurd.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

America the beautiful,
Or, Greek and Roman, British rule;
In vain, it pays to play the fool.
Daedalus: nine. Peninsula: dead.

***-aware , oo, era waxes;
Left and vexed, et al. complex, or,
Desperate: long to reach, connect.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

A drunken wind, with knees to head;
New lovers heat to keep you fed,
Whether spilling wine or breaking bread:
An outlet towards which light shall bend.

Oh, take it out, or bring it in.
The spin and glow of broken snow.
What the cat drags in it’s hard to show.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

Swept away with moving floors,
With secrets kept behind closed doors;
Move and seep in/out of pores.
Close those ears and play pretend.

Drawn in by the waters pull.
The belly aches, but it’s not full.
Tides ripping through that which was stole.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

Come lumber through the urban nest;
Inside these heads: infinite jest.
Expand, progress, all to the west!
Say, no man stands to this extent.

When she told me she loved me
I didn't believe her.
So i killed myself instead.
A fairy came to me & whispered enticing secrets in my ear.
He outlined a closet upstairs
where I live alone inside my head.
Tidal waves of white roses grow in & out my of spine.
Suffocating the fishes prancing in a field of raving vines.

Lunar Lullaby plays hopscotch in a cloud of flies.
She licks cherry red ice pops & sings bird hymns to oak trees withering in the wuthering skies.  
Swarming dragon-lies fly in lakes upon Monet's canvas.
There he paints a beauty of Thumbelina whose grave resides in the darkest corner of my empty heart.

A red cape looms above & flutters without wings.
My cave is growing vaster
And so I sail amongst its seas.
This Psychosis is no more wearing thin than Rigor Mortis can begin.
I'll live sedentarily as a maid serving rotten apples to men chained as apes.
A lotus will float on by down this bloodstream & into the night.
As a crater on the moon your corpse died suddenly as when fruit bloom.

you give my life high tides

whenever the moon gives me low tides