"falafel" poems
I.
Sunday mornings in Vancouver
even pigeons sleep in till 10 A.M.
Undaunted, I walk down Granville shortly before 8
seeking lox bagels with capers, red onions and cream cheese,
two breve lattes, and a newspaper. In truth,
panhandlers on the corner of Robson
have far greater chance of scoring.
An unexpectedly sunny February morn
suffices to spur me on. I am attuned to all vibration.
Breath of the awakening city
exhales manna upon the shop awnings.
Bagels rendered superfluous,
I scarf images instead ---
trolley buses, an umbrella shop, falafel stands ---
delicious Canadian visual cuisine.
II.
Vancouver is a nymph. Of that I'm sure.
I hear flirtatious giggles trill
from darkened alleys between hotels.
Spotted her once across the street on Dunsmuir,
seated on a walk bench reading a Margaret Atwood novel.
Bus passed between us and she vanished.
Caught a later glimpse through the window
of a walk-up dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.
Flew the stairs, only to find an empty table and
discarded napkin smudged with candy pink lipstick.
She watches me.
III.
Turns out there are no Sunday morning papers in Vancouver,
but I locate the bagels and espresso backtracking on Helmcken.
The barista smiles as I approach, sets down her Atwood novel.
I leave a Toonie in gratuity.
B.C. wind pushes hard on my turned back,
as I rush our breakfast back to the Executive.
A nymph goes roller-blading by toward False Creek.
The Gastown Steam Clock whistles that it's 10 A.M.
A flock of pigeons lifts in flight.
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 2:04 PM UTC
. *i was ************ when the earthquake hit.*
*i’d say it was the best ****** i ever had.*
an animal!
a multicellular eukaryotic organism of the kingdom ingesting other organisms to progress!
a well-organized kid of chaos strutting his stuff and puffing his puff.
rifle, duffel, falafel, phil.
fully blessed and stressed to strum forward for the sun, or fun
and fandango.
we are the people,
and the people are merely material,
and the material breathed and breached the darkness, for more.
we are man and woman and dog,
beasts screeching in a field over nothing, over everything, over ant-mounds and the sounds
of seasons meeting.
we think.
eat, drink, wine, woman, song.
he thinks
of nothing but her.
and so in the name of her, he acts, he reacts, he attacks the momentum of weekends into weekends into rhythm. he rolls
out and the words roll off and the days roll by, but this is the unfolding of life,
right?
strife upon strife upon struggle to eat,
and repeat,
and eat her *****
he was a well-spoken yet savage young buck,
evolving to confide and subside with these friends or enemies and imbibe the night away.
repeat/
he was a rise and shine early type with a mug of hot brew.
or the dream and shine late type with a bottle of cold cider.
repeat/
his blind date is a troll woman digging through the dumpster across the street.
he is a goblin boy gritting his fangs toward a girl, on a dancefloor, in a club, and bubble go the texts.
his texts are long and resolute.
she doesn’t respond.
she does respond.
she is seeing someone else. others
from a tall tree or lineage of men with strength and material.
a tall line of men and misters and teachers and tongues, all men obsessed with death &/or glory.
and by rite i obsess with death &/or glory.
and the dog, i want the dog there with me.
and the girl.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 7:07 AM UTC
this girl I know
who always wears summer dresses
and a smile
lent me a book on awareness
but wants it back before
she goes to work in a conflict zone
for the red cross in september
she travelled in a big red bus
to a surfers festival in donegal
where she worked
in the big red bus café
on her breaks she surfed
smoked loads of ****
listened to reggae and ate falafel
last Wednesday she received a
back payment from the social welfare
and felt guilty about it
so she donated half of it to charity
bought donkeys for three Ethiopian families
spent a small fortune on ingredients for a friends dinner
and paid for my vegetable soup
she stopped at a chocolatier
to buy one solitary chocolate
and then ate it hurriedly
while she chatted to
a circus guy she knew
about a party she had missed when she
was on the big red bus
while skimming through books
in the spirituality section
wearing her summer dress and a smile
she said she felt sick
from having eaten the chocolate too
quickly and was sad that she hadn’t
taken the time to enjoy it
today the red cross sent her for
a chest x-ray
Mar 16, 2013
Mar 16, 2013 at 11:14 AM UTC
It all started with an urge to go to the movie theater
PTA's "The Master"
It was a 35 minute walk to the nearest cinema in Brooklyn
Nighthawks is what it was called
1:10pm, 4:10pm, 6:10pm, 10:10pm, the show times
Since I woke up at 12:45am, 1:10pm was out of the question
4:10pm seemed plausible but when the clock rolled around I was still puttering around the house
I could putter no more by 6:00pm and flew the cooped up den
The air, brisk and crisp
Time fell back
Women's heels clap the sidewalk in applause
All for the autumn on a Sunday frozen in time
I arrive, show sold out
I walk across the Williamsburg bridge, why not?
First theater in Manhattan I see turned out to be live art
So I turned out and left
Manhattans alive while Brooklyn slumbers
I dart down Clinton St toward the old Avenues
November, I could go without the cold weather, but I love the seasons
Pumpkin lattes **** my wallet dry like lesions
Soon I'm walking down 2nd Av, feeling familiar with my surroundings
Funny, feeling familiar, in a city I thought I'd never know, (you'll never know if you don't go)
Got some dollar pizza on St Marks
Followed by a dollar falafel, which tasted awful, (now I know why it was a dollar)
I walked in circles around Union Square, in union with everyone there
Happy that my feet were to the street, where they belong
Freezing, frozen, frigid, shakin' in my britches
Wrapped around my neck a borrowed scarf
Bumping into people, "I'd like to get by now", like Garth
(keep moving, you'll find what you want to find)
In big bright neon light at Village Cinema
"The Master"
(In 70mm)
Huh, 70mm, "Cool", I thought
The theater, empty as a loners funeral
I was the only one there, red velvet lined seats
I missed Halloween
Maybe this is my treat
The world is beautiful
This city is mine,
All I had to do
Was leave my old one behind
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 2:40 PM UTC
In Israel, you live in today
you never know what tomorrow will bring
if there will even be one
or if you will be asked to shed your civilian blood
on a bus or at a falafel stand
Today is what you have
connected to the dirt
under your feet that is
not taken for granted that is
a second chance at life
and is precious
and precarious
So you smoke
you yell and scream
and forgive the next second
everything is up front
there is no time for hidden agendas
everything on the table now
Everyone in a strange bond
On the day to remember the Holocaust
Sirens scream through the entire land
In the middle of nowhere on a highway
at the appointed hour, the siren
and all cars stop
and people get out and put their hand on their heart
united in a common grief
feel the pulse of your beating heart
feel the miracle that you exist
that despite an industrial scale effort
to destroy you, you are here
despite the millions who didn't make it
who were shoveled into mass graves
whose flesh was burned and the fat spattered and monitored
you are still here
today
a testament, to survival
No time for so much focus on the pettiness of ceaseless consumerism
A strange relief comes when you
realize, you are now a part of something larger than
yourself and are precious to a community of strangers
Jul 25, 2012
Jul 25, 2012 at 2:15 PM UTC
hard to play the idiot; likened to Mr. Bean
taking the role from
Angus Daily into a Blackadder
hurrah who? ha, ha, ha!
my eyes never
left me baffled - or washington prone:
*** to a stirrup - furthermore,
or Rushmore:
Atilla with an entourage
worthy of Genghis: of prone gravitas -
i too santa's little helper
and sinatra's
five p.m. flamingo strut's
worth of martini -
when said slavic eye then lessened
germanic white-boy fisheyed to boot...
i mean less binocular and more concentrate...
but
there's me as a fifth of Nevada in Siberia
that's always the: **** we sold Alaska!
Nicolai! oh Nicolai! Alaska! **** or
of what was the Crimea, of what is the Kremlin:
k, c, k, c, s, c, k, c, k, c, Vlad, s, t, u, v, k, c, s,
Rasputin, k, c, k, c, Boney M....
i'm still fidgety about the third ethnicity in
europe... i have to gather them attune to being
southern slav, or pseudo-turkish,
Finns, Latvians and Greeks... sounds like
falafel: all guidance to the subsequent reprimands
of necessarily tongue-tied whiplash -
gravitas with the kink and jeopardy of a gimp
fetish on the loose.
Nov 8, 2016
Nov 8, 2016 at 9:24 PM UTC
Jagged little pill
cigarette
wannabe
days like these
smudge
your lipstick.
truth is-
don't like the ******
like it hard,
hard I like.
Rough.
Big.
Men.
Make you eat it
don't mind
long as I can
top it
**** your life up
**** sandwich
put mustard all over
clover sprouts
salt- pepper
say you hate it
musta ****** up
whip cream queen
dazzle delight
raspberry rhubarb
jam
make me feel things
faster
**** ****
french fries at midnight
brown beers
falafel *****
dynasty drunks
swear you're the one
only one
jive to my beast
keep up my
********
eat me out
for hours-
Love you.
Oct 7, 2015
Oct 7, 2015 at 4:24 PM UTC
Blooming with happiness
The sun stroked and I smiled
The park adventurous and prided
The grass was soaked with dew
The wasp befriended my notepad
My face was pretty for you
Hands in my pockets as I waved a dog
A shy hide away in the open space
A French book on my minds fence
.............je veux la paix...................
A bench with grounded families
Young hobbits playing ball
Young couples indulging thigh on thigh
The romping poodle and German shepherd
The pond with the calm natured ducks
Underage puffs of clouded cigarette fumes
My awakened spirit opened it's legs
It flew to the overwhelmed senses of hope
.............je veux la paix......................
A scoff of falafel parcels and fizzy muscles
The stalker sat on the aligned bench
A season to figure out what life is
A strange woman on the bike in amusement
The Portuguese cafe full of beautiful souls
The world revolved with a cleansed sheen
An Eastern Europe parade of basketball novices
A melodious day that though of you babe
.............je veux la paix......................
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
She was dancing absurdly on a bread-shaped roof top
She checked the direction of the wind with her dress
She took photographs with her thumb and index
You could find her planner on her palms:
Do laundry, Write Essay
She made February 31st a thing because
It was unfair for people to be forgotten
She would say her eyes were falafel brown
When everyone would describe them as muddy
She said once, the ability to see is the ability to catch the sun
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 8:08 PM UTC
Arising this morning feeling low in mood and motivation from my daily exposure to a culture counter to the one we were created to live in, and from my daily life and experiences with persons who contribute to the culture as it is, I did not want to do anything. I only wanted to be comforted. I just wanted to feel comfortable.
Additionally feeling very cold from the frigid winds and trees blowing intensely and harshly outside a few glass windows I could see out of, simultaneously feeling strange from a time change by one hour, a time change having a hard to describe effect on me, I did not want to do anything. I only wanted to be comforted. I just wanted to feel comfortable.
Sitting with my feet propped up for an hour or more, I sip hot herbal tea to simply be, warm my body, and nurture my feelings.
In the evening feeling hungry as I ran a few errands in the city, I stop by a restaurant that serves Arabic food. Having made barley earlier and wanting to finish it, I order chicken shawarma to pair with it. While eating my meal, a group of three enter, two men and a woman. They take seats at a table next to mine.
Enjoying the meals we were served until completion, one of the men escapes from the table and proceeds to the front counter. He orders and says to the waitor, zum Mitnehmen. A few minutes later he comes to where I'm sitting at the table and he hands me a bag with two sandwiches inside and says, This is falafel to take with you. I smile happily. What a surprise! I say to him. Thank you very much for your kindness.
He will never know how much he helped me.
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 1:28 PM UTC
if you're so adamant about speaking
of love by your standards,
can i speak of crucifying you
by mine? a stick has two ends...
you think i can't wrench the stick
from your hands and hit you back
with it? ***** go on,
keep your window shopping escapade
in knightsbridge...
get me a falafel wrap while you're at it!
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:02 PM UTC
A rolling coaster pitched onto the lawn of life. Echoing promises we ****** up on a Friday night. Each and everyone is a little child, even if they've won the lottery it still takes forever before they change their style.
Keep forever in the headband wrapped around your brow, leave your acid tablets there with some mistletoe. Under everything, there's just something they all seem to leave behind. Even if the stitches are out, it's the seams that'll leave you blind.
(I) Could use an apostrophe, or an apotropaic and a glass of whiskey. I could use the color of the war, all the drugs on the west coast, and it still wouldn't erase my memories. There should be a couple of things they sell at the corner market in the middle of town. Maybe one day all the ails will go away from the things that've ailed me all today. Maybe the rain will stop coming, and you will stop judging, how I chose to run away from every thing that ever scared me to an early step into the grave. I'm not going to write, I'm not going to bed, I want to smoke my cigarettes and light a fire between your legs, let's make falafel, you can tell me stories about your father, and the apostles you made a point to disobey when you gave away ******** to everyone in the 6th & 7th grade.
Tell me, where was I? I was eating crow and yelling in the street. Where was I? I was turning 17. Where was I? I was reading E.E. Cummings, trying to learn about loving, jerking off my eyes to Derrida about nothing, I had to teach myself something. Where was I? When you were auto-asphyxiating and choosing who would get you to come to, who would bring you to come too, I was in the next room with the t.v. on mute, pretending I couldn't hear you, but I wanted to tear you apart from the start. You've been the smartest girl that I'd always wandered apart from, until I turned into the guy that you fell through my arms, and I turned your pilot light on, and I'm with you now. I'm with you now. I'm with you now. I just hope I can choke you too.
Jun 17, 2017
Jun 17, 2017 at 12:35 AM UTC
Bold strokes of charcoal gradually fade
Blotting with rose-petal hues
Step after crisp autumn-kissed step
Scents ride the winds like surfers catching waves
Splashing aromas of maple syrup
And ground coffee bean drinks of life.
With promises of heaven on my taste buds,
I nod in greeting to Victorian architects’ handiwork
And wink to live rainbows
Acknowledging their secrets with upturned lips.
Across the Atlantic, in a parallel world,
I step onto the streets of ex-Pharaohs,
The familiar hubbub of bee-like pedestrians
And drivers side-stepping one another
In a dance to honks of buses and tok-toks
Falafel and shawerma mingle with
Cane-pressed juice casually on the corner.
With promises of heaven on my taste buds,
I embrace the City of Past Kings.
Cobra and maple leaf intertwine
In a pattern on my forehead
Branding me, on my heart,
A daughter of two cities.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 3:12 AM UTC
Yesterday I went to the county fair
I hadn't been in years
And I swear after half an hour
I was almost in tears
The pizza was soggy
Hot dogs just awful
And since when did fried dough taste like falafel?
The rides took the whole day to get on
But once you finally made it
they were 2 minutes long
It was hot and sweaty and I saw lots of puke
I guess that was a bonus
but certainly no fluke
The cows were still cows
waving their ***** in the air
So I played some games, ran out of money
And left without the giant bear
Sep 5, 2021
Sep 5, 2021 at 11:27 AM UTC
whenever i watch the news
i leave the room feeling weak and awful too
persuade me i'm unfaithful for eating a falafel
helicopters flash across my sky
more bloodshed to shock the soul
can't help but be asking why
obstacle after obstacle, is coming after me
even waking up is impossible, actually
i should say, i got to go, got to go
instead of sitting at the home, at home
see the world, you got lot's to grow, lot's to grow
but i'm firmly planted in outer space
everybody i used to know says i vanished without a trace
trying to be human without the race
trying to be honest without the consequence
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 2:44 AM UTC