"nora" poems
I was told to write down my identity
a neat sheet of paper
that would briefly explain me
I pondered a while
attempting to identify
a few key moments of my history
Do I tell of the immigrant?
or the miracle child?
do I speak of depression
and how I so rarely smiled?
Should I tell you about the language
I so rarely spoke
for fear of fitting a stereotype:
the terrorist trope.
Shall I explain hypomania?
and how I couldn't sleep?
and how the monsters I dreamt of
into my conscious peripheral would creep?
How I couldn't seek help
until I was almost twenty-one
because in my parents' culture
mental illness doesn't exist.
My parents were Palestenian refugees in Lebanon- but that's their story not mine, right? They were married for seventeen years before they had me. They tried to have children almost from day one- but that's their story not mine, right?
Finally they immigrated to Canada for a million procedures that would give them a baby. After six years of treatment, a random obscure procedure worked and I was a bun in the oven- but that's their story not mine, right?
nine months later I was born.
I was a miracle baby and the "light of their life." so they named me light: "Noor."
I was born at North York General with a priviledge my parents never dared dream: Canadian. Safe. Not a refugee. They had someplace that they'd send me for university.
With our new, safe nationality
at forty days old
I was taken to the UAE
I was raised on Western books
and Western TV
raised with ideas that just didn't fit
in a muslim family
(at least my family is liberal, unlike the UAE)
I haven't scratched the surface of who I am
and depending on the pieces I tell
I haven't scratched the surface of all that I could be
what I choose to write is how you will read me.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 3:39 PM UTC
She left her bag back at the station
she thought she’d carry on
and the whistle sounded as a watchman found it
he looked but she was gone
“Call for a Miss. Blume, I repeat Miss. Nora Blume
your bag’s at lost & found”
12 hours after a search had gathered
her family standing by
and the whistle sounded as the troops were rounded
up to contemplate the whys
“Ahh, Sherif, you may wanna have a look at this,
could be blood from the girl we just may have missed”
She left her bag back at the station
with a letter she had drawn
and the whistle sounded as a watchman found it
he looked but she was gone
“Dear Mother I am leaving, don’t expect me to return
I’ll love you always this is not a phase but a lesson never learned”
12 hours after a search had gathered
her family standing by
and the whistle sounded as the troops were rounded
up before the case went dry
“Ah, Sherif, you may wanna share this, it’s a note from Nora Blume,
her Mother needs to know that a suicide’s assumed”
She left her bag back at the station
where they came ‘cross a syringe
just one of many in a package
tangled in her wallets fringe
“I saw no need for luggage as I’ve carried more in wait
there’s a final wrath along my path that’s leading to my fate”
12 hours after a search had gathered
a blood trail lastly explored
and the whistle sounded as the troops dumbfounded
covered up her corpse
“Don’t cry for me, ask Daddy then you’ll know the reason why,
just put us in the same plot embracing on our sides”
She left her bag back at the station
she thought she’d carry on
and the whistle sounded as the two were grounded
down six feet moving on...
Jul 11, 2010
Jul 11, 2010 at 6:41 PM UTC
You slid into my life,
easy as a knife through butter.
not like margarine,
of that I'm less keen
hanging out with you... ****** Nora
it's as easy as flowers via inter-Flora
You butter believe I'm here to stay
we're about half-way
and by this point, I'm sure you'll say
you wrote me a poem,
but I can't believe its not butter.
so come on Flynn...
Lurpak it in.
Feb 14, 2021
Feb 14, 2021 at 1:22 PM UTC
I am French and Coloradonian.
I strongly dislike the color orange. Purple is better.
I love vanilla ice cream.
I don't like chocolate flavored anything. It tastes weird to me.
I haven't watched TV in nearly five years.
I haven't gone a day without music.
I am married to my guitar. Her name is Nora.
My best friend is Monty the Dog. He is a dog.
I am attracted to women.
I am a ****** to men.
I think red heads are ******* hot.
I like the number 50.
Facebook is evil. The NSA watches you.
I used ****** for six months.
I snorted ******* for a few months as well.
I smoke *** currently.
I smoke cigarettes currently.
If I had to give up everything, and could only keep one thing...
...I'd keep coffee.
I love Coffee.
My sister Chelsea tried to **** me. *****
I am random, and can't keep on one subject for too long.
Ooh! Shiny things!
Poetry has kept me on this road for years.
I once wrote a song about pizza. It's probably my best song.
I don't like pizza.
I used to have long hair, but it tried to strangle me in my sleep, so I killed it.
For some stupid reason, my mother named me Abigail Hollow.
(last name excluded)
Why would she do that? I don't know.
I still have a razor flip phone. All the rage, years ago.
I haven't slept on a bed in four years.
I order McDonalds food for Monty the Dog. He's the only one who eats it...
The only girl I ever truly loved died of cancer.
My mom wants me to come home.
I don't believe in God, but I love everybody just the same.
Except Steve Buscemi. He scares me.
What do you think of me so far, my lovely fellow poets?
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 6:22 PM UTC
my neighbors still slept
as the zombies crept through town
they awoke undead
mom threw a grenade
the zombie blew up, alas,
blood got in her mouth
gunning down zombies,
my arm was bitten. weeping,
i hacked it clean off
later i saw mom
dead-eyed, moaning, and ******
and slit my lone wrist
nora burned the stairs
zombies piled up beneath her
rotten hands grasping
nora stayed upstairs
after five days of terror
she starved to death there
dad was cleverest
he fled to the Atlantic
to escape by boat
wading through driftwood
he found a russian u-boat
full of gnarled corpses
not dead as they seemed
the kremlin zombies leapt up
and ate my dad's brains
Jun 6, 2010
Jun 6, 2010 at 10:58 AM UTC
The blue eagle and the demon of the steppes
in the last cab in Berlin
Legitimate defence
of lost souls
the red mill at the beggars' school
awaits the poor student
With the housemaid Know huntsmen how to hunt on pay-day
Know huntsmen how to hunt
as papa speculates
with the smile
By the dagger the dagger the dagger
the tiger of the seas dreams of happiness
Avenged
The vestal ****** of the Ganges cries out Vanity
when the flesh succumbs
Stop look and listen
the famous turkey spends a day of pleasure
turning round in an enchanted circle
with the pluck of a lion
M'sieur the major
My Paris
my uncle from America
my heart and my legs
slaves of beauty
admire the conquests of Nora
while someone asks for a typewriter
for the black pirate
It is not possible
that a woman dressed as the Merry Widow
could become the wind's prey
because the millionairess Madame Sans-Gene
leads a wild existence
in another's skin
Her son was right
Patrol-leader 129 who wears an Italian straw-hat
and is the ace of jockeys
is abandoning a little adventuress
for a woman
It is the April-Moon which chases the buffalo
to Notre-Dame of Paris
Oh what a bore the indomitable man
with clear eyes
wishes to judge him by the law of the desert
but the lovers with children's souls have gone away
Ah what a lovely voyage
- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/The-Staircase-With-A-Hundred-Steps#sthash.Ty7mN87W.dpuf
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 12:33 AM UTC
The Rabbit Hole, for me
is not a place that people normally think it is
It's apartment complex doesn't hold Mary Jane
The Golden Girls
or Aunt Nora
Nor does it serve biker's coffee
or electric Kool-Aid
It doesn't powder their doughnuts with angel dust
No, it isn't for me
But my rabbit hole is hell enough for me
My rabbit hole houses an angry mother
a disappointed father
Friends who stare, but don't speak
It serves missing assignments I swore I did
A cup full of stress, fresh from 5 months ago
A glass half empty with tears
And I can't escape
I'm stuck there
With chains round my ankles
Every mistake adds another one
Pulled tighter by the people housed there
Freedoms lost
And the top of the rabbit hole closes
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 28, 2016 at 7:04 PM UTC
Photographs
on my dressing table
and your chin
does that thing
where it wobbles
like you’re about to cry.
I stop complaining
for just a moment
just to ask
what you’re looking at
and you point
at the photograph
on my dressing table.
And I want to be angry.
But I’m tired
way too tired to be mad.
I was sixteen
in that photograph
Felt more like I was
sixty
eighteen now
and feeling a lot closer
to eighty
Every year a decade
of impotent rage
of adolescent angst
but how?
I’m sixty or eighty.
In that picture I’m laughing.
I don’t know why
nothing to laugh about
at sixty
or sixteen
I want to be angry
because you think I should be
laughing
like in the picture
not angry
like I am now.
but I am angry
because that picture
misrepresents
Nora at sixteen
or Nora at sixty
I did not laugh like that
I do not laugh like that
I do not know her.
That girl in the picture
looks happy.
She looks like me.
But happy.
May 17, 2012
May 17, 2012 at 8:31 PM UTC
As we approach time moves faster
her late gate pass wasting away
though we're running through the wet
and waltzing through the traffic spray.
Breathing heavily we arrive
weaving through the pairs of leaving
clustered lusting cuddling couples
whose ardour thrives a five to ten.
My girl guides us to the last tree.
We grin and grapple futilely.
Those sentry lamps that guard the path
a checkpoint no charlie shall pass
then knife-faced Nora rings the bell
consigning men to outer hell.
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 2:08 PM UTC
"I need a really long hug and a kiss on my forehead. I need to be serenaded to and told crazy stories about magical things that can never happen but we believe they will. I need to be held sometimes and some other times I might sound distant, but it's not that. I need someone to watch sappy Christmas movies with in the summer and I need someone to help me define love without falling in love because I'm too young to fall in love but I want to be lost in it. I want to be lost in someone in the worst way. I want to know someone like the back of my hand and be able to finish their sentences and order their food for them because I know what they hate and are allergic to. I need to feel this. I need someone that's like a sibling but not so much because I might want to kiss them once in a blue moon. I need to match with someone and look into their eyes and know that it's ok. Because sometimes things aren't ok... But everyone need their person. Their person that they go to and tell everything to, even some things they shouldn't. Because that's a soulmate. It's not about being in love it's just about loving. I need to sing old songs with my person and cry on their shoulder about stupid stuff because I'm feeling sensitive (which is actually often. I cried when my mom made the enchiladas different) I need someone that I don't have to try with. I need a me. I need someone who is like me, but different... So it never gets boring. Genuine. I have these insane dreams and I just need someone to share them with. To paint this canvas called life. I need help painting it and I want to paint it with my person. I'm just as needy as I am independent and it's the worst combination because I feel like I'm 50 people in one. I contradict myself all the time and I need someone to understand that. I need someone who understands that I'm bad and I'm good all together. I make mistakes but I can do some things so perfectly. That I do cry sometimes but it does not mean I'm depressed!! That I do get super happy but it doesn't mean I'm some freak optimist. That not everything has a deeper meaning. I need that. I need someone to try new foods with and ***** with when they're really gross! I need someone to make jokes with and that even though we make fun of other people we don't actually mean it. I need someone to make the world seem like it's not all that bad and that time doesn't exist when we are together... Something like a Nick & Nora's music playlist. I want to feel like I'm on drugs all the time without doing them. Pure ecstasy. I need someone to understand me because I don't understand me AT ALL. Like at all. I need to find my missing piece."
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 9:01 PM UTC
Times of
Tension and anger
Voices raised, and
Fingers pointed, words thrown
Then so stubborn, all well known
Eventually, come to regret
Gripped tightly,
Battling the cold
The icy chill that surrounds
Fighting through confusion
How could any of this be real?
Years ago, times filled with laughter
Playing dominoes on the kitchen table
Watching cartoons in the living room
Telling stories after lunch of days gone
Only to look back, how bittersweet
Holding every memory as you go
Those good, and those bad
Our last real conversation
A battle of heated words
All true, but even so
I cannot let go
Of a guilty end
So, in your final hours
I call across the space
Across the miles between
To say my final words to you
To apologize, to make amends,
To bring up happy memories
The little things really count
Becoming all that's truly
Truly left at all here
In this ever cold,
Empty place
Grandma
Nora
- Jay M
January 17th, 2022
Jan 18, 2022
Jan 18, 2022 at 1:30 AM UTC
Walking through the regiments of
old red,cold,dead
tenements
giving compliments
to the planners who put spanners in the works
of parliaments.
The ghosts of raggy arsed kids still play football on the grass,
not caring a rats *** for the 'no ball games' sign and
lining up for 'nitty Nora' the bug explorer,
lice ain't nice even in the afterlife.
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 2:13 AM UTC
Seaguls are flying
Javed and Nora are no more
To see the surging tides
The two broken boats are now
Buried deep in the dry sand.
**********
Copy rights reserved
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 2:59 AM UTC
I look to the ceiling
at the crack in the plaster
and focus really hard
on catching a signal
I probably make a face
but I don’t know.
I’m focusing too hard
on the crack in my ceiling
to think about mirrors
I stare at the crack
until I think of words to think
then I think them
while focusing very hard
on the crack in the plaster
The Words
sound jumbled in my head
I try to say them
out loud
My Voice
frightens me
too loud
speak softly
“Hello?”
What are you expecting?
A response?
“Uhm, yeah… Sorry. Hello
I’m Nora.
You know me… I guess.
We don’t talk
but you made me
maybe
I don’t know
I like to think I know
Not knowing is no fun
specially when people know
that you don’t know.
I wish I didn’t know
that I didn’t know
but that’s the worst kind
but I wouldn’t know.
Anyway.
I’m not completely convinced
that you’re there
They said I should feel
something
I don’t think I’m supposed to feel
stupid
talking to a crack in the ceiling.
I’m sorry to bother you,
God.
I just wanted to say hi
and let you know
that I don’t know
but I want to know.
I don’t know what that means
but They told me that
You
would know
Everything.”
May 17, 2012
May 17, 2012 at 8:34 PM UTC
nora,
4 years young,
you lovely little girl,
let me thank you for the good
you've shown to me, the world.
your dimple-strewn sweet smiles
your shrieking raucous laughs
your wild unbound stories
(oh, i wonder).
you tiny little pearl
in the oyster of the world,
your mother's middle baby and
your father's only girl,
my darling and my laughter and the child i once was,
i wrote this and i thought this
all for you, nora-bug.
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 10:49 PM UTC
It's unsettling.
The shape and form and texture.
The way that you have manifested yourself.
From a light lilac sky
To a deep purple abyss.
It's still purple,
But.....
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 11:45 PM UTC
Ah, Nora.
I don't know why
I still think these thoughts.
It's been so many years.
Never mind the why of it,
I doubt even you could know.
How you could have taken such a part
of me. Of us. All of us.
It's the how that dogs me.
Those years when we were apart,
me busy trying to raise the boy,
you doing whatever it was you did;
those were unhappy years. For me,
I can say. For you, I can only think so.
O, Nora.
It's been such a long time.
Now that the boy's all grown, almost,
what will be left of us?
When you came back, I didn't look
this far down the road. Here we are.
What can I do? What's done is done.
Forgiving's easy. Forgetting, well...
not so.
Nora, Nora,
that time so long ago
that never should have been.
r ~ 5/24/14
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
I am not going home.
You can try to pull me back
Tell me all the reasons you love me
Remind me of all my duties and obligations
Call to the moral compass that never points north inside of me-
The one you planted in place of the heart you stole.
But I will not come back, not to the house
That is called "home" through sheer force of habit.
Name a wolf "sheep"- he will turn on his "brothers"
Name a devil angelic- he will cause the downfall of heaven
Name a leopard a lapdog- his spots will not change.
I named you loving, tender, gentle.
I called you moral, caring, I dared to try and call you mine.
I have spoken falsely, the sheer force of my want
Making me liar, a false prophet.
I am not going home-
My home is in my own heart
And you are not in it.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 12:45 PM UTC
When I was a teenager
(like Dave Allen must have been)
I was at confessional
and the priest asked me what my sin was
*" I have been in bed, Father
with a woman
of loose morals,"* I said
and refused to give a name
He sighed and he said:
"Was it Anna Berley?"
I said I couldn't tell
"Was it Sue Saxton?" he persisted
I insisted I was sworn not to tell
"Nora Muxton?" he asked again
I remained silent
And he dismissed me then with
5 Our Fathers and 5 Hail Marys
My mate Sam was outside
and he asked what I got
and I said to him:
*"5 Our Fathers and 5 Hail Marys -
and 3 good leads is what I got"*
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 1:50 AM UTC
There once was a woman from Norway
Who'd hang by her toes in the doorway:
She went to her dude
And his friends in the ****
And requested a fjordian fjour-way.
Feb 26, 2025
Feb 26, 2025 at 8:39 PM UTC
Rachel and Adrian met at a barbecue
Kate and Jake at summer camp
Marlin and Samuel have been together since second grade
All of this unplanned
True love arrives and once there
Turns into forever
Garrick went to the home of a childhood friend
Meghan was there
Seven years later they married
Amy and Wayne met through mutual friends
You just never know where and when it will happen
Somehow it always does
Then there's Emma and Benjamin,
She went on 116 dates, almost a lost cause she thought
It was only his third date off the internet, but they took
These are announcements in the newspaper on this very day
How the married couples met
To the world they are now united
This is about the get
They went all the way
Meet Nora and Samuel, who both worked at a sandwich shop
They took off in a car to see the states, platonic at the start
A first kiss led to many more, now they are of one heart
It was a dinner party for Kelly and David
Nathalie and Max met at Georgetown U
So the only question remaining
Is when it will happen to you?
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 10:59 AM UTC