Haiku

Fingers rip petals
until daisies are naked –
a girl wipes her wounds.

A waterfall cools
heated stones along its path -
the wind holds its breath.

Death

Death meets life
and has a baby

Death gets married
and buries the husband

Death places a personal ad
and reads it in the obituary

Death has an affair
and gets resurrected

Death strikes again
and 'skeleton crews' work overtime

Death has a plot
and builds an empire

Death invests
and makes a killing

Death retires
and sleeps in a coffin

Death takes a cruise
and sends sympathy cards

Death rides the subway
and goes to hell

Death finds religion
and anorexia

Death loses weight
and becomes a cadaver

Death gets a makeover
and leaves embalmed

Death looks in the mirror
and dies

Treasure?

What can be said of something
Buried in this nameless alley,
When it was once treasured,
Given out of love?
Or can love be measured,
When the past is rejected -
Sleeps in filth, alone and neglected?

What can be said of a memory
When it was there to serve its owner?
Was it witness to sadness or happiness?
Was it cherished for its unique design
Or did it lose its value under duress,
When time grew tired of its use
And dumped it out of casual abuse?

What can be said of myself
Seen within this ragged treasure?
Am I a common thread, forgotten,
Inside seams and buttonholes,
With memories stale and rotten -
Or a recycled life waiting to begin
Within washed and mended skin?

Tiny Friend

Happiness is perched inside my palm,
So light, so ethereal, unreal in spontaneity.
But, like a bird who sings a momentary tune,
It falls victim to jealous winds
Desiring its song more than I -
They snatch it from my hand,
A greedy mission to take what is mine.

Any attempt to rescue my tiny friend,
The winds retaliate and crush its throat.
They pass judgment on its rightful owner,
Condemn me to hold a solitary feather
And listen to the silence of sudden loss,
Heard within the memory of wings.

Dead Flower

I may be fluent in maturity,
But I am still a child
Who walks awkwardly in high heels
And lifts the hem of her over-sized skirt.
No language written or spoken
Can ever fully translate this rotten mood.
In adult clothes, I speak adult words,
Pretend to take the stage in an adult world.

Yet I am still a child,
Who holds a wilted flower
And hides her personal shame,
Fearing that at any moment
Seams will suddenly expose
The dried petals of a fairy tale princess
Who forgot how to cry.

The Boy Beneath the Tree

Spring speaks to the wind,
Whispers through the veins of infant leaves.
Its voice echoes past the shades
Arousing a sleeping earth -
Trees hear it as do small heads of flowers.

Underneath one such tree sits a boy,
No more than sixty seasons past,
Holding a book without title
Or words to fill time's empty space.
His mind wants to write a story,
Giving new meaning to blank pages
Untouched by corruption's malice
Or potential to do good.
Mystery hibernates within his seed's desire -
His thoughts must learn to speak
Before words learn to write.

Spring, an ancient storyteller,
Whispers through the veins of infant leaves -
The boy listens... his pen begins to bleed.

White Flag

An instant can be so predictable -
The perfect aim happens thrice,
Hoisting my shroud as the white flag of defeat.
I've defended my king and must surrender to my destined end -
Help is not possible - not even from the pain that digs my grave.
The warm blood is as damp as the salty air that engulfs my ship,
But the battle goes on, with or without me.
Smoke from cannon and guns cannot hide the deck
From becoming a mortuary for the living and the dead.
I am alone to face the enemy amid my fears;
The fear of dying, the fear of losing, the fear of never seeing you again.

Am I still a man possessed by indomitable strength
When my own life is fading fast?
Two bullets gnaw at my stomach like hungry leeches
While the third takes the fast route to my heart
For the "coupe de grace!"
Yet I fall to my knees, not for prayer, but for pain.
My pistol leaves my hand - the final voyage now awaits me,
My last thoughts will never be logged in tonight -
The bullets have already done so in my blood.
My eyes close, but my ears still hear distant rumbles of war -
The stench of death no longer penetrates my nostrils.
My breath has joined the ranks of the dead -
I have resigned from my post to enlist in the service of the afterlife
Where I will sail alone at the command of my loss.

Haiku

A mountain descends,
a pebble rests in a pond:
a rock marks a grave.

Goldfish eat sushi
and play bongos with chopsticks:
Darwin does take-out.

Haiku

Branches cannot hide
the last Christmas tree
laid to rest by the gutter.

As clouds hide stars,
snowflakes touch treetops
like mystical pentacles.

Crucifixion

You come from nowhere -
An alien with a sense of precognition
Emerging out of innocent dreams best left
To storytellers who entertain the children born
Of children who still believe in the mystical promise,
Born out of hope and despair's wedlock.
We all are citizens from your place of birth;
Life is conceived from the same place.
Each day is a question that breeds another
Without any answers to stop them from coming
Since our stories are made-up by strangers
Secretly watching over us,
Passing judgment in their favor.
They prepare the lambs for their sins
While retribution retreats for a holiday
Far from the crucixion of life
At the stroke of crisis.

Revolution

I will rise out of the zero of nothingness,
Take each radical step degree by degree,
Rotate in full circle,
To complete a revolution
In three hundred and sixty degrees.

I do not care about images of perception
Created out of illusion
To shape me into the vision
Of what is best for me or worst for you,
Whether you are a friend or foe.
Yet friend and foe share both sides of the coin,
Purchase objects of possession,
Symbols of ownership and control.
But I am not for sale
And refuse to be part of the marketplace
For your inspection to place value upon me,
As you do for diamonds and stocks.

The mountain will come to me -
You shall crumble into pebbles
Over my self-evolution
As I ascend, fearless and strong.
I shall follow the calling within me,
Climb to the highest peak,
To fly with eagles and touch stars -
Free and powerful, like a pulsar,
Ready to revise unread chapters
And reclaim destiny upon this mountain,
Feeling fearless and strong.

The Lioness

She moves with a symmetry all her own,
Paces back and forth like kinetic art framed by bars.
I see myself in her sultry yet intelligent eyes,
Yellow intensity in pools of irises.
The lioness believes my thoughts to be like her own -
Through her own telepathy, she commands,
"Get out, get out if you can!"

Sensing her thoughts to be identical to mine,
I approach the cage, fearless, yet gentle,
Clench the bars that separate animal from human,
I place my ears against the bars, await her next command.

The lioness stops abruptly, stares directly into my eyes
And demands, "Why do you stand here?
Try to get out if you can!
We are all animals and must follow our instincts...
It's our calling, but I'd rather consider it natural.
These bars keep the occupants on both sides in captivity,
You've been domesticated too long
Watching my wild spark wither...
So please get out, get out if you can!"

At that moment, the beast becomes no different than I -
The fusion of bondage makes the lioness my twin.
The cage door thrusts open, her spirit jumps forward,
Not to eat me for fulfillment of survival,
But to feed me with her wild nature to become
The huntress of life.

"X"

My name's a chromosome, all female,
Lacking the "Y" to open doors.
Yet my name's the unknown,
Asking to be conquered,
Not by others, but by herself.

I'm part of an equation licensed to travel
Many times into endless prospects.
Galaxies for creative formulae -
A seeker searching for solutions
To problems that keep doors closed.

My name's simple, but it's at the crossroads
Where I'm the point between two pyramids
In which earth and sky become my universe.

My name's "X," I sign it with pride.

Daydreams

Daydreams hide in storybook dialogue
Never to be read when nighttime
Wakes subconscious evil
From cavernous sleep.
I close my eyes to read,
Seeing more in consecrated light.
You stand before me and I smile.
Scenes change,
But the actor remains the same
Until daydreams turn bittersweet,
For closure to destroy the end.

The Asylum

The noise slams my head
Against stereo walls
Like fast balls
Pitched to home plate.
I cannot escape soon
From this tiny cocoon.
My battered body lies
On the solitary floor
Against the cranium door,
Waiting for sanity to return.

Honesty

Poison has a way of camouflaging itself,
Wearing sugar-coated clothing
While adminstering itself as medicine.
Doses of criticism and advice
Cure the egos of those who watch
Your self-esteem self-destruct into dust.

Call it honesty, but I call it destruction
When in the wrong hands
Becomes toxic like human neglect.
It poisons every element of life
Until you surrender all that you have.
Succumbing your naked thoughts
To be scattered at the feet of victors,
Leaving you, the sole victim,
Homeless, without solace in defeat.

Touched by a Guide

The years of time are heavier than they look -
My shoulders feel every kilo of day and night
Spent under the tutelage of your provident patience
Until pressure cracked my senses, like brittle bones.
You watched evidence twist into a transfiguration,
A monster contrived to dwell as an aberration
Inside your Garden of Eden that has grown barren
Where the guilty one was singled out as female.
You were acquitted to watch my life burn at the stake
By your hand that lit my funeral pyre.
But before I am consumed by hate and failure,
I want to blow embers to touch the one
Who guided me down the sacred path of deceit.

Tenderness in Reverse

The fork and knife come forth to perform surgery
On a corpse that was once the pride of the farm.
The meat was cooked to perfection,
Bleeding slightly at each incision,
But tastefully tender in my mouth.
My tongue is in full motion
Mixing my thoughts between the molars
As they tenderize each morsel
For revenge to be properly served.

Haircut

She cut off her hair:
thick chunks were tossed
into the basket next to the sink.
She should have done it sooner,
but lacked the guts to see
what lived behind the auburn curtain.
A mood mixed in chemical damage
precipitated her scissors
to alter her reflection in the mirror.
Her reaction was on stand-by
Then her words came forth
in sentences shortened to stubble.

She pulled the plastic bag
from the confines of her basket.
It was V-day for the basket and her
liberation defied enclosure.
She put the scissors in her pocket,
tied the bag in a Gordian knot
and carried it outside.

She didnt dump the bag in the garbage
instead, she brought it to the sycamore,
tore it open and scattered her hair
around the tree.
She took out her scissors
carved her thoughts on the bark.
Leaves started to fall one by one,
and then, the rest fell like a rainstorm.
She looked up and dropped her scissors
 never thought that hair could grow on trees.

The Palace

The palace became a wreck in seconds
a child was caught in between the bricks,
but he left the scene with minor injuries.
Yet the palace was not destroyed,
nor was the child hurt.
In fact, there was no palace or child present
the palace was never built
since there were no blueprints.
There were no architects summoned
to conceive the idea to build it.
The child was never born
since there was no conception.
There was no love to build a family
that would include him
imagination wrote this story
to disturb my mind.

Yet I read about it in a newspaper today:
the palace became a wreck in seconds
a child was caught in between the bricks,
but he left the scene with minor injuries
but some people say
that the palace was not destroyed,
nor was the child hurt.
In fact, they say
that the palace was never built
since there were no blueprints
or architects summoned
to conceive the idea to build it
and the child was never born
since there was no conception
or love to build a family
that would include him.
Yet the palace did become a wreck in seconds
and a child did get caught in between the bricks,
and he did leave the scene with minor injuries
and so it was, according to the newspaper
and my mind.

But the palace was not destroyed,
nor was the child hurt.
In fact, there was no palace or child present
the palace was never built
since there were no blueprints.
There were no architects summoned
to conceive the idea to build it.
The child was never born
since there was no conception.
There was no love to build a family
that would include him
imagination wrote this story
to disturb me during sleep.

I woke up and turned on the television.

A house near Beirut became a wreck in seconds
a child was caught in between the bricks
and was crushed to death.

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