28.1.16

The Parable of the Snake
 
Can't remember what that one had, when it happened,
a part of me began to let loose on the reverse side
of Jack's feeding plan, another spin off
with a nod to final debate, the gentle leading
as if we completely understand.
Who swapped peas for beans in the jar
and then switched jars, the one heart
scathed and debrided with scissors and flame
the other still chock full?
Too late say the stick men, too early
says the yawning hole at West 23rd,
keep walking toward the uneven light.
This army of bitten tongues swells
then retracts as if it is breathing,
a long tailed carnivore begins
and ends the similitude by swallowing.
Who will stop the marching? how deep
the tunnel winds toward the turbine,
tourists forage in the racks on the way.
We pass a sign that says buckle up!
There might not be enough love now
to finance the mortgage, hold up the cow.
These souvenirs might have to go, price slashed
and cells remaining on the handles.
A generation to come, several files by law
demolished in seven years like itches,
snouts and beaks crud and fodder,
bait and switch, rattle and shed.
One more long minute is all
the clock ever said as it clicked and tocked.
 

21.1.16

QIBLA

No one is more surprised that me.

There he is with his Qibla. I am fixated on the girl next to him, she couldn't be more than 18. She is adjusting her head ...cover, fixing it the way hijabi girls do when they are interested. Pushing hair in while pulling it out, eyes up and then down again, no one noticing the way their lithe bodies twist toward the object of their affection.

There is clapping and a bride and groom. The most beautiful bride a person could imagine. Her groom sits attentively near and love is revealed in its small moments. Ruths rule the castles of other people.

It is so.

I watch it over and over, stop, replay. A child wanders in and out of the frame, belongs to no one. The young woman cannot resist another look over and another. The cameras of heaven between Qibla and Qibla.

The two wests, the two easts under the pleasant lights . Tulsa. The way cities look from 35,000 like giant lava flows. The world is ancient.

And there she is, Rabab. Her heart beating inside the camera, her steady hand is on the wheel, and pushes him away and toward the person who with steady hand and that awful eye, one terrible eye and the other shut, packages memories.

How many angels were there? Two? Seventy-two?

She enters from the right side of his Qibla. Did she know I'd be watching her now six years ahead? How many treatments had been completed, how much chemo left to push in? In the beginning she used to wear ice caps but by the time I reached her after six days of one person after another entering Adlieh, entering Babdaat, it was clear that ice had not worked to prevent the theft of hair, the stolen color of her skin.

He is throbbing and glowing. His mind awash with houris. Taking his risik* before its time, playing the part of Sultan to his crew. The man of the hour and a child wanders into the frame, belongs to no one. The girl straightens her head cover, pushes hair in in order to pull some out. It is so. Take a walk on the Wild Side.

And Rabab turns him Qibla-ward, she is there forever looking at me saying: wake up.
handbook for freedom

-the skulker
-In fact the last yard
-forgiveness
-is in the details
-Rub al Qali
-Letter to the Dead
-The Intercessors
-Qibla
-Dear Plaster Saint

In Fact the Last Yard
I dig grave after grave
to put this into piece by piece,
the advantage of time...
when it serves the guilty
is time, like Satan
forever waiting for the inevitable
to come, bartering and stipulating
as he does. Put each one to rest
says the self accusing soul.
Resurrect them again says the devil
and again and again.
Try to pull the scatter
into a single location
as angels stand guard
and retrieve data

and how the stockpile grows!
  I, the forever grave digger,
shovel in hand, half asleep,
stand in the stillness. The glade
of anger a few yards away,
that wholesome place
where the wicked meet death.
In the chorus one hears
the cracked voice of reason
who screamed late into the night,
death opera, she sings lullabies
to the frozen and ashamed.
If only the others understood
the list of sins, the stinging ablation
of forgiveness, the Z track
of the maze where the surgeon
cauters and amends.
In Fact

I dig grave after grave
to put you into piece by piece,
the advantage of time
when it serves the guilty
is time, like Satan
forever waiting for the inevitable
to come, bartering and stipulating
as he does.  Put each one to rest
says the self accusing soul,
resurrect them again says the devil.
Try to pull the scatter
into a single location
as angels stand guard
and take their notes.
I, the forever grave digger,
shovel in hand, half asleep,
stand in the stillness.  The glade
of anger a few yards away,
that wholesome place
where the wicked meet death.
In the chorus one hears
the cracked voice of reason
who screamed late into the night,
death opera, she sings lullabies
to the frozen and ashamed.
If only all the others understood
the list of sins, the stinging ablation
of forgiveness, the Z track
of the maze where the surgeon
cauters and amends.
Forgiveness

...an origami in reverse
unfolding wing and leg and snout
Was it you that said
I am just crazy, that
my imagination takes over sometimes?
Did you whisper in low tones
that God was punishing me?
How natural it all seemed
in those times
all the wild animals tearing
at my flesh as you spied into our voices.
The checklist includes
miracles, backstabs, brainwashes.
A wallet sized photo, in the wallet.
The pink shirt which you testified
was green, as if that meant
I hadn't seen it
or the sandals and list.
The five separate swears
from which I abstained in fear
for us both.
As you thumbed through the files
in my backseat try as you might
to catch me offending another criminal
like yourself, does that make sense
to anyone but me?  And you?
There she is now trying to shake it off,
having the time of her life
as perpetuity forms into her regrets,
having lost love at that age,
having lost her hopes and courage,
all I see is alopecia and a black bra,
a few antics at the beach
and a liquor store receipt.
All I see is the desperate poverty
that drives non believers into hell.
Would it help to remember
the first call, the 'how are you now'
as I lay in a catatonia
from which escape is never certain:
love of my life/liar
and now as I hold back the demon
during lovemaking in a stupor
of mere tolerance, as I weep for passion
and her ghost, all is still
when I awake to the duty of ghusl
one more time.

16.1.16

OWL

When the owl slipped
away from the world,
he was in my arms
and wrapped in my prayer
rug, the one I keep in the back
seat of the '95 Nissan,
the murder weapon in
the driveway and it was
still warm. As he died
his head fell forward
like a newborn babe -
so few people ever see
an owl let alone hold
one, dead or alive,
so few ever hold both.

It hurt. It really hurt
to have killed such a thing:
half cat with hollow
bones and fake ears,
a witch with two hats.
For such a terrifying beast
they aren't made of much
and weigh no more than
a pair of boots or a rake.
There are no accidents though.
His body lay on the extra bed
until the morning. He refused
to answer as I returned
more than once to ask:

Which sign are you?
What can I do?
Are you sure?