2 short poems

The possibility of joy

On the Day of Judgement YOU! [weeping- will simultaneously be sending white horses to the forgiving,
Ushering each into their own gate, carefully shading those who love each other for your sake
From the fire.

Vast beyond my small dreamings, blessing me with each moment
Where I forgive, and repent.


Response to Denise Levertov

To write out what is spectacular and human and true
To be the voice of the vision of the revolution

Words lie like fossils in my mind
dead under amber dirt
A long dead treasure of stories and myths

WHERE to find SOUNDS that SING
to everything peaceful and conscious

A sick heart

Send down a rain of Mercy
On my sick heart and wash it clean
Like a wash of foam in a once clear stream.
My world will be renewed and shine like the first day.

Ramadan 29, 1431

1.

My body is foam.
Underneath the marrow of my bones
You still call for me

2.

Hypocrisy fights sincerity
Competition for goodness wrapped in hatred
Success oiled with the many striving
People holding me down with their knees
As they press toward God they press my face into the ground

My mind and body are housebound
Wrapped in listless acceptance
Four weeks of happiness slipped a sedative
Four weeks of joy lacerated with a hammer

These women are trying to make jewelry out of my body,
They cut off pieces of my heart for coasters
They have vats of their food resting on my lungs

Eviscerated and silent, like a deerskin propped up on a frame

God exalted over the universe Divine Vision
Divine hearing could record the echo of a wave in the heart of a sleeping vagrant
No anguish this noisy and burning this silently enormous would remain unseen, inaudible
Without a notice. God sent angels to struggle with these curses
And beat them back for my sake, for the sake of my parents, for the sake of my son.

In the year ahead: mark my weeks with remembrance of a blessed month.
Each day I held myself like a kite in my hand, not working just resting on the air.