Stairways

We breach the silence with batted eyelashes
Beneath a sky riddled with stars
Too hesitant to shine
Beneath roman ruins and an unhurried flag
Beneath the striking call of the muezzin
Who reminds us of who we are
We conquer this city with unbridled conversation
Wrap it delicately with makeshift words
From atop these grey and burdened stairs
Built way before our time

We breach the silence with diligence
As daylight fades from an Amman sky
And shadows find the contours and curves
Of every hill and valley
We watch
We listen
To car horns conducting a symphony of cacophony
And we imagine the voice of this city without them

We breach the silence with our persuasions
Beneath the concave cluster of stone homes
Beneath the bending trees
Beneath the nightingale's song
Beneath the cobblestone and asphalt
Beneath the purple skies and rolling clouds
Beneath the satellites and rooftops
Beneath the vanity of patrons
Beneath the neon green light of the minaret
Beneath the creeping darkness of nightfall
That waits for a summer Sun to be distracted
As it turns its attention to our staircase conversations
Breaching the silence
Until the cosmos descend
To listen

Other People

There is
An unavoidable
Glimpse of dusk
And in it
I imagine your face
Plastered in the foreground
Nestled quietly between a frame
On a nightstand
Comfortably;
Disappearing into the interrogation
Of light and brick and glass
And water rings that bring
This room together like constellations

And you speak
And I listen
For a change
The gentle migration of heartbeats
That slip between tongue-tied lips
We are static
For the moment
Like white angels
Riding the airwaves
Our confidence
Wavering metaphorically in the wind

We are other people
We have Spanish names
And read dead Russian poets
To survive the heat front
From the East
We grow old
Like memories
Slightly forgetting
Our unfortunate years
Alone

Landed

It's the way that

Silver steel
Wings
Cut through
Clouds.

Till
The pressure
Finds a balance.

Necks strain
To lift eager eyes
That peek through
Plastic windows slightly
At all the city lights below.

As we descend into Amman.

Postcards From The Future

we sit on cliffs
beneath the sandpaper dunes of rum
red as flustered cheeks
watch the sun play
hide and seek with the blustering mountains
as we introduce the desert
to rock music
until the stars demand
our silence

we sit on green hills
overlooking castles
in the pale sky
between tormented cedars
that bend with the wind
who howls his poems
like ginsberg

we had unraveled Jordan
sometime during intermission
and took to drawing its portrait
with our frowns
using thin wafers of light
and what thunder the sky could spare

and we came home
like adventurers returning
losing ourselves once again
on streets that wind
like the mazes in our heads
losing ourselves to the image
of adult life
that we swore we'd never lead

mourn the static;
read postcards from the future
and think out loud
how sometimes...

we
just
need
to
get
away
from
this
city
.
.
.

Say Anything

When i was young
my tongue would quiver
like an earthquake
fumbling like fingers for a light switch
ready to bow
ready to fill the world
with memories of Eden
and the scent of lilacs
that i could remember

When i was young
my scabbed knees were war scars
the scent of wet dew on freshly cut grass
was my cologne
and i sharpened senses
on the tip of a red summer sun
told time by a shadow
traced seasons from the way the wind
ruffled the stillness of water
in a puddle
and learned languages on a whim
with made up words
that i could mouth to the stars
in secret

words
that i have since
forgotten

fierce as fire
i could wield them
as readily as i could think them
platitudes the size of planets
and metaphors like mountains
stringing together syllables
with such sweet symmetry

but i
have
forgotten

and nothing comes to mind these days
the world has lost its brightness these days
these days
i find myself searching for the right words
just any words
to
say
anything

and i miss it sometimes
the fire
the dance
the quiver
that secret language
especially when i look
to the stars sometimes
and find i have
no secrets
to tell them

anymore

Dedicated to Maha, who told me to write about writers block in an effort to break it.

Broken

i am breaking
every poem
i ever wrote to you
in my mind
every stanza
every line
i am breaking
every truth
everything said
without saying;
everything
anything
i am breaking
the silence
that you allowed
while i waited
in a cafe
corner
broken;
every verse
and every chorus
to every song
i wrote for you
i am breaking
all the letters
all the notes
the mental novel of us
the anthology of you
the collection of
my greatest works
every page
i am burning
everything
i am breaking
every dream
every memory
every aspiration
i am breaking
all the prose and
every poem
till only
the
words
remain

alone;

shivering

naked

The Art Of Learning To Whistle: Part I & II

I.

I learned to whistle our bloody history through my teeth
Painted our folklore on the harsh canvas walls of caves
To remember the biographies of a continent
That screamed to the colonialist
This is the way we dance
These are our truths

Yes, every winter we ate clementines
And in the fall we picked the olives
Pressed the oil beneath our nails for nostalgia
Every spring we reaped the harvest
And every summer we sewed together
The seams of a stubborn sky
And bled,
Bled as you marched to conquer
The phantoms of our forefathers

But now,
I store your silence in the vastness of Arabia
Watching as it spills into the Sahara;
An emptiness migrating within an hourglass
Stemmed only by the waters of North African tides,
Where at least half my brown skin descended
Wandering through stretches of sands
And omniscient dunes that mark caravan trails;
Nothing but golden highways that disappear with the wind
And a soul, anchored by the weight of water, for a compass
Where all walks of life
Walk towards life
And their footsteps
Sink into the rustling earth
To become one with it;

Like Muslim prayer

II.

Outrun this red Sun's shadow
With the twinkling shards of glass
In the darkness
To guide you
Stars whose light
Forgot you
Amidst the ecliptic tides of reason
Far from men that we call fathers
And women that we call mothers
Far from mythologies
That we create of each other
And the synchronization of heart beats
With one another
Far from their armies
And their flags
And their pens
And their maps
And their love
For borders
In our vastness
Drawing lines in the sand
As we showed them our dances
And our truths

Tattooed on our wrists, the illustrations of our legends
Waiting to be told
Far from their wars
And their holocausts
Far from clumsy cities
Made of rust, and its people
Who breathe machines
And broken skylines at a time

When no one is watching them bleed

So let me whistle through my teeth
The songs of our dances
The chorus of our truths
And the verses of our poems
Let me whistle our constellations
And our histories
Through the copper of chipped teeth
Let me whistle
Through pursed lips; chapped and bloody
Let me whistle
Till I am tongue tied and blue in the face

Let me whistle
Till these words
Find a way
To conquer you

Whole

Forever Imperfectly

Faceless metaphors
Hide beneath the elephant skin
As thick as thieves
In corroded suits of armor
With their cowardice departures
Of fleeting hearts
That have betrayed this symmetry
This affinity
This, forever imperfectly

So I let mind overcome matter
In a fruitless search
For the heart of matter
To resurrect the sound
Of heartbreak
To regain the lost
To build placard walls that confide us
All the guillotine halls that divide us

We were almost perfect
Like China dolls
We had meadows running through our eyes
Conjuring highways that ascended
With roads that bended
Forever imperfectly;
Guiding us towards togetherness
Forever imperfectly;
Towards parenthood and the likely decline
Towards the welcoming arms of the divine
Forever imperfectly;
Towards the turbulent flame
Where we lose ourselves
Again

Mute

and it was so easy to let the silence
get the best of them
to let time slip between
what was left of them
making pride
that much harder to swallow
to make one lead
where the other would not follow
in to a night devoid of stars
on the wings of a poem
made of scars
until time and pride conspired
to destroy

both to blame, both the same;
he playing mute
to her deaf man's stutter
quid pro quo
tit for tat
inch by inch

until neither could remember
what had brought this on
in the first place
perhaps already searching
for a new face
neither willing to concede
the high ground
leaving everything
that was good between them
tied and bound
fanatical
hysterical
drowned;
in darkness
where neither made a sound
neither willing to be found
because it was so easy to let the silence
get the best of them
and in the quiet they resolved
to let time keep
what was left of them

Come To Us

come to us
come to us in the cover of darkness
in cloaks and daggers
wrap your arms around us
sink the silver into our spines
so mesmerizing
so civilizing
render on to us
your bliss

speak to us
speak to us in forked tongues
and stale cliches
speak to us of new ways
discard of us our old ways
render on to us your throw aways;
your cast aways
teach us to wallow
in the madness of a skyline
that you alone have set ablaze

let us follow in your footsteps
let us stand on your shoulders
let us hide in your shadow
let us come to you
but instead you have
come for us

so come to us
like a swallow to Capistrano
your knocking grows frantic at our door
so hypnotizing; anesthetizing
render on to us your burdens
render on to us
your sympathy
your apathy
your social inequality
your cinematic philosophies
your manifest destinies
your tired
your weary
come to us
come to us
unearthed
come to us
like water on concrete
the truth finds its way
through every crack and crevice
through every nook and cranny

come to us
and we will come for you shortly
come for us
and we will show you something worth fighting for