The Medina

I will be loving you for always

He told her

the night he left Chefchaouen.

Her cumin skin couldn't

hold him—

His blue-white eyes had gone.

Her long dark hair hang

hurting

tangled among the Mosques

as her dusty feet start

stumbling—

stepping out her loss.

My heart could love here for all days

he had told her

behind tawny stalls and spice

but his foreign hands left

all the same—

his souvenir, her sacrifice.

Sphinx

 

" There are many kinds of eyes-

even the sphinx has eyes.

 

And so there are many kinds of truth.

And so, there is no truth. "





Gypsies

North wind and
dark chocolate—
            Gypsies on the river.
 
Lamb bones
and candle wicks.
The young ones turn—
            A whisper.
 
Olives rot—
no teeth to bite.
Weathering  
in empty jars of saffron.
 
Market chimes
and tamarisk
            Child come,
Let me read your palm.
 
Imagination is
paying attention—
lead belly freckles
aside.

For on mint

they lay like spoons,
what on parsley,
lay like knives.

Nietzsche's History Of an Error

             I.      The true world- He lives in it, he is it. Sensible. Simple. Persuasive.

 

          II.      Promised for the sage, the pious, the sinner who repents. It becomes female- It becomes Christian.

 

       III.      Unpromisable. The very thought of it a consolation. At bottom, the old sun. Seen through the mist, elusive and pale.

 

       IV.      Unattained and unknown. Gray morning. The first yawn of reason- The cockcrow of positivism.

 

          V.      No longer good for anything- Useless and refuted. Bright day; breakfast- Plato’s embarrassed blush and the return of bon sens.

 

       VI.      The true world, abolished. Fell twisted with apparent. End of the longest error. Noon’s briefest shadow, a moment.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

 

 

Untitled

Carry your wife

across the threshold – 

Force-feed her

milk and Foie Gras.

Coddle her

in cloves and honey –

       

Give her time to thaw.

Wrap her gifts

in fine French tarragon –

Keep her drunk

on Bombay gin.

Watch her dewy

belly bloat –

       

Help peel away her skin.

Wash her hair

with knots of ginger –

Don’t tell her

where she lives.

Board her doors

With snakes and chives –

       

Don’t let her feel the wind. 

Ⅲ

There will be a day for us

    much later,

when we pass on

the street as strangers.

You will fumble

with some nothing

in your pocket

and I will cross

the street,

as if I hadn’t

seen you.

Her

Her leather-saddled hips

shift gently beneath her shift,

and her copper eyes

like avocado pits, sit nestled in

her cheek of almond skin.

She paints a bee-sting red

on her honey-nectar lips

that leaves her stranded

kiss, on the rim of every

wine glass.

She smells of orange peels

and ginger, of basil and vanilla

She smokes two packs a day

of fancy foreign cigarettes,

to paint her white teeth silver.

She moves like she knows

I’m watching, like she knows

how much noise she makes

as her black pumps praise

her gait, with a Click-Clack

across the floor –

This is the final draft of Her. I edited it down under the advisement of my poetry workshop professor, however I kind of miss some of the omitted lines....Thoughts on which version is stronger? 

Her (Original)

Her mouth is like my Mother’s

but not as coarse as she might

like for it to seem. I watch her

features soften, her lips to silk,

her voice to cream

Her leather-saddled hips

shift gently beneath her shift,

and her almond eyes

like avocado pits, sit nestled in

her cheek of milky skin

She paints a bee-sting red

on her honey-nectar lips

that leaves her lonely

kiss, on the rim of every

wine glass

She smells of orange peels

and ginger, of basil and vanilla

She smokes two packs a day

of fancy foreign cigarettes

in hopes one night they’ll kill her

She moves like she knows

I’m watching, like she knows

how much noise she makes

as her black pumps praise

her gait, with a Click-Clack

across the floor –

And suddenly, I’m caught,

tangled in her hair. That

milk chocolate mahogany

sits scalloped and unaware

of my helpless imagination,

and slowing circulation,

as I desperately whisper

my lustful prayers.

Athens

As if we were just

old friends you'd ask,

            How are you baby?

and I would reply,

            It won't stop raining.

You'd want to know,

if time ever mends?

and I'd tell you,

that time alone

brought Babylon

to her knees.

Then you'd ask if maybe,

I missed the fever

that came with the North wind?

and although I've missed it greatly,

I'll answer plainly,

that I no longer care

for such silly sins. 

Ⅱ

I should have run from you

he said.

I should have run.

But you’ll die in this world

she said.

Stuck in those sheets for days.

And I’ll be the one who finds you.

Such plans have Gods

of their own-