Wild

She was domesticated, those days
dinners on time
and television by his side

now she's wild
as cliffs
half descended into the sea
exposing
raw and rocky jagged
insides
sprouting mad and tangled
hardy species
that flower, if you're lucky.

Wide eyed as one
newly born
into a world of waking up at midnight
saying yes and yes and yes
dancing with devils
dutch courage
we're dynamite
combined
already part water
each of us our own type of acidic
at the right temperature
explosions
if you're precise;
you've got to be precise,
it's science.

Whirling dervish of destruction
spilt drinks ,
rips and cuts and splinters
for each other we will walk on fire
on air
we disappear
we are a reflection of our former selves
the mirror's image
that takes the imperfections of the glass
steam and streaks
we can write new names across our faces.

If you slip back through time,
to where it was warm and safe and dry
you can here the cry
of one domesticated,
longing to be wild.

(I wrote this ages ago, which seems important to mention, though it may not mean anything to you).

Tareq

Tareq told me I looked
only 18 or 19

and when I showed him blurry photos of
"my wedding"
he told me my husband was a lucky man.

We talked all the way to Hama,
about movies,
about life
and Tareq told me to be careful
as men in Syria could be dangerous.

I didn't tell him about my trouble with the taxi driver
I wanted him to think I was tough
that I could take care of myself
probably because
that's what I needed to believe.

Tareq took me out to dinner
in his villiage
just outside of Damascus
after I had seen the snow covered mountains of Northern Lebannon
and the barbed wire enclosed Baalbek
taking the Hezbollah bedecked bus from under a bridge
in Beiruit
back to this sunkissed city
of deep fried cauliflower, mozaic courtyards
and kind strangers.

Tareq told me I was beautiful
and that he wished to remember the perfect moment
of our meeting forever

but not in the way you'd think

(unless you know a lot about young Syrian men
whose english has been learnt
from Hollywood romance stories
and YouTube videos)

and when it got late
and his cousin's taxi had left
and I was afraid that
maybe I wasn't so tough after all
the city lights of Damascus
and my hotel room for one seeming so far away

his gentle calm and big brown eyes said more
than his strangely idiomatic language
and I knew he was safe

but with his city now on fire
and blood in the streets
no such safety is assured

and that scarf I let him buy me in the souk
so bright,
so unlike anything I would have chosen for myself
hangs on my coat stand
with other precious memories

of sunkissed cities
and kind strangers

and big brown eyes
in cities now on fire.

I Once Had A Lover

I once had a lover
who had gone head first
through the windscreen
of a rented car in Greece.

When I ran my hands over his forhead
I could feel where the shards of glass
had embedded themselves in his skull,
where the skin had grown over,
how the pieces of windscreen
had become a part of him
the way the weeds will grow over
anything left lying long enough
to be tangled in green tendrils.

Later,
after the cracks had appeared
and another type of shattering
left everything broken
there were pieces left beneath my skin
that sometimes I can still feel
though the skin has long since grown over
and the lumps are imperceptible
to eyes and hands
and lovers' lips.

Shattered and broken,
embedded
the leftovers of loves casualties
beneath the skin
impreceptible
barely there
beneath a new lover's touch
suspended in flesh

we are one,
the past and I
entwined as are the weeds
and anything left lying
too long
in their path.

Once In A Blue Moon

Midnight makes me
a loose
cannon
and the hand
of gin
has painted me happily
pink and joyful

Hemingway's hiding
beneath my bed
and once
in a blue moon
he waits for me in vain

while I'm wrapped up
in another's
arms
waiting for morning
waiting for something
waiting to know the appropriate move
I should know the appropriate move
by now, right?

But
I don't

I only know that I can't give up these vices
without the fear of being boring
wordless
lining up glasses full of
false idols

wanting to be
at the very least
the mistake you could learn from

I'd do that for you

the rain gives a staning ovation

we don't deserve it
 I don't
I'm reprising the role
it's autopilot, really
I know the lines
the blocking is stale
unspontaneous

only fear keeps
my glass full

my mouth shut
fleeing
with sunlight

and all my clothes,
hopefully.

Once in a blue moon
fear and
false idols align

and the best I can hope for
is that I've got
all
my
clothes. 

Empty Beer Bottle Dreams

Towels that attack in the breeze
empty beer bottle dreams
and sweet sunshine promises
peeping through the trees.

I've got a horrible snorty laugh
which escapes
in an all too familliar scene
and those that don't get the joke
laugh anyway

but the joke's on me,
me
and my empty beer bottle dreams

and those things that attack
in the soft summer breeze.

The Living And The Dead

We slept upstairs,
in the attic
in sleeping bags on a hard wood floor

David was always naked
naked cooking quinoa
naked in the sun doing downward dog

naked when he asked me
in the middle of the night
to give him a cuddle

I exhaled extra loudly
to give the illusion
of a deep deep sleep

JC was dying
brain tumors
had forced his eyes
to search
for each other
each pupil straining
to face the other
so that he always looked confused

but I think he was more clear
about a lot of things
than
those of us
looking straight ahead.

He was out of hospital
wild hair
and red hoodie
fishermans pants
so calm

the goji juice was from the himilayas
and it was going to cure him
they said

and we walked,
barefoot
the hundred meters to Venice Beach
which you could see from the front porch
once the haze had lifted


I heard later that he died

I was already in New York
fully clothed
swept up by the rush rush

and I had forgotton the calm

until just now,
now,
when a man with wild hair
and eyes,
each searching for the other

calmly told of how he had seen his family
killed

as a rooster
an ugly rooster squarked
it's cry echoing
over the water filled canoe
suspended in the air


calm rising out of chaos
those searching eyes
the story that must be told
and heard
and retold
and held within

what if i could turn my own eyes
inward
roll them around to face each other
to examine
what story it is behind them
to not loose sight

the chaos, outstretched in front
the calm within

we are cursed to see
and not see

to know
and not know

to remember
and forget

wild hair

I can see them now,

those eyes
that see the living
and the dead

that in the midst of chaos
can still find
calm.