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.

A Little Bar. Lygon St, Brunswick East

I'm drinking a brandy and dry

in the window

of a little bar on Lygon St

where everything seems to be

made out of wood.

I feel sort of

caught

in the middle

neither here nor there

pretending to read a magazine

while the barman eyes me off

suspiciously.

Vague and slow

these 60 hours have made me feel

as many years old

and have clearly affected my drinking habits.

The breeze feels better

than anything that has ever

pressed up against my face before.

Heavenly.

I've forgotten that it's Sunday

slow and vague and sleepy

(now I'm repeating myself)

Fuck,

I've forgotten that I don't believe

in Heaven.

Now that I think of it

a bar in Brunswick East

wouldn't be a bad place

to spend eternity

though something about it

smacks of purgatory

with the number 8 tram shuddering past

in each direction

a destination

that doesn't really appeal.

Neither here nor there

just somewhere in the middle

somewhere highly flammable

with feet that feel like

they're already on fire.

I'm talking to myself

as the ice melts

then the phone vibrates

and we cut to the alternate ending,

where I'm caught between the

shy and handsome greying barman

and an inattentive lover

neither here nor there

a special kind of purgatory

in a bar in Brunswick East.

But

this isn't the directors cut, people.

It's just Russ

and the he's on his way back

to freshly polished floors

with ingredients for Tacos

and right now,

that kinda sounds

like heaven to me.

Wiped Out

First,
you write a couple of tragic poems about
breaking,
emptying

then you go to a bar
do some more emptying
bottles
glasses
bank accounts

come home
with a cracked iphone screen
wake up in bed
with you shoes still on

it's only Wednesday
and they're only things
the things we break
then fix,
replace

just get a new one
a better one
the latest model

(with some nostalgia for our your old nokia, you know the one
life was less complicated then
wasn't it?
so much less written, less to write)

update software
everything will be quicker now

can't you see you've had enough?
You're full, too full
gonna crash
gotta get a new harddrive
a bigger one
more room
fewer memories
wipe them away

and wipe up that vomit while you're at it.