november 2016
(i)
...all my life I have been waiting to be born
longing, in fact, to be expelled
from this dull, incomprehensible pregnancy
and all my life I have watched in the distance
the shadow-soul watching me
a spectre of myself who even now
seems to know more of me than I do myself
but no matter what I do
this womb’s irrational matrix
still holds me fast
just as it has always held me
an animal hiding in the undergrowth
fearful of birth
afraid to kick out
although once I did imagine
that words could impel the sky
to flow with incandescent silver
through humanity’s heart
that reason would finally rise
an irrefutable chorus
from every throat on the planet
but I was mistaken
words seem more a key
made to lock the womb than open it
and besides, my soul has been forced
to crawl even deeper into the dark, amniotic undergrowth
outside the spectre’s shadow waits
and again I am afraid to move
again fearful of my own presence...
(ii)
...does time really crave, really yearn
for some routine apocalypse
some outlandish, mathematical fear
or perhaps for some unutterable promise
it seems sometimes so
but time is an endless fever
a game of tangled prophesies
dust downloaded into the eyes
a bag full of cotton-soft enchantments
and, of course, the grave inside the womb
where time also burns
its ashes becoming entertainment
a poetry edging beyond the speed of light
and with such starving distances
time leans out
grips and swallows
down through the chambers of the heart
all the vast faces frozen within eternity
the awkward, feverish blood
moving from star to star
with enchanting, mathematical cruelty
the endless apocalypse inside the womb
the hunger with which poetry burns
the promise for which the dust yearns...
(iii)
...aleppo child, you did not ask for life
neither for any gift of love
yet you sit amid the ruins
with only half a face
the men about you
hating the very air they breathe
how then can I or anyone
now give you back your trust in the world
your eyes accuse the lies
in every one of mankind’s promises
where men and women have learnt to laugh
with their mouths full of the ashes of their children
yet your eyes still will not leave me
they scream and scream
down into the hollow ethics of men’s words
every child’s broken life
is a god without a conscience
every child’s forgotten pain
is a thousand more years of hate
every child’s love
is a gift that powers the human soul
and for once
your eyes must never close with forgiveness...
(iv)
...as I stand trying to make sense
of each and every arterial breath
mountains, valleys, rock faces
all stumble towards me
all intent on splitting
the blue darkness beneath my feet
yet, undeterred, I keep on watching
as oceans now rise
arching across the deep, emerald skies
they have come, I know, to spit
some narcotic firmament into my face
and there, surely, howling through the salt rain
is the undeniable sting of words
hammering against my forehead
you exist only
for the sweetness of certain death
the wellspring of your rage
but remember, there is a beauty in nothingness
which has nothing to do with beauty
it is a crumbling, exhausted luxury
the inexplicable stability of cold atoms
just a few steps outside existence...