september 2021
(i)
...my dear, shy habibi
I have seen your wounded looks many times
and many times I have felt you pass
through the reticence of my soul
a shadow among shadows
healing yet hurting
this bitter transcendence
of never having known you
your breath as my breath
your hands as my hands
for without words, without touch
I was bereft of air
and left to cherish
only the wounded universe of your eyes
and so as I lived I died
stanzas choking my heart
watching the horizon
in case I missed again some chance to breathe
to love far beyond myself
this marriage to an impossible conceit...
(ii)
...just how far can this
intuitive counterpoint go
expletives, for example, fill the mind
and flies warm themselves in the sun
perihelion approaches
and these specks of dark matter
these liver spots on the backs of my hands
mark the end of immortality
clearly then, ribosomes are simply lost stars
and these trees, they too, are just signs of lust
of slow, unending penetration
expletives that rage and rage
at this massive helix warming itself in the dark
toying with extinction
a protein for vice
a lipid for the underworld
in vivo, in vitro
my hands crumbling
filling my mind
with some invincible, everlasting free-fall...
(iii)
...I ask why, why this brooding expanse
this white melancholy, this desert
why do they goad me so much
what is this vacant anatomy of my soul
where everything is truly nothing
and nothing truly everything
the so-called dust of inspiration
burning in my throat
this monstrous, monstrous act of caprice
the universe sweetened by violence
by pages covered with verse
weightless, blowing across the desert
the very last book
turning into sugar
and me, again, down on my knees
watching the blank expanse
this whiteness of some passing galaxy
pushing the earth
further and further from the truth...
(iv)
...this is the veil that is written
and this the mask that is sealed
this lava, this syntax
oozing from the earth
covering the seas with gold
with words for love, for transgression
with thoughts beyond even human reach
this gamble with the unknown
for to live and to be
are like ways of reading the air
of trying to discern immensity
from just some marks on a page
that terrifying space
where the seraphim still dance
hiding behind their fire
every hieroglyph, every sound and translation
of words becoming meat
of meat becoming air
this illusive choreography
of all that which is written in gold...