Ireland

Rhythm rolls over your poetry

like green hills roll over your countryside,

wet with words as the grass with the morning dew.

Tend to your stanzas as a shepherd would his flock.

And when the poem reaches maturity, carve it with the precision of a butcher,

but drink only its blood.

Beirut

The bright desert sun shines down on the tram,

overlooking clay biniya that sit between-

grassy mountains and the sea, cradled like a new-born.

The Mediterranean crashes

against large, rounded boulders like the stomachs of customers

bloated with shawarma and cous cous.

Cars speed through red lights

cruising around al-humra- 

biniya,

malls, jewelry and clothing stores
 of impenetrable glass.

The other buildings hide in bombed-out clay

and broken stone like the Wailing Wall.

A twelve-year-old janitor

mops up endless sand from the marble floor-

as I grab my hose and puff on arguilay,

wrapping my mouth around smoke rings-

just to prove I can.

Highland Park Block Party

Mr. Tarka wondered

"Why do wild-eyed girls
with long curly hair

waste days

reaching

for the skies

on the Showalters’ trampoline,"
 as he twisted his handle-bar mustache.

He watched the street fill
with ribbon-covered bikes

and the fields fill
with grills and expecting stomachs.

That night, his lights
were on 'til two

as the basketball
kissed the net,

making less noise
than a cricket.

Twelve o’clock heat
roasted my skin
while I headed down
to the pond-
where I saw his baby blue pickup
 drag dirt in its rear

as frogs left wet drops
 on green lillies.

I followed him down
to an empty lot
where he was building a house
with little more
than hammer and nails.

Between the Mountains and the Sea

The mid-afternoon sun beats down on the sheets

covering the cars, parked half way on the streets

and halfway on the sidewalk between the feats

of Khalil Gibran Khalil and Arab treats.

So sweet with honey-

Lebanon does not need Arab money,

or anything in the cents

of Americans envisioning tents,

or mansions paid by oil rents

when Lebanon is not Palestine

and when Lebnan is not Kuwait,

and where Lebnan cannot be mine

and Lebanon spreads her sectorial state,

still if she were a girl she would be my date,

a marriage made in love and hate

and one thing sure about our fate,

that we shall live forever to mate

those fractions of us that won’t stay

longer together than a day,

but come together as if to say

truly in Lebnan only the mountains can exist-

three cities and towns betwixt-

the sea blue and the cedar green,

love is cruel, love is mean,

 

love is Lebnan, in between.

South Sudan

My brush begins to paint a story

Bristling black, green and red gore,

Tents as far as the eye can see,

Blood as deep as red can bleed,

Bruises as deep as black can be,

The wind batters tents against burnt grass

An armored jeep prevents a pass,

A child cries, a mother dies,

Free at last, free at last

Free from hands so calloused they don’t heal,

Free from peace so brutal they can’t feel,

Bashir signs a treaty, and then violates the deal,

Makes a move for the land,

While the people weakened, can’t stand

Up to the homicidal maniac,

Employing child soldiers, cuts filled with crack-

Burning farms so there’s no back

To the food and water they lack

And legs so weak

They can’t stay on their feet.