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Nonsequence

Dream Poem

 

 

Dreamed I was writing a poem

That kept getting the words

Confused all I can remember

Is the phrase Thoughts must congeal

Surely the last words roiling

In my subconscious just before I woke

I recall in the dream I was pointing

To someone walls of sheer rock

Gleaming gray in the sunlight

On a mountain behind clouds parting

And again just before I rose

From bed I thought I must take down

These notes: Poetry is often found

At the edge of precipices

 

 

4 December 2016

Picture of clown Anas al-Basha
taken by Ahmad al-Khatip/AP

Epitaph for the Clown of Aleppo

 

 

How many lines does one

Devote to laughter?

How many to the sweet

Chuckle of children

In the middle of a city’s ruin?

                                         The walls

Continue to crumble, we inhale

Cement dust, particles of plaster,

Bits of mattresses, flakes of linoleum.

There is no letup to the shelling.

 

How many lines can one

Devote to candies and presents?

 

“He wanted to study history

But the war brought him where

He thought he was needed.”

 

“No one that knew him

Didn’t like him.”

 

​

8 December 2016

Multiple Choice

(Or What Makes A Life) 

​

 

What makes

What takes a life?

What or who 

Can take it away?

 

An obit says

“Natural causes”

A policeman says

“Nanlaban”

A congressman says

“Either the Chair 

Or EJK”

Your neighborhood

Fascist says

“What about their

Victims?”

The official fascist says

“Kill kill kill 

Or we become 

A narcostate.”

 

Those are our

Choices. If can’t decide,

Said our ROTC 

Training sergeant, say

“All of the above.”

 

 

19 March 2017

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