I can see that you’re enjoying the moment. Your eyes closed, your mouth curled at the corners in a subtle smile. We’re descending.

The background is Michelangelo—I note the anachronism of our gears, so with the pomp and circus let’s revise to Fellini, in splendid color-vision. It’s just us, though. The pilot has left. It would be heaven but instead of Rest, my heart is suddenly channeling Beethoven’s Ninth. A coda against the sky. It’s time: My clock has stopped.

“It won’t go,” I say weakly, oddly devoid of surprise, totally out of chime with the looming magnitude of demise.

Your lids fly open. You dive towards me like through water—which I fear more than anything else—and I become absurdly aware that this celestial sea is more or less the same, my eyes already drowning in defeat.

But my life is complete. I see you reaching out in exquisite slow motion. There in your face I recognize what I could never before bring myself to fully believe. For all my pathos, blinded by my conceit, misunderstanding your perfectionism; the trust implicit in your harsh critique.

You wrap your arm around this padded jumper as if it’s the single most important thing, mentally sweeping me off my feet, and I think to myself: Good God, will we go down together? Suddenly they’re closing the curtain on an act of Shakespearean suicide.

I am aware of only one word. I don’t remember who had the presence of mind to pull the other cord. The canopy unfolds and yanks us back to reality. I’ve lived. I’ve loved. I’m not afraid of flying.

soft morning light:

    & i am naming my desires,

    settling back into my memories,

        kissing teenage girls by campfires

        & lying to my mother.

i do not admit to wanting,

    even as i wake up beside the river,

    spilling water from my chest,

        considering dreams

        of white birds & cathedrals.

watching women

    from across crowded rooms

    is not enough —

        so i move to the other side

        of town & drink there.

a tender rain passes

    over the sleeping city

    as i pace restless

        in & out

        of my childhood bedroom.

violence, then —

    i would have preferred a hurricane,

    someone real to love,

        not faceless, whom to lose

        would be unbearable.

Rare diamond interred by the sea in

red blood sand sifting in hourglass,

drinking from cloudy glass of tears,

relentless ebb and flow of the tides.

I’ll stand here for one thousand years

opening up the wounds – a footnote

to pages of my stormy story of life,

gripping memories to my chest

of wet, naked souls carried away.

Countless dreams of lost lonely hearts,

salty smell of heartbreak, reaching

for shore of dreams, knowing I must

open fist and let false diamonds go.

My spark ceases but time marches on.

I envision my soul

As a withdrawn

Curled up ball

Of soft wool

Warm and thick

Waiting for its fine texture

To be unraveled

Protected by the bony skeletal cage

Of my body

Concealed by the perfectly sculpted facade

Of my face

And enveloped by the invisible cloak

Of my existence.

I drink a cocktail of moonlight,

A tempting witches brew.

Temptation transformation,

A lunar rendezvous.

With the essence of Hecate

Imbued in my veins

And Aphrodite's allure

Further ingrained

With each sip and each swallow

Of this enticing vervain.

If it's a witch that you seek,

Never have any doubt.

I am influence and power.

Beauty masks my clout.

And with this cocktail of moonlight

My powers increase.

Where the daylight leaves me dormant,

In the night, I will feast

As desire blinds your eyes

To the belly of the beast.

And with a pheromone call,

Attraction emanates

As he crawls and begs and pleads

And she salivates.

So, follow me, my loves

And find the release that you seek

With this moonlight cocktail procured..

Won't you have a drink with me??

In distraction, when frustration has me grumbling, the pretty butterfly flutters gently by on the breeze. My stuttering try at breath begins to ease for the beauty the eye sees in the message it brings on its colorful wings. My heart sings to tease my soul to peace with the melody that springs into the mind with the spirit's strings that start muttering a beat for the rhythm surrounding the heat of summer's end. The quiet journey of the rainbow's awkward, yet gorgeous pet commences to butter the bread of art's skill, perching on my window's sill to pause and contemplate the garden's still harmony. It reclines to rest and capture the sunset, posing for my quill, so tranquil that I try my best to promote the dozing of my little guest. Then I may watch my fill - drink in the sight - of the shimmering delight that sparks a symphony in vision through my imagination's path, until, alas, I have to sneeze. Off it goes, startled by the noises of my nose, to flit around a nearby rose, the perfect shade - so close in hue that it glimmers in the dew with the movement given by the shadow cast over it in flight, waving goodnight, sparkling in the dimming light as the sun sets to trimming the bright ends of its rays. Slowly, while it lingers, shining flirting fingers of its might onto the bobbing bug, the clouds tug the reluctant orb over the horizon, high on ozone. Weepy in farewell, they drizzle sleepy tears onto the ground where these sizzle gas into the atmosphere, adding prisms for the sphere to paint a mural as a backdrop for the floating incarnation of the bumbling caterpillar to dance in grace, before exiting the space. With a smile on my face, I say a silent goodbye to my distracting little friend. Thank you for the timely end to my impatient mumbling.

finally. 

we're doing it, 

we're really going places. 

I heard that you bought a plane ticket, 

so I bought a radio. 

I might take a bath with it. 

Our city reduced to trenches and dust particles

souls and and prayers swirled up with the wind

none could take a chance on us!

our hands groped beneath surface

as we breathed in the belly of the earth

rolling blasts, a transport to the afterlife

the world watched at a distance as we died

could they take a chance on us?

small screen and big ones too brought images into living room of the living

aye! ours was too rough even the Eagan Sea

could no stomach the burden

so many times it spewed the remnants ashore

but the loveless world pressed snooze when the alarm of terror at our lawn was raised

they could not take a chance on us!

we became a shadow of humanity

so undesirable a scourge no one would venture to speak out

so, we scurried through a death city

unseen and unheard,

miles and miles we marched away

seeking, pleading, weeping!

border passes cost more that a soul each way

yet bore no promises to free us from terror

we were not human—you see...

the world was no longer ours... we were shadows...

unseen, unheard!

some of us made it as far as Greece,

so close to living in open breeze,

and peaceful seas...

but the darkest cloud was not done with us

reapers came, clad in patrol garbs

riffles hanging down their waists

they'd come for us, it was obvious

they tumbled us down on the ground

impelling us with stones, tear gas and whatever was at their disposal

broken down, we crawled down the path

no longer clear or certain of anything

such inauspicious destinations—lo!

we shared tears bitterly gazing upon starless nights

upbraiding and sneers continued as we moved from place to place

mobs assembled around us howling like vicious beast

wielding bills with caricatures of our identity

our narrow escape came by chance

how we breathed or contained life for so long,

we could not tell

one thing was clear,

the world could not take chance on us!

so we followed the darkest path back to Aleppo!