The desert is living in May,
Sipping joyously priceless water.
You are modest and shy in the day,
But at night you're Cairo's daughter.
Thread of camels against the sun -
Their saffron shadows melt...
You ask the same question, to stay or to run,
Every night as you put on your belt.
Your cymbals are black from the sweat,
The veil doesn't cover your face.
You're worshiping every sunset
A...

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I know, somewhere, on the other side of the Universe,

An alien man and an alien woman seek

Love.  Light could not guide their course –

They did not have eyes; they could not see.

They had genuine intentions, they always did,

A family or whatever it is called there.

They would count every single beat

Of their hearts if they could only hear.

They were married.  They would nev...

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No more asking of “what” and “why”;

As always, silence replaces the weeping.

I keep repeating that you are not alive,

But you are not dead either, you are just sleeping.

I hear your steps on the staircase,

Your voice rushes in, then, the smell of your hair.

You smile at me, and I look through your face

As the cold of eternity fills up the air

And rests on the lifeless face ...

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Our first snow in so many years…

Can you believe it?

See the white coat that our life wears?

Let’s just go out and live it.

I will not watch life through the keyhole

Hypnotized by the view,

When I can finally touch your soul

And tango with you.

I’ve grown deaf in the spring rain,

In the summer heat,

But now when it snows again,

I hear your heartbeat.

The snowfla...

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At first, they did not ask,

Because they thought

I could not speak.

I had birthday parties

Just like you, but

Something was missing.

I continued to chant

That I was not an orphan,

But it was no use.

Again, they did not ask,

Because they felt guilty

And it was too late.

I kept switching trains.

I felt half-blind,

Sometimes half-deaf.

I learned to smile

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When your soul returns to Ras Dashen many years from now,

Time will stop to acknowledge your final descent.

Time will give no pardon.  Time will take no vow.

As a child again, you will walk through the land.

At the mountain foot olive trees are the same;

They were guarding your peace from below and above.

When the world seemed unfair – this is where you came,

This is where you...

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I wondered into the British Museum

Accidentally.

I had no business being there.

“It is free admission,”

You reminded me.

“Free?  There cannot be such thing.

When visitors enter artifacts

With their minds,

They carry pieces away

Like a colony of ants.

It is destruction

Invisible to the naked eye.

Envious, greedy visitors

Stealing a precious collection

With ...

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I cut an apple

In two halves precisely.

Now how do I choose

The finer half?

Life is made up of

Half-truths and half-lies

And then of the almosts.

My half-live half-lived…

The other half is still

Inside the magician’s hat.

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The time is crawling

On this slippery Friday afternoon.

My body is trapped

In an hourglass room.

My poor empty body

Can no longer feel the pain.

There is a dry flower

In the corner.

I have been staring at it

For the past hour.

Does it crave love

That I can no longer give?

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It was me whose glimpse you caught

Hurrying,

Turning around the corner,

Wishing to go unnoticed.

It was me you felt

Sifting through your fingers

Like sand at dusk,

Sitting alone on the shore...

It was me you smelled

Walking through the autumn orchards,

Through the sunlit prairies,

Through the second-hand bookstores.

It was me you tasted,

When you bit an unexp...

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Cradle yourself,

Weep like a child

In the face of eternity.

What sins are you carrying

In your cow bag?

Take them out

One by one.

Place them on this stone

In the bright sun

So I can examine them closer.

“They will dry out,” I protest.

I laugh, “What’s the worry?

Are you trying to keep them forever?”

I pull back and hide

The bag behind my back.

“I am not...

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At the time of no poetry,

The silence weighs heavily

And sinks to the bottom

Of the spring like a stone.

At the time of no poetry,

The wind has stopped blowing,

And the landscape looks lifeless,

Draped in darkness.

At the time of no poetry,

My steps leave no footprint,

My silhouette is a shadow

Shivering from the cold.

At the time of no poetry,

I am alone and...

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Noise.  White noise.  Wallflower.

Whispers across the aisle.

Rising from the fog

Voice.  “A million dollars.”

Are they talking to me?

Unexpectedly and not likely.

Who am I in this noise?

Is my voice recognizable?

Buy some time sometime

And use it in a better world.

How much?  Charge it to my room.

When is it expected to arrive?

You do not know?  What about expre...

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My dreams locked behind

A thousand doors,

My genuine voice,

Life without remorse.

Self-portrait that’s free

Of the wrinkled despair,

Rhetorical questions

Of how and where.

Whimsical, drunken

Scent of the hope,

A love letter

Burnt in the last envelope.

I stepped on this land

And time ceased to exist.

Since then I had wondered

Whose image it is.

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