Gaza City

    built on wind-
    tossed white
    sands, - legends
    of never-ending
    olive groves
    & graceful looping
    brass keys.
    To jar open
    doors of memory
    once slammed
    shut by
    marauding
    trucks and
    armies on the move.

Borderland

Checkpoint. Film unreels. Are these flickering

sands,overexposed beyond all color real?

Uniforms the green of native pine

marking men from men when blindness suits

All alike, leaving no stone on the ground, no earth unfurrowed.

Olive groves bleed their oils, uprooted in their own soil.

     Lebanon Poem

        “the arid desert shall be glad, the wilderness shall rejoice
        and shall blossom like a rose. It shall blossom abundantly,
       it shall also exult and shout. It shall receive the glory
       of Lebanon, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
       They shall behold the glory of the Lord,
       the splendor of our God.”            - Isaiah 35:1-2


       “the righteous bloom like a date-palm; they thrive
       like a cedar in Lebanon; planted in the house
       of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God.”  
       - Tehilim 92:13-14


    The metronome of sprocket catching
    In frame edge, churns motion
    Through lense to engrave the retina.
    Image explodes, casting shapes.

    TVs of my childhood flicker fading
    Outlines, pulsating light patterns.
    The camera eye lingers, catching
    Angular shots, torn away walls

    Of a city I have never known
    That now invades the rhythm
    Of my breath, imprinting memories not mine   
    Until all dream worlds lead

    To the vision deferred and lying waste:
    The Switzerland of the Middle East.
    And the sound, Beirut, a call, a warning.
    To my untrained ear – a dirge, an omen.

    The evasion of years, I learn ways of blocking
    From mind the streaming images, burning
    Streets, buildings stripped, revealing
    Naked interiors, explosion after

    Explosion. Film negatives imprinted
    Under my eyelids leave no relief
    In blinking. The wasting of Lebanon
    Never fully diminishes, but lives on

    In me – a war I only saw
    Through camera eye remains
    Lodged behind my pupils, waiting
    To escape again into film, its origin.

Fear Tree

I feel the gnarled root of fear between us.
We brush against it as we draw closer.
It unfurls and grows to no good purpose.

You reach for me, I reach, we cannot touch.
Some shadow interferes and I am sure
I feel the gnarled root of fear between us.

Silhouetted branches line the sky, thrust
Knotted limbs across horizons, obscure
Trees, unfurl and grow to no good purpose.

The crystal globe clouds and shatters across.
Cards in the tarot deck lose their order.
I feel the gnarled root of fear between us.


Morning breaks greyly, I wish you were close
To me, easily won, but your distrust
Unfurls and grows to no good purpose.

Come sun, come rain, come snow, come hail, come frost,
You and I find no path twisting nearer.
I feel the gnarled root of fear between us.
It unfurls and grows to no good purpose.

Poem ala Gish Jen

Despite wrong-headed

worldview, this boy,

who became a man,

(almost while

she wasn't looking),

continued to hold some

fascination for her.

And at pale twilight

this seed

germinated

until

it gave birth to

a multiplicity

of ideas.

Language Acquisition


I rely on alphabets, sounds

springing off the page.

Consonant clusters

align themselves

to written lines

and arabesques.

Vowels, dipthongs

hover between breaths

dotting above or below

the horizon edge,

cues to a code

of muting and silences

sibilants and plosives.



Architectonics

For Lionel March

Palladio encoded
His name, the
Golden ratio,
Aesthetic meter into
Proportion in
His designs.
The architecture
Hints at his signature
In the stature
Of every column
And portico.
Ratios of
Width–height–depth
Descant
Palladio, ф Phi.
The clefs
Of an architect's drafting
Metronome
Waltz out across
Palatial salons.
Archways, gardens,
Vaulted ceilings
Playing lyrics
Of roots unsquared.
Series of ratios
Perform ornate
Partner dances
Spiraling out to spell
The architect's initials.

    The 'Azazel Goat


    The ram returned to Jerusalem, wool

    wearing the occasional burr, here and

    there, ruin of its lie amid the bramble.

    Off the side of a hill in khaki-white sand

    thrown, jettisoned, a ram fell, tumbling

    in the myth of Sisyphus, a stone

    cascading down; horn, hoof, ram-lock blurring

    into Judean desert wadis. Bedouin

    legend grasses in dry riverbeds, springing

    up in white light dust, store dew. Rain

    comes seldom in this season, to this hill,

    where the smoke of the bulls mingles and

    the sweet incense loses itself

    in the crisp fruit of blinking succulents

    briars and thorns, grounding sky to soil.

Olive Fire

Chill threaded winter

Black skies, dark eves

Steal in through open windows, crevices

Frame Broadway’s streams

Of neon flickers.

Fluorescent city – electric lanterns

Shape cold air into reveries.

Lights small as holly fruit

Window sill candle trees

Stretch full branches upward, bearing lit flames.

Rumor of Macabees.

Olive cruse,

Oil alight but not consumed, flaming white

And blue, sun-color, an octave’s

Flares, rekindling

A people that was, that are, that will be,

Preparing a space

Where fire eases winter’s chill, rising

Upward blithely.

Olive trees, olive oil, on Bleecker Street

Too, Hannukiot on display.