#pomes

Holy father I can’t pretend I’m not afraid to see you again but I’ll say that when the time comes I believe my courage will expand like a sponge cowboy in water. My earth- father was far braver than me —  coming to America he knew no English save Rolling Stones lyrics and how to say thanks God. Will his goodness roll over to my tab and if yes, how soon? I’m sorry for neglecting your myriad signs, which seem obvious now as a hawk’s head on an empty plate. I keep waking up at the bottom of swimming pools, the water reflecting whatever I miss most: whiskey- glass, pill bottles, my mother’s oleander, which was sweet and evergreen but toxic in all its parts. I know it was silly to keep what I kept from you; you’ve always been so charmed by my weaknesses. I just figured you were becoming fed up with all your making, like a virtuoso trying not to smash apart her flute onstage. Plus, my sins were practically devotional: two peaches stolen from a bodega, which were so sweet I savored even the bits I flossed out my teeth. I know it’s no excuse, but even thinking about them now I’m drooling. Consider the night I spent reading another man’s lover the Dream Songs in bed — we made it to “a green living / drops limply” before we were tangled into each other, cat still sleeping at our feet. Allow me these treasures, Lord. Time will break what doesn’t bend — even time. Even you.

Hawthorn Pomes

Young Mahmoud Darwish, (Palestinian poet and writer)

محمود درويش في شبابه، شاعر القضية الفلسطينية

His Life:

Mahmoud Darwish was born in "Al Birweh" Palestine (1941), During the establishment of the State of "Israel" in (1948), his village was destroyed and his family fled to Lebanon. As a young man, Darwish faced house arrest and imprisonment for his political activism and for publicly reading his poetry. - Darwish published his first work of poetry "Wingless Birds" in (1964), when he was 19.

His Poems:

I am from there, I am from here. I am not there, and I am not here. I have two names, which meet and part. And I have two languages, I forget which

We love life if we find a way to it. And we plant, where we settle, some fast growing plants, and harvest the dead. We play the flute like the color of the faraway, sketch over the dirt corridor a neigh. We write our names one stone at a time, O lightning brighten the night. We love life if we find a way to it…

If the canary doesn't sing to you my friend know that you are the warden of your prison