I remember you

Perched on two hills
Overlooking Loretta avenue south
Just off Beech street
I sit on the porch smoking
Watching the oak
The tree beckons
The wind brushes through what will soon be
The green locks and foliage of her curls
It passes instead without a whisper
Through skeletal arms reaching heavenward

It has been Spring for days
There is still snow here
And you can't tell the difference
Between 10:00 pm or 3:00 am

You are here with me, I know
No matter where you may be
No matter who you may be
No matter the great distances between us
Because when the soul recognizes itself in another form
The keeper's of those hearts become traveling homes
Carrying each other in one another everywhere they may go

If love should find me worthy

If love should find me worthy

Should you find me worthy of love

Love is my Mecca, my Ka'bah 

Love, may the flowerbed of my actions 

drink generously of your waters.

Truth, may the house of my soul

be unlocked by your key.

Beauty, may the light of your moon 

illuminate the darkness of the unknown.

Mystery, may I be more than a plaything to your mistress

May she find me worthy of her secret shores

May love lead me gently out this labyrinth of mirrors

and half-lies into the obliteration and annihilation of truth

 

What is poetry?

It is a twist in your gut
It is knowing by feeling
It can be heard in the varying tones
of a heartbeat, or a breath
It is laughter, and often tears

It is alchemy
It is the mother tongue of the heart
It is a secret passageway
Through the gated walls of reason and logic

It has countless lovers
But it does not always get along with words
It can be as loud as thunder
Or as quiet as the distances between galaxies

Hell, Gravity is poetry
Planets and stars suspended in a rippling reflection
Over the surface of the ocean is poetry

A poem can be as harsh as nature and the cosmos are unforgiving
A poem can be a storm of asteroids, poisonous gas giants
And countless black holes in an uninhabitable desert
The size of God's imagination
A poem can be a tiny blue planet hanging in the middle of all this

The unrelenting vibration of the smallest building blocks, poetry
Electrons that have forgotten how to stop dancing, poetry
The way you look at me, poetry

Confessions p 27

Back in the old country, the poets say

I learned manners from the ill-mannered
I learned honesty from the dishonest
I learned faith from the faithless

haha
What a fool I was each time I cursed the world
When the source of my frustration
Was my own inability of such alchemy

Holy blasphemy p 1

I heard a zealot exclaim

Imagine you could hear God reciting scripture 

A hundred thoughts went off in my head

Not all of them pleasant

Yet I drank in his words 

Past the constriction in my throat

The copper aftertaste of dogma 

And the knot in my gut

Maybe that is exactly what we are hearing

Right now

In the stillness of the night

In the birdsong of the dawn

Maybe it is God reciting scripture

On the street corner busking for a buck 

In the marketplace hustling for a bite

Dinner for two or three or more 

Maybe it is God whispering scripture

Through the lips of family members and lovers

When they betray themselves 

When they betray one another

Because even betrayal is sacred

Because every stepping stone to forgiveness

Is a sacred ascension to a higher plane 

A love confession p 6

No, do not take off your chains
Because the way you carry them
Is what makes you beautiful

But just remember
Outside the bubble of names
Free from the narrow confines of words

Free from the whip of the egos in our soul
Outside judgment and superstitions

There is a place where "you" and "I"
Are just leaves blowing away with the wind

As we teeter totter
Over the edge of joy
And the brim of delight

Sharing one soul
In two different forms

confessions from planet Earth

Part I

I drank in the stars on those summer nights
I proposed to the Moon
Declared war against the Horizon
And tried to beat him to her every night
I ate and was given birth to with every bite
I was the one that had to experience everything for myself
I fell in love with the stories but had to make my own
I grew with the morning and made the night my lover
Because She tasted of something like astonishment
The old stories were true
Science was not born, Magic did not die
The beauty of the unknown remains our guide
I sang a lullaby to the sky from the mountains one time
And caught the world dreaming of something impossible
Something just like itself
I once tried to blind the Sun with its own reflection
I dipped into the recesses of my heart until I wrung light
Out of that tattered cloth passing itself off as me
I left pieces of myself everywhere I would go
Because I encountered pieces of myself everywhere I went
I preserved each love with the salt of tears
I broke fast with the hungry and the sated
I waltzed with the heavens, I stomped with thunder
Roared at the ocean and it swallowed me whole
I don't care what they say
I was a witness to an act of love so great
An entire Universe was born for its [story] telling

Stockholm syndrome

We stifle each other with
I care for yous
in a confessional booth

I adorn her neck with fingers interlocked
a chain of caresses choking out her sigh of pleasure
She handcuffs our hearts together
flushes the key down the toilet
and we smile

We seek comfort behind bars and locked doors

We are the miserable prisoner
dreaming of maximum security
and the watchful guard
threatening solitary confinement

We wear our shackles proud
We cannot stand to be alone

We drop anchor in the shallows
and long for the deep sea
We drop anchor in the shallows
and wonder why we flounder by the shore
We drop anchor in the shallows
and wish for the horizon to swallow us whole

thank you p 3

How does someone from almost a thousand years ago drive one to the brink of madness and joy...? I brought an 800 yr dead man a basket of tears and he left me with only love and joy.  
I am accustomed to seeing the world with my eyes. But you are revealing to me more and more beloved, that love truly does not die.

http://jamilahammad.com/rumiandshams/conversations.htm

a love confession p 5

They tell you
in so many subtle and discrete ways
that you are not worthy of love, of joy
And after a while, you begin to believe it
and you tell yourself
in so many subtle and discrete ways
that you are not worthy of being loved
of living each moment on the cusp of joy and brink of possibility

Let me remind you dearly beloved
that you are worth more than a sea of diamonds
you are worth so much more than any worldly treasure
Let me remind you dearly beloved
you are worthy of love, of joy, of being loved
copiously and unapologetically.
You are the flowerbed, love is the water
so drink beloved, drink and dance and sing
because we are here for this very purpose.

a love confession p 4

my mouth was broken at birth
i have nothing to offer
save this longing in my chest
for which i would raze my world
just to be with You

confessions p 25

I heard a love story
When I was a child
Or in the womb
Sharing my mother's dreams
And since then
I haven't stopped
Looking for my own.
As with so many stories
There was no beginning.
One day, like any other
I heard a whisper of the unnameable
Breathed in the fumes of its scent
Like water, and it was invisible
But it filled such lungs in me
That I knew nothing in an instant.
And just like that, I was in love
Though I knew not at the time
Because being in love
I couldn't fathom being out of it.
And I don't have the words
Not in a dozen lifetimes
To describe what happens in my chest
When I hear the faintest brush
Of my Beloved's skirts.

***

Soon She will send an army
To taste the color of my blood...
They will assume the shape of my fears
They will wear my face
Speak in my twisted tongue
Words from my own broken mouth.

***

I heard the sounds of Her army
as I was layering on warpaint
expecting a sea of swords
ruthless killers with my eyes
my own words morphing
into indescribable beasts, many-headed dragons
and everything else that dogma
had my mind imagining.
But just before the shadows of my fears
became solid reality
a crepuscular ray broke through the clouds
and what seemed at first a sliver of light
burst through the veil of the sky
It was like seeing the sun for the first time
like stepping out into color
from a cave of black and white shades.
And I saw Her army with eyes
no longer filmed over with veils
and instead of a sea of shields and swords
there were endless rows of roses
petals blossoming over and over
impossibly closer and closer
until they were opening up inside me
opening me up from the inside
opening and opening
and words failed me
there was just that burning longing
white flames licking at the home
I had carved from fear
and I wanted to weep it was so beautiful
but all I could hear were peals of children's laughter

***


(Love does not require bloodshed and empires
To test vows sworn in Her name
But She demands the whole of the heart that speaks them
and that is the greatest battle of all.)