Zeno's Conscience

This is a collaboration. I withheld the name of the co-poet out of courtesy.
Because it was more of a private conversation.



"I see you in your tower, made of wet cement
Right on the edge of the beach that meets the ocean 
And you laugh at waves that crash into you as though 

They're not breaking you down"



Your broken giggles are only solaced by soft frowns
As you peer through the dusty bars,
High above where you could whisper to the stars at night
"Are they trying to reach through, loud children of the vast blue ?

Or do they wish to bring upon my fall?"



"And in your arrogance you spill yourself like oil upon the oceans 
And light yourself aflame
You rage as the oceans underneath you wave indifferently
And the fires you set make your blood boil
The grinding of your teeth like a train screeching to a halt
The world that you leer over, the waves that break you down, all completely indifferent to your turmoil
You look to the stars again assuming that they too are concerned about your angst
And this time you shout
'These armies of the endless cyan
They seem to march hand in hand 
They demand of me what I cannot grant 
That their simple ways I understand' "



"Must be nice"

She thinks, as she lays on flimsy sheets painted indigo
Her remains burnt ashen, the last of her embers fusing with the main
And the waves chanting in one breath a soothing lullaby to kill off what's left of the arson

"Must be really nice, to be colorless"

"With such ease, this infinite bulk of transparent things
Would woo and appease , absorb the light as it feasts on the darkness"
"Lo, the infinite sky, the infinite blue
Rhymed so well,
Except for the vortex that lays in between,
That is I"



"But her I was naught but distraught 
Brought about by her inability to see, 
That what she looked down upon from her tower 
Was what set the oceans 
Free"



Looking at heaven from her place atop the ocean
Swaying in motion, so mesmerized and hooked
She forgot her arid scorn and so-valid condescension
And opened her eyes,
She truly saw, for once
One could draw a line so they could better define the far horizon
But the infinite, the nought,
What lays in between

They, in parallel, traveled
The boundaries unraveled

The further one looked.

For a long while I've been terrified witless of you.
Because on the day we met I got this weird pang in my stomach; I know what it means. I have complete trust in my guts at this age, you see.

I can't escape you.

I'll go around, and around, and around and I will still bump into you at some point on that mobius loop of illogical magnetism. 

11:28 pm

I hate you so much, I can't stand your presence, yet I still believe that I'm bound to you, somehow.

It is so very ,very scary; how my intuition is never wrong.

عيون بيضاء

فقد جسيم، يا صاحبي
ما ألمّ بمنكبيك
لكن الجفا قابع في حنايا الذات، وتكلس الجنان
عندما يعتري الحبّانَ

بعض النوائب، لبلية كبرى
وجه لم يتقن التكلّف، ذاك الذي ولدتُ به
محيىً يتنزه عن تزييف الأسى

حسٌ سقيم، من الصعب أن يبرى
و سيماء تنشغل بكي ثوب الرثاء
يبلى غير ملبوس
في مجالس الحوب
قلب كليم
فقر السيول على أرضه العقيم
لم تورثه غير جلمود

تقمص الدماثة ،يا رفيقي المكروب

حِمل قصيم
فأنا كما أنت
مهمومٌ، 
أرتجي سكناُ و تعزية، في كنف الغثاثة
ولكني اكتب، رغم تبحري في غياهب اللوعة
وبساتين العلقم
لعل ذي الأسطرَِ تمسي
عِذرة

قرأت مرة
أن بعض الشعر من ضروب البلسم

You truly could never die when a writer falls in love with you.

Small Hands

Sometimes I stop listening, when you start talking about your life
And just look at you, reflecting
So small and scrawny, like your shrunk existence is an apology
Treading softly so as not to disturb whatever peace you think
Was rife when you stumbled in
Always fumbling within your loose smocks for things to say
During long pauses of silence
I pretend to be amused by your attempts, the nervous tone in your speech
But I look at you and wonder how you managed to escape 
The reach of moroseness groping for your heart

You still smile, pleasantly so
One Prometheus that got away

I look at you, and wonder
How God plants the seeds of strength in seemingly barren land
You,
Should've broke years back, when life hammered the last nails
In the casket of your youth
Perhaps some are born with a natural knack for defiance against despair
See, resilience, in a world so unfair allows the small ones to slip unnoticed

But I look at you, and I dwell in shame

At how I frequently break and wring in desperation
Thinking that God has tested me with too great a plight
And too frail a might
I am weak, I say, as I cry alone in the still of the night
I have no will to live
And nothing to give
And this is just the beginning
Of the end

Veronica was right, when she decided to die

I
Didn't wish to leave on my own, I just wanted to want to stay
And I stumbled upon you
How you suffered, more than anyone I knew
How your heart is old in age yet your eyes are so bright
Like a sun been around for a billion years
How words trickle from your tongue like they want to ring in ears
And yearn to be sung like a jingle
How you wear your heart upon your sleeves, and never have to look for words
The way you still sparkle without trying

One could love you so much

Or else has to loath you for being a living reminder
Of their unworthiness
Of their greed
Of their ingratitude, and indolent attitude
Expecting things to be given to them as a natural right
How you find the greatest happiness in delights
So little

One forgets to notice them

How you want to live and live, for a lifetime and yet still want to live some more
Terribly
Awfully
Desperately 

One can only pray that life treats you  with grace

House Of Cards

Faith in another being, is so hard to restore, once it crumbles

Like a house of cards, so majestic as it soars

Yet a mere flick to its feet and the whole construction
Would fall into shambles

There is no coming back from there

What took years to grow constant, could disappear in an instant 

See, between a pair, it is only fair to ignore vicious stunts
If one is to enjoy the bless of harmony

With time, it could be done, and with a bit of patience

Forgiveness, though, doesn't come along with forgetfulness 

You could forgive the deed, too trivial to disturb your conscience on sleepless nights

You could move beyond a spar, but could never forget that the intention

To inflict a scar, so foul and sable, shall always linger

A ghost
With a shadow
Sitting at the furthest seat across the table

How is it that you never learn, building sheds in your heart from branches and shreds
To so "accommodate" people

Praying to God as you rip your chest open, to allow in the wind of benevolence
With tears at the brink of your valleys that your little town of paper doesn't burn
Upon catching a spark of incited rage

Burn to ashes
And turn to dust

How is it that you still look at your reflection with doubts in your heart 

Fumbling about your limbs to find fault with your own
How the notion of "trust"

You've grown into guileless idylls from Utopia

Perhaps such a trifling fray shouldn't have sat you apart, you say

And perhaps you are just being human, so habitually prone to error and folly 

Though you think, in this duo, you've got the greater share of virtue

It is God that forgives all, it's true
And bits of His clemency were placed within the holly 

So it seems, there shall always remain an Albatross of guilt hanging from your throat

No matter how hurtful ,the seam on your neck

And baneful, the garrote

But how is it that you are still so haunted by your past losses

Your flaws and short comings, magnified
The morbid echoes within the chambers of your mind,
Confused and amplified
That you never thought
You had the right to walk away ?

"Oh I'm a mess right now. Inside out."