Today in Syria (7.28.2011)

A large anti-regime protest
is taking place
in the Horns area
of Khaldiyeh

Security Forces
are heavily deployed
in the streets of Daraa

Several injured by gunfire
in the city of Deir az-Zour

Security Forces
conducted arrests
in the Matar and Mahatta neighborhoods

Heavy gunfire
could be heard
in the Dwar Ghassan area

Security Forces gunfire
injured a ten year old boy
in Qawriyah

A large anti-regime protest
is taking place
in Assi Square

A man who died on Friday
after being released from detention
had reportedly been tortured
by Security Forces

The people of Kanafer
held the funeral of two men killed
in recent protests

Zaher an-Nasser
was killed today
in Deir az-Zour

Security Forces
are storming Um al-Mayazan

More than five explosions
were heard in Zatakia

Violent clashes
between Security Forces
and Syrian soldiers
who split from the army
in Zabadani

More than one thousand protesters
rallied against the regime
in Qassir

Security Forces
arrested two members
of a National Committee for Democratic Change
on Thursday

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Jeffrey Feltman
said Bashar al-Assad
cannot stop
Democracy

Syrian Ambassador
Ali Abdel Karim Ali
accused the media
of exaggerating anti-regime protests

Almost 3,000 people
have gone missing
since the start of anti-regime protests
four months ago

On Thursday
Tawhid party leader Wiam Wahhab
said the current situation in Syria
will last for a long time.

Heatwave

Somewhere in New York
my sister
a dancer
is trapped
in an apartment
turned oven

Her cat
Milo
believes the heat wave
may be averted
by lying absolutely
still

The nightly news
advises listeners
not to go
outdoors.

Beneath your feet

Let’s be honest
this water doesn’t taste like rain
and the gap between my tongue and brain
is growing

My legs remember flying over blades of rock
and the feel of mountaintops
like roots beneath your feet
digging downward
to wrap their tendrils
around the humming heart of the world

I need to breathe again
the air that made these lungs
that tastes like being young
like bathing, from the inside out

Come with me
remember that its not all who you serve
and that good things do not come to the deserving
but to those in the right place.

Frenzy in the Rain

I’ve never seen frenzy in the rain
Not even in torrents falling from my gutters
Even colliding with the ground there’s
No gasping, no heartbeat pounding

I’ve never seen a cloud claw at the sky
Or fly in the face of the weather
Though I have seen them torn
To shreds by the wind

Lovesongs

If I had the words
I’d write you a poem an hour
and spread them like flowers
across your bed

So you could lay your head
on rhymes instead of pillows
dream of mysts and mountainsides
and wake to find
the ink staining cheeks
like a kiss left in your sleep

If I had the words
I’d write your fury and your frown
and the way your breathing sounds
so you could see yourself awhile
and know why I smile
at your looks and inflections
at your thoughts direction

(why i’ll take your hand in mine,
any place, any time)

If I had the words
I’d write a constellation of you
and hang it ‘bove your door
for the passerbys to view
with each verse a star
startling, bright, and new
so when I wonder where you are
I can look up at you

If I had the words
I’d write you oceansides
and meadows where you could rest your eyes
and dream instead of flowers strewn
across your bed, across your room

I’d write you beaches, warm and wide
and waters blue as glacial ice
of boats beneath the starry sky
where you could rest your cares in mine

If I had the words
I’d write you warm and safe
and I’d erase
every bitter pill I’ve ever chased
and instead, fill my cup
with thoughts of you,
with thoughts of us
And of escapes
we may yet take
to distant shores, on distant days
and how i’ll be there when you wake

And if I had the words
I’d write you lovesongs
and play them
when your radio’s on
so even if I wasn’t there
you’d hear the words and know somewhere
I was missing you
and of how
as long as thoughts and words allow
they’ll echo off the ether:
that if I’m not yet, I’ll be there.

Waking

Any morning set upon a path
crossing corniced snow or meadow grass
like any dawn breaking on your face
a vista no passing years may take

Waking to the dawn upon the dew
at rest upon your lips and on the boughs
a morning wind to stir them each
nourishing the moments that we keep.

These Silvered Walls

A greeting, drys and stains
even more with worn refrains
the distance between earth and stars
deep as silence, as lover’s arms
if all these missives
could build a wall,
still one touch would crumble down
as silence buries sound.

Words which travels miles and lives
to land on desktops
or mountainsides
to try to measure moments
and hear
the certain song
of this absent year

Sighs and whispers
‘tween each page
which no expression
can erase
to ferry o’er friendship’s fall
the words we meant
but could not tell

She’s shining back
from these silvered walls
elastic echoes,
a distant toll
soundless and profound
like waters to drown,
skies to sink to,
lover’s, laying down.

Surviving Tides

Hands which cling to truth in the rough divide
caught amidst the ambush of eroding tides
living seems to happen as we in it watch
never know the ending, only mounting costs,

night which fell so sweetly on my hull adrift
anchorless and aimless in the listless mists
whose cool caress with such potent power
would be my stars in thunder and smooth away the hours,

weight which hangs well noted on a soul besieged
pounds of flesh and sorrow on a mind deceived
limitless in scope- this strange oppression
making clocks of compasses in cruelty’s lesson,

fear which claws at vision and pursues survival
accepting no solution which could aid or rival
leaps at last upon me in rabid quest
finding crimson fruit, in pulses rest,

truth which lost its meaning before lights fall
collapses upon itself without death or toll
knowing its course is west o’er swells
to some forgone conclusion- fog, surf, and bells,

light which flows through clouds on a wintry sea
dispersing  into halo’s of uncertainty
finds no ships to save from rocks and reason
just wrecks upon the coast, from fouler seasons,

death which knows the course our sails set
chants of fallen sailors in the fickle west
providing no illusion save youth and distance
we ride the tide to dawn and a chance resistance.

Patriot

Toll the bells and leaves will fall
On winds of shadowy afternoon
Each to think as prophets guide
whose hands becalm raging skies
Independent yells the blue
beating chests and breathing minds
subject to these totem games
and passing girls in red and white
assert their long cemented right
of womanhood, without predictions
flagged fashion their addition,

Puppeteers and patriarchs
in vestige of the well-seen hand
guide the desert to our doorways
love the wind, but fear the sand
biting deep and blinding further
their case is greed, their method murder
and with each whisper growing near
doctrinaires poison sweet and clear,

Imbibing thus this blissful ticket
mind’s taken from the moment
we subside to acquiescence
patriot pride our condolence
and march unto the drums of war
‘til foreign hearts bleed no more
then crown ourselves king and queen
of empire lost and world unseen.

Peter Pan

Another day, another dollar
the sullen slip of the life we’re after
the chill and ache of nearing day
all hours passed, I should’ve slept
to come to grips with the one who left

No boardwalks, no bayous
no polished words, brackish baritone
no dawn to set aside the mist
just electric cloud capped monoliths

No world tour for this wanderer
no path out from missing her
just a starless night on a city hill
where streetlamp vengeance echoes still

I’m half afloat in the reservoir
drowning without sight of stars
over the rail without raft or rope
smiling as I sink below

Oh to look before you leap
to have such reason,
to hang life on more than belief

Its not like the lyrics tell
no speeches on doorsteps
no Neverland, no Tinkerbell
no love overcoming all
just murky waters set to mirror fall

If I knew how to love without grief
I guess I’d survive this
the life that you lead
if I knew how to love you less
if things grew better with time or distance
maybe I’d heal
maybe I’d mend
but I’ve no fairydust
and I’ll not pretend.