THE BLACK STEED

Kay Hassan

Darker than  the dead of the night
Onyx  like - the stone of  the height.
Silhouetted  against the summer  light
shoulder to shoulder, raced  the  wind
And in the memories of the  highlanders,
No one had seen braver than her
As thunders are to clouds
-Black  and her holy  knight,
Were to the darkness of the height .

Despite the cracks of those  cruel  demons
Who  acted  akin to the tail wagging the dog
Black was forever on the move,
Came  and went with the brightest  moon
And  rived the light like a divine harpoon

                                 ***
Stately, someday,  Black’s  lord,
 Died with A LITTLE VERBAL  Will:
‘ Wake on my grave for three nights, boys.’
Fatima , the maid who cared for  Black.,
Was to her a twin to twin,
Startled in  the middle of  her dream,
When the smokes of the watch-fire
stretched away like a steady  scream
Fatima  was   woken up , and ran out
 Dazzled though  by  a  siren like shout.,
 Cried in her native language ;
  ANFAL HAT , ANFAL*…                            
                           ***
Fatima  knew the word  in a religion must
 Is  a   metaphor  for  every kind of rape.
‘Alas,’  gasped  she and shouted..
 ‘ Black…Black …Black,
My  dearest sister, Black .”

                        ***

Fatima the damsel  of  the old house,
  climbed the hill of the Gottesacker,
Where through the villagers  fled,
And  the  Height’s fighters - in dread ,
 Had   given  the ground very early ,
Escaped the battle. (Eagle like surely.)
                     
***
                             
Fatima knew none of her lord’s boys
Would be  giving up his joys
And waking on his father’s    shrine
But  for her duties ,(Fatima) was certain
 Black would …
Without dropping  to her a line   ….
                               ***
She hugged her in  a great fear,
“ Sister,“ yelled she. “Lets run, dear .”
Black nodded with tearing eyes,
Through a bunch  of whinnies and   neighs
Though she  did not speak  horses’  language,
 In what  her  sister  had   just uttered,
Fatima  perceived , the horse’s courage
Was the  ultimate  honor of the black steed
“Regret me not if  I  forced you to  decline ‘
‘Flee you won’t make a good concubine,’
“ Black !” Fatima  too, cried .
” For   God‘s sake, sister, flee.”
   
                          ***
Black forgot how to neigh,
Denying , to be an easy prey
Plied her vocal  cords  to play
 A big  melody for her last day
“ Oh beautiful daughters of  Highland,
 Remember my gallops, and sleight of hand
Softness, agility and  wind like beauty
And all things of  my foremost - duty  .’
I won’t flee this battlefield ,  girls ,
Even if was not through  my entire course,
A descendant   of any  great horse.”

                         ***

We left our lands for the  devils,
 Who flattened houses, men and fields
To sing  “We are storms  we are lions.’
And then, the time passed  so  slowly,
That  the snow covered the whole  heights,
Before even hit the first winter’s nights
But, nevertheless, no one since the day,.
 Saw Fatima sewing behind the window
Or   Black galloping  in the meadow.
                    *****
                     ***
                       *.
 

         Long Version

Black and Fatima

Darker than the dead of the night,
Onyx-like—the stone of the height.
Silhouetted against the summer light,
Shoulder to shoulder, raced the wind.
And in the memories of the highlanders,
No one had seen braver than her.
As thunders are to clouds—
Black and her holy knight,
Were to the darkness of the height.

For in those days, when God’s name echoed
From every stone and every prayer,
It was said the Almighty Himself
Had shaped Black not by the power of “Be, and it is,”
But with His own hand—
As He once formed man from the dust,
So too did He sculpt the noble steed,
Imbuing her with strength, grace, and spirit
That no mere word could bestow.
Her mane was woven with the night’s own silk,
Her courage poured from the wellspring of the Creator’s heart.
In every hoofbeat, the echo of divine intention;
In every breath, the memory of God’s touch.
Thus did Black stand—
Not only as a creature of legend,
But as a living testament to the Lord’s craftsmanship,
A guardian shaped by sacred hands
To keep vigil over the pious and the beloved,
Defiant against the diva and the darkness
That haunted the heights of our home.

Despite the cracks of the cruel demons
Who acted akin to the tail wagging the dog,
Black was forever on the move,
Her hooves drumming defiance through the valley’s hush.
She came and went with the brightest moon,
A shadow gliding swift over trembling fields,
And rived the darkness with a harpoon of light—
Not merely fleeing, but cleaving a path
Through every snare the night had set.

No spell or malice could slow her stride,
For in her heart burned a courage
That no demon’s laughter could ever quench.
She was the answer to every whispered prayer
That rose from our frightened homes at dusk—
A force that split the gloom,
Unwavering, relentless,
A living promise that the shadows
Would never claim the last word
While she still ran beneath God’s watching sky

***

Stately, someday, Black’s lord
Died, leaving only a little verbal will:
“Wake on my grave for three nights, boys.”
Such was the custom, believed to shield
The bones of the pious from the diva’s wrath—
A tradition older than memory,
Rooted deeper than the stones of our village.

Fatima, the maid who cared for Black,
Was to her a twin—soul to soul,
Bound by silent understanding,
By the hush of stables and the rhythm of gentle hands.
But on that night, when the world was torn open,
Fatima was startled awake in the middle of her dream,
As the smoke of the watch-fire
Stretched away like a steady scream,
A warning unraveling across the sky.

She ran out, heart pounding,
Dazzled and blinded by a siren’s cry—
A sound that was neither mortal nor divine,
But something beyond even God’s ordinary power,
As if the heavens themselves recoiled
From what was to come.

In her native tongue she cried,
“ANFAL  HAT, ANFAL…”
A word that, in her faith,
Was a shadow cast by men,
A metaphor for every kind of rape,
Every desecration that language cannot hold.

“Alas,” she gasped, her voice breaking,
“Black… Black… Black,
My dearest sister, Black.”
And in that cry, the world seemed to pause—
As if even the angels held their breath,
Unable to intervene
In the sorrow that now swept the heights.

***

Fatima, the damsel of the old house,
Climbed the haunted hill of the Gottesacker,
Her steps steady, heart pounding beneath the weight of memory.
Around her, the path was scarred by hurried footprints—
The villagers had fled through the night,
Their shadows swallowed by fear and the unknown.
The fighters of the Height,
Usually fierce as mountain storms,
Had yielded the ground early,
Their pride and valor scattered to the winds,
Escaping the battle—eagle-like, surely—
Their retreat swift, silent, and sorrowful.

Yet Fatima pressed upward,
Her resolve shining in the dusk,
A beacon against the trembling dark.
She moved with purpose,
Her every breath a silent prayer,
Her every step echoing with the memory of hoofbeats—
For she climbed not only for virginity  alone,
But for the bond that tied her to Black,
And for all the stories that would be lost
If she did not face the gathering night.

***

Fatima knew, with a sorrow that settled deep in her bones,
That none of her lord’s sons would come—
Not one would abandon the fleeting joys of safety and shelter,
Not one would brave the haunted night
To keep vigil on their father’s grave,
As tradition and honor demanded.

The world had changed overnight;
The old customs, once as solid as the stones beneath their feet,
Had been scattered by fear and the thunder of distant guns.
The sons, once proud as lions,
Were now shadows in exile,
Their absence a wound that bled into the heart of the house.

But Fatima, bound by a duty older than blood,
Felt the weight of memory and promise settle on her shoulders.
She knew, with a certainty that needed no words,
That Black—the family’s midnight guardian—
Would not forsake the vigil,
Would not abandon the resting place of the one who had loved her.

No whispered message, no hurried farewell,
No note left behind in the hush of the stable—
Yet Fatima understood:
Black would be there, drawn by loyalty deeper than command,
By a devotion that did not falter in the face of darkness or dread.
It was a silent pact,
Forged in the quiet hours of feeding and care,
In the gentle brush of hand against mane,
In the unspoken language of trust
That needed no witness but God.

And so, as the village emptied and the world was undone,
Fatima felt the pull of that sacred bond—
A promise kept not by men,
But by her soul who crafted Black,
Who would stand watch when all others had fled,
A sentinel beneath the indifferent stars,
Keeping faith with the dead and the living alike.

***

The Ultimate Farewell

In the trembling half-light,
Fatima threw her arms around Black’s strong neck,
Clutching her as one clings to a memory
On the edge of being erased.
Her breath came in ragged sobs,
Her heart pounding a frantic plea
Against the silence of the hills.

“Pray you, sister,” she cried, her voice splintered with fear,
“Let’s run, dear, let’s run—
Before the world swallows us whole,
Before the soldiers and their shadows
Find us in this last refuge of night.”
She pressed her cheek to Black’s warm flank,
Tasting the salt of her own tears,
Hoping, for a moment,
That love might be enough to save them both.

Black, the midnight guardian,
Met Fatima’s gaze with eyes shining,
Wet with a sorrow that words could never hold.
She nodded, a gesture almost human,
Her body trembling with the storm inside her—
A chorus of whinnies and desperate neighs
Rising from her throat,
A music of terror and longing
That echoed across the empty fields.

Though Fatima had never spoken the language of horses,
She understood, in that shattering moment,
Everything her sister wished to say.
In the flicker of Black’s ears,
In the defiant lift of her head,
Fatima saw a courage
That burned brighter than the watch-fires,
A loyalty that would not yield
Even as the world collapsed.

“Regret me not if I force you to decline,”
Fatima whispered, her voice breaking,
“Flee—you won’t make a good concubine.
You are meant for the wind,
For the freedom of the hills,
Not for the chains of men who know only how to destroy.”
Her words hung in the air,
Heavy as a curse,
Heavy as the fate that had befallen them.

“Black!” she cried, her voice rising in anguish,
“For God’s sake, sister, flee!”
But Black stood her ground,
Hooves planted in the earth as if rooted by the hand of God Himself,
Refusing to abandon the place of memory,
The grave of her master,
The promise she had made in silence.

In that moment, time seemed to fracture—
The world shrinking to the space between girl and horse,
Between hope and despair.
Fatima’s hands shook as she pressed her face
Into Black’s mane, inhaling the scent of grass and sweat,
Of all the lost days of childhood,
Of every morning spent in the stable,
Of every evening spent beneath the stars.

The night pressed in, thick with the threat of violence,
And Fatima knew, with a certainty that hollowed her soul,
That this was goodbye.
No words could bridge the chasm opening between them,
No prayer could undo the ruin that marched ever closer.
She clung to Black,
As if by holding on she could keep the world from ending,
As if love could be a shield against the coming storm.

But the world was already ending,
And the gods, if they watched, wept in silence.
The hills bore witness to the breaking of a bond
That had outlasted fear,
Outlasted even hope.
And as Fatima staggered back,
Her hands empty,
Her heart shattered,
Black lifted her head to the sky
And sang a melody of loss so pure,
So piercing,
That even the stars seemed to dim in mourning.

There, on the haunted hill,
With the darkness closing in,
Fatima and Black stood—
Sisters in spirit,
Divided by fate,
Bound forever by a love
Too fierce for this world to hold.

***

Black forgot how to neigh,
Refused to be an easy prey,
Her voice, once a gentle greeting at dawn,
Now rose with new purpose—
She plied her vocal cords to play
A melody vast as the valley,
A song spun for her last day beneath the sky.

It was not a cry of surrender,
But a hymn of defiance,
A music that soared above the ruined fields
And swept through the broken hearts of those who listened.
Her notes carried the memory of wild gallops,
Of moonlit races across the highland grass,
Of the sleight of hoof and sudden turn,
Of softness, agility, and wind-like beauty—
All the gifts bestowed by the hand of her Maker,
All the things she had cherished as her foremost duty.

“Oh, beautiful daughters of Highland,”
Her song seemed to call,
“Remember the thunder of my gallops,
The grace in my stride, the courage in my heart.
Remember how I danced with the wind,
How I bore my burdens with pride,
How I never bowed my head to fear.

Let my memory be a banner for your own wild spirits,
A reminder that dignity is not in blood or lineage,
But in the choice to stand,
To sing,
To face the darkness with eyes wide open.

I will not flee this battlefield, girls—
Not for fear, nor for the promise of another dawn.
Even if, through my entire course,
I was never counted among the descendants
Of any great horse,
Still, I will hold this ground,
And let my last song be a testament
That courage is its own inheritance.”

So Black’s voice rose,
A melody that lingered on the wind
Long after the world had fallen silent—
A final gift, a legacy,
For all who would remember.

***

We left our lands for the devils,
Who flattened houses, men, and fields—
Who came with fire and thunder,
Turning orchards to ashes and laughter to dust,
So they could sing, “We are storms, we are lions,”
Their voices echoing over the ruins
Where our stories once grew.

We left behind the scent of bread at dawn,
The hush of prayers beneath ancient roofs,
The warmth of hands that once built these homes,
And the graves of those who taught us to hope.
We left, and the world behind us collapsed
Into a silence so deep
That even the birds forgot their songs.

And then, time passed so slowly—
Each day stretching into a gray eternity,
The hours heavy as stones,
Until the snow covered the whole heights,
Blanketing the wounds of the earth
Before even the first winter’s nights had come.
The cold crept in, not just to the fields,
But into the bones of memory,
Freezing every echo of what was lost.

But, nevertheless, no one since that day
Saw Fatima sewing behind the window,
Her hands moving with patient grace
As the light faded from the hills.
No one heard her laughter drifting from the yard,
Or caught her silhouette against the evening fire.
No one saw Black galloping in the meadow,
Her mane a banner on the wind,
Her hooves drumming the old songs
Into the heart of the valley.

Since then, we have wandered—
Carrying our stories like embers,
Trying to keep them alive against the wind.
The devils took our land,
But it is the silence that claimed us,
A silence where names are whispered only in dreams,
And the faces of Fatima and Black
Are shadows we chase across the snow.

We left our lands for the devils,
Who flattened houses, men, and fields,
To sing, “We are storms, we are lions.”
And still, the time passes so slowly,
The snow falls, and the heights remember—
But no window is lit by Fatima’s lamp,
No meadow is stirred by Black’s gallop,
And the world waits,
Haunted by all that will never return.

***

Indeed, within my heart, I miss you both—
I miss you, Black.
I miss you, Fatima.

                    *****
                     ***
                       *.
 

( Anfal :  The Act of  Looting  and Killing   Which is  Legitimately  practiced by Muslims. )
Black,  absolutely, truly , really- indeed  was one of our horses, was taken  in the Anfal).

Gottesacker, or God acre

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To Marx

To Marx with respect.: I wrote this, while I was working  at  a construction site
and felt there is no  insult worse  than saying .'YOU HAVE NOTHING TO  LOOSE..' 

To Marx with Respect"

Oh, Good Man, hey... good man, hey,

My sibling in anarchism,

I am a universal beast,

Laden with the wrath of a thousand gods,

And the echoes of prophets’ bitter cries,

Breathing Poseidon’s poison,

Down from the Celestial thrones of the Twelve Olympians,

To where you stand now, armed with a hose of words,

To quench dreams with dreams,
Through unrhymed, terrestrial verses.

You were a fine rhymester, kid,

But lost your way in the labyrinth of middle books,

Or beneath the weight of your friends’ humiliating funds—

Though you never felt the sting of their pain.

You never swung a hammer, nor bled from a splintered hand,

Nor knew the joy of an apprentice’s toil,

To learn what a labourer’s loss might mean.

Would you raise a triumphant sign,

Somewhere, to deliver the coup de grâce?

The giant corpse you declared dead still breathes,

And it won’t fit your metaphoric pit—

For you’ve never mastered the art of digging.

Confess, good man, I dare to say:

You have never peered into the depth of such a pit,

Never felt the weight of its shadows,

Or the ache of its unyielding walls.

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The Dwindling Empires

Kay Hassan

Let me  go , we’re  barbarians ,
Not real  subjects  of  your terrains
Behold  how thy cities are  bleeding ,
And the  empires are  dwindling
Breaking down into money-dust
While, under the cities' shelters ;
 The Bohemian wanderers
Unto  genies whisper
‘Besmila.’ *  
Money is  man,
Man is a bank account.
'I am horrified.'
 ‘Besmila .’

Tongue-less, chocked  sighs,
 Barefacedly,  turning blind eyes,
To the threats of the price.
'Besmila.'

Man of    one-way , bro
Is easy come, easy go,
 Let him go, he is a bastard
Let him go  he is a barbarian

"I am the emperor of all  concerns"!
Concerns?  You have not any! Your Majesty,
Money is a menial pursuitThy empires are dwindling
And thy subjects turning into  money
The menial pursuit  is Man ,
Man is a string of number in  the local bank.
With  none of Socratic concerns.

*“Besmila :  From Qumran via the Bohemian Rhapsody. Literally,  means.'In the name of God.'”

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OUR WATERFAL

Waters of  seven springs
Flowed for  so many  years,
And never came to a halt,
They rushed  marvelously, churning,
  Against the rocks and roots ,
Running anxiously  to our water fall
Sweet , turbulent;
 Brighter than  ghostly beetles.
Crushing  into the purest  foams  ,
To mirror,  for a moment,
 The cold rays  of  Motherland,
Splashing, then, down the tower ,
  Over the old  Sage’s bower ,
Who was practicing the reality  of non-being, ,
Under  the ripe -heavenly pomegranates
Around the  bluest billabong …where
 We swam for a   hundred years ,
With the bones of our  ancestors ,
 Until  someday  a sphinx ,
 Showed us how fragile,
  Our so called  Fathers were ,
Even ,the sage  disappeared,
Squeaking. , after it was too late,
‘Darling ,  run," screamed he..
"OH,  holy father ,  we have  already  gone."

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SONG OF ILIUM

Kay Hassan

Pray  in me,  dear goddess,
Don’t   break  me down  into  dusts
I am  a  mortal who for thy joy
Had hit his way  to the shores of  Troy,
Leave me  not in the middle of the oceans, .
 I am nothing,without thy lust;  dear goddess,

Even with all those  holy  shields
Never had  readied  to burn Troy,
It is  you who  had breached the  law,
To make in me a  war-libertine's claw ,

Live   in me and  rhyme  your  song,
I am dearer  than  thy  pilgrims,
To seek  remedy in  your   temples,
Kiss thy  Black-est Stones*
Or taste the Eucharist* - bread

Play  not with my few years
They are dusts of  your sins.;
Will be then
dwindling on a thousand  altars,
Even if I grow the wings of Pegasus ,
Or was honored by the  company of Odysseus;

Tho' 'm  not in step with thy peers
Listen  to my  diamond tears,
They are echoes of  Troy's years  ..
...........................

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THE LAST PHILOSOPHER

Kay Hassan
 When,  a  philosopher ran out of all  motives,
Lonely,  wandered off to  the city  ,
And  wept  for the death of his  day,
Spewing out  streams of  holy-gibberish,
 And kept  roaming down towns and  streets,
Until awkwardly stole a glimpse of   his  glorious wife ;
Fluently, selling all kinds of  precious stones .
Quite in accord with  Harvard Business Review ,
He, the poor Philosopher  screamed:
‘Woe  is   me,   Aristotle!    (‘For Aristotle‘s dental logic.)
We are impractical phoenixes,’ said he,
And ran to the river’s estuary,
Ardent to fetch  the finest  river -stone.
Where  he was  shredded, over  a thousand  of them,
 until screamed in the light of his moon
‘Here are my  mentors' stone . ’
And took a hold of the  most unkind  one ,
To set it, in the morning,   on the  class'  display - board
Where he looked   taller against his disciples' word
Until a  sharp  growl escaped his mouth- trumpet:
‘See how  this magical alchemy ,
 liberate  the Cosmos from the Existence atrophy.'
And  bashfully,  the dodger left  the scene .
And farewell-ed his disciples and   triviality.

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Language Dies in Hospital

Kay Hassan 

A language Died in Hospital
Without  plans  for   Pow wow
When Hazel Sampson,
 Of  Olympic Peninsula
The  descendant of Lord James Bach,
And  a grandmother
  Of four generations
Lay  in hospital  without clan’s  bows
By her language  like a queen  with  her crown
Klallam, Klallam, Klallam

Hazel neither  was  a cloud thunder,
Nor the  water of  Death Valley , or,
Apaches  of  the southwest terrain   ,
 Or had Cherokees’  Olive  skin
She was Hazel whose body was
shrouded with silk tram
And had  just lullabied
the last sweet  tongue  of Klallam;
Who  hunted, mated and  fought ,
for a thousand years , OR MORE,
And made the  lexicon for all deeds
But are now dying in  hospital ,
With her tongue and  her  language grammar.
But everything froze in one word.
 Klallam, Klallam, Klallam.

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RIDDLE OF MY CITY

Kay Hassan

The Riddle Says::

On the gray stones of the old  bridge,
In   the city of  summer and  fire,
 A blind beggar endures;
The rays of  the cruelest sun,
And the harshest daggers of tongue.
Where  steadily stretches  his  hand
From the  twilight  dim  ,
To the close of the day
Cries unto  passers -by
For God’s sake:  Hit me forty  lashes,
And take this handful of gold;
It is the dearest  dust of  my city,
And  is all what  I posses though,
Take it and pass - me- through
If  are not satisfied thy,
Get in with mine- delightful  wife - three,
And take the Solomon's treasure- key.
                     ***

. .

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A ZOROASTRIAN MASTER

Kay Hassan

In the realm of retrospection, my heart resonates with a lament for an  Indian Zoroastrian Lady, whose recent act of sacrifice reverberates through time. She, who parted with her sole haven of prayers—a rare papyrus vessel encapsulating the Zoroastrian creed's cosmic essence. Ironically, it is amidst the parlance of bootleggers that I find myself occasionally imparting to her son, "Ah, the irony, my friend, for we stand as the true heirs of Zoroaster. A revelation unsought, a legacy concealed."

As swarming locusts devour the fabric of your creed,

Delicately unravel your cocoon, let your spirit take the lead,

No maritime authority guides your course, a tale obscured,

For rocks resist the dance of currents, their secret unheard,

In truth, no steadfast companion by your side will stand,

No refuge found in ancestral caves across the land.

Unfurl your sail, descend the towering cliffs with grace,

To verdant pastures where your lineage finds its sacred place,

Refrain from concealing your diamond visage in mountain's shroud,

Bid adieu to servitude to monarchs' steeds, cast off that shroud,

Engage in the strategic game of life upon wisdom's board,

Master silk's artistry, intricate fabrics richly stored.

Or beneath Hephaestus' gaze, within Xenophon's echo's frame,

Embark on art's odyssey, forging mastery's flame,

From the gold of your weathered soul, sculpt a magnum opus rare,

A virtuoso of skills, crafting existence beyond compare,

Il miglior fabbro, the sovereign creator of temporal rhyme,

A craftsman of epochs, defying the limits of time.

Yet, amidst this transformative symphony that you undertake,

Inscribe within your essence the wisdom that you'll make,

Forgo the fervor of scripture's quill, the "Damn Divine Book" refrain,

Let life's alchemy be your guide, the eternal truths to gain.

                                                                                         ***

Read the poem in a simple form

“This is my  recent  regret to  an  Indian  Zoroastrian  Lady  who  had sold ,  for  her son’s journey,  her only  prayers'  book ; the rarest  papyrus of  the Zoroastrian cult in the universe.     Ironically, however ,in the  bootleggers’ language,  every now and then, I tell her son . ‘Alas, we are the real heir of Zoroaster,  you should  have told me, man. ’”

When  swarming  locusts   digest your cult
Gracefully rip up your cocoon,
You have no maritime command,
And rocks are  never like waters,
Truly,  no one  would  stand by you
No more hide in the ancestors'  caves.
Set  a  sail  down  the towering mountains ,
To the pastures,  where your folk shall dwell,
Don't hold back or
 hide your diamond  face in the mountains,
And never work on  Kings’ horses again,
Play the  longest  game of the chest,
Learn the  trade of  silk  yarn-ing- fabric knitting  ,
Or  under  Hephaestus,   (If you are angry at Xenophon,  remember he was  the worst student of Socrates.) 
Acquire skills in  arts and  metal smith-ing,
To forge  out of the gold of  your  tumbledown soul,
 the best craftsman of all time ;

  il miglior fabbro*.
But   learn not to  write  any Damn  Divine Book.

*Dante   via T. S.  Eliot.

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ALEXANDRIA

Kay Hassan

The city of Alexandria in

                     I

When you set sail for Alexandria's shore,

Don’t tread lightly, the ancient tales implore,

No guiding star above its storied ground,

Amidst khamaseen's rage, no solace found.

No rapacious augur should dare intrude,

Not one of Magi with their gifts imbued,

Nor speak in dialect of Alexandria's birth,

Yet sit with Cavafy, poetry's hearth.

Tribute to Hypatia, wisdom's guide,

Lady of Socrates' truths implied,

Dine with Neo-Platonists' discourse,

In Ptolemy's realm, 

measure Mediterranean shores,

And  azure tide.

 Listen to papyruses' whispers, 

read history's pride,

and reconstruct Lighthouse's beacon,

 a flicker's grace, 

where ancient trace,

 hidden in its embrace.

Slow down, passer-by, heed history's plea,

Embrace the city's soul, 

and take your of its legacy,

None shall grasp Alexandria's essence,

But transient souls, not bound by pretense.

‘My Sibling -’

Resist the urge to weave myths anew,

The Macedonian boy, Achilles true,

Dug a thousand graves in timeless sand,

Not the best grave digger, you understand.

‘You are from nowhere,’ echoes the wind,

‘Et-Ego-bin-nicht-terrestrial’ pinned,

Let's, then, son of no man's domain,

Explore the city's joy, turmoil, and pain.

Philosophers graced these ancient streets,

Euclid's geometry, genius replete,

Hypatia's brilliance, a guiding light,

Plotinus' Neoplatonism's flight.

Philo bridged faiths, philosophy intertwined,

Plotinus' wisdom forever enshrined,

Origen's Christian teachings profound,

Alexandria's scholars, wisdom's crown.

Remember, your dimention,

Though you are in Alexandria,

Far from Giza,

Pharaoh's shadow looms o'er sands of old,

Pyramids, relics of tales untold,

Moses' myth, across the sea,

Tales for all to see.

Cleopatra's love, Antonio's embrace,

A queen's allure, a conqueror's grace,

French and English, landing on her shores,

Empires clashed in history's wars.

Through bustling alleys, storytellers weave,

Echoes of philosophers, wisdom to believe,

Screams of the city, a symphony profound,

In each cobblestone, history's sound,

In  looking for Ptolmies' cemetry,

Local archeologists nodded to me:

If you are keen to feel Ptolmies' remains 

Cry on the tombs in the western cemetery, 

But I went deep into the city,

In markets alive with vibrant hues,

Voices rise, blend with ocean's cues,

Bazaars of knowledge, treasures to find,

In the city's heart, my soul, 

makes the universe combined.

From Euclid's math to Hypatia's gaze,

Wars and wisdom, through history's maze,

In each whispering wind, tales unfold,

Screams of the city, stories of old.

Amidst dustbins, treasures still reside,

Echoes of conquerors, battles fought with pride,

Eloquent waiters serve memories on a tray,

Amid screams of the city, whisper and sway.

Let the tales of Alexandria take hold,

Screams of the city, stories unfold,

A symphony of history, passions aflame,

In every corner, the city's vibrant name

                         ***

Indeed 

when  you set  sail  for Alexandria,
Don’t  treat  the  season lightly,        (Like Bonaparte-   Not part of the poem.)
 There is no star -above  the city.     ( In  khamaseen. Not part of the poem)
Don’t be any   rapacious augur,
You are none of those three Magi,     (Laden with gold, frankincense, and myrrh at Bethlehem's night .Not part of the poem. )
 And not  speaking  Alexandria's Dialect,
To  sit with Cavafy  in the city’s  cafés,
  Or  give a tribute speech  to  Hypatia ,
 the  lady of  Socrates’ Trades.  
And  dine with  the  Neo-Platonists ,
Or measure  under Ptolemy,
The shores of Mediterranean sea
And classify the ancient papyrus  in the Royal  Library!
Or  glimpse even a  flicker  from  the ancient Lighthouse,
Slow down, passer-by ...you are tired,
Slow down and learn;
None of those wretched passengers  shall come to the city,
Thou arst,  but a  wicked passer-by,
‘My  Sibling -’
Don't fix the myths  of Alexandria ,
The Macedonian boy   was a stray Achilles,
Dug for himself a thousand graves.
You are not the best grave digger,
‘You  are from nowhere.’
‘Et -Ego- bin -  nicht - terrestrial.’
LETS   THEN; SON OF NO MAN,
Hit  the  city where hungry breeds,
Digging up dustbins for Pharaoh's  leftover-  ‘I MEAN TOURISTS’ LEFTOVER‘ IT IS NOT PART OF THE POEM.
  And listen to  the eloquent  waiters ,
Holding  blurry glasses  for  the cheapest  bitter ,
Cackling - politics, like sluts in hurry.

The original Version

One Night I Hit the City of Alexandria

                           

                       I

When you embark for Alexandria’s sacrosanct littoral,

Eschew—eschew pusillanimous perambulation, I vociferate, I fulminate!

No sidereal scintilla perforates her khamaseen’s obfuscatory penumbra,

Amidst its Stygian paroxysm, no solace avails—my fissured optics incandesce!

I am the peregrinator, an apocryphal eidolon sans lineage or nomenclature,

A phantasmal cinder, where astral pyres excoriate the psyche.

No rapacious haruspex dares profane her cosmogonic demesne,

No Magian hierophants, laden with auriferous oblations, obtrude.

Nor articulate her thalassic vernacular, an antediluvian litany of woe,

Yet I, I consort with Cavafy, hierophant of logos refulgent!

His stylus a meteoritic arc, his taberna a liminal rift in temporality’s veil,

I intone her verities, though none arrogate them to my apophatic essence.

Tribute to Hypatia, sapience’s apotheosized cynosure,

Socratic scion, her verities incised in dialectical radiance.

Sympose with Neo-Platonists, their ratiocinative maelstrom an empyrean vortex,

In Ptolemy’s cosmographic hegemony, calibrate the Mediterranean’s littoral,

And its cerulean effluxion, a numinous confluence.

Harken—papyrus susurra, an anamnesis of historiographic hubris,

Decipher chronicles’ vainglory, etched in aeons’ detritus,

Reconstitute the Pharos’s effulgence, a scintilla’s thaumaturgic grace,

Where primordial arcana,

Occulted in its sidereal embrace, persist.

Tarry, peregrinator, heed temporality’s vatic imprecation,

Apprehend the urbs’s anima,

And arrogate its perdurable bequest.

None shall apprehend Alexandria’s quiddity,

Save evanescent pneuma, unfettered by mendacious pretense.

Her lithic conduits are cosmogonic filigree,

Each arenaceous palimpsest a sidereal annal of hegemony’s evanescence.

From Alexander’s pyric scintilla to Caesar’s ephemeral diadem,

I ululate her epics where empires immolated their essence.

Her zephyrs, not risible, but vatic keening,

Prophesy through chronos’s atramentous interstices.

               

                       II

“My consanguine!”—I vociferate, from an aporetic no-man’s liminality,

Abjure refabricating Alexandria’s mythopoeia anew!

The Macedonian ephebe, Achillean in pyric apotheosis,

Excavated sepulchers—a chiliad!—in her perdurable silicates,

No preeminent fossor, you apprehend, his ossuary relics deliquesce.

“You’re nusquam!” keens the zephyr, my phantasmal affinal,

“Et-Ego-bin-nicht-terrestrial!”—I grimace, apophatic and feral.

Let us, then, progeny of nihility’s demesne,

Plumb the urbs’s euphoria, its excruciation, its anamnesis.

His fevered psyche, unabsolved by sidereal apogees,

Carved a cosmopolis where mortal oneirata converge.

Yet Alexandria’s anima transcends his pyrrhic triumphs,

Her pulse a thaumaturgic cadence through aeons’ anfractuosity.

I, peregrinator, dance through his spectral detritus,

My vox a cacophonous antiphon to his evanescent glory.

Her vicissitudes hum with hegemon’s umbrae,

Where Caesar’s legions and Ptolemaic dynasts bled.

I weave their shades, their pyres, their broken scepters,

In alleys where temporality’s veil is shred.

               

                 III

Philosophes traversed these heliacal arteries,

Their cogitations a conflagration of logocentric virtuosity.

Euclid’s schemata, a reticulum of astral ratiocination,

Map order through chaos’s ineffable anfractuosity.

Hypatia’s coruscation, a cynosure through cosmic penumbra,

Socratic scion, her logos excoriates dogmatic fetters.

I genuflect at her fane, her scrutiny my perennial litany,

Her immolation a cicatrix that haunts my aporetic psyche.

Plotinus’s Neoplatonic ascension, a transcendental apogee,

His Monad a sidereal summons I claw with raucous threnody.

Philo’s syncretic span, entwining Hebraic and Platonic epistemes,

I perambulate his trajectory, though stars my path subvert.

Origen’s Christological exegesis, ontologically profound,

His vox a pyre through celestial interstices.

Eratosthenes, calibrator of Terra’s cosmographic ambit,

His sieve of primes an epistemophilic talisman.

Callimachus, poet-scholar, wove elegiac tapestries,

His pinakes taxonomizing nous’s boundless arcana.

Apollonius of Rhodes, bard of Argonautic peregrination,

His epics echo where Alexandria’s muses incant.

Arius, heresiarch, sundered Christendom’s dogma,

His disputations reverberate in her annalistic agorae.

The Bibliotheca’s cinders, a veil I rend with apotropaic spite,

Its umbrae ascend, codices ablaze with empyrean light.

Calliope ululates, her mythopoeic vox my lodestar,

Clio’s calamus, annalistic, inscribes temporality’s arcana.

I, peregrinator, sans radix, sans requiem, sans supplication,

A vatic lost in her empyrean ocean.

                IV

Recollect thy dimension, peregrinator,

Though ensconced in Alexandria’s empyrean embrace,

Distant from Giza’s monolithic penumbra,

Pharaonic umbrae loom o’er arenaceous antiquities,

Pyramids, reliquaries of apocryphal chronicles,

Mosaic mythos, traversing the mare’s vast hypnogogia,

Narratives for omnifarious apprehension.

Cleopatra’s eros, Antonio’s concupiscent embrace,

A regina’s numinous allure, a conqueror’s ephemeral grace,

Gallic and Britannic incursions on her selenic littoral,

Hegemonies clashed in historiographic belligerence.

Through crepuscular vicissitudes, mythographers interlace,

Umbrae of philosophes, noetic verities to embrace,

Screams of the city, a symphonic apotheosis,

In each lithic sigil, temporality’s resonance.

In quest of Ptolemaic sepulchers, occulted in aeons’ detritus,

Autochthonous archaeologists, with taciturn acquiescence,

Proffer: “If thou art fain to apprehend Ptolemaic vestiges,

Lament o’er the ossuaries in the occidental necropolis.”

Yet I, peregrinator, forswore sepulchral lamentations,

Plunging into the urbs’s thaumaturgic epicenter.

Her agorae effloresce with cosmogonic tinctures,

Vociferations ascend, amalgamating with thalassic susurrus,

Emporia of nous, arcana scintillating in esoteric splendor,

In the urbs’s nucleus, my pneuma,

Consummates the cosmos’s synergetic confluence.

Her alleys are sidereal filigree, where temporality deliquesces,

Each cobblestone a rune, pulsating with thaumaturgic cadence.

Mercators’ cries transmute to oracular litanies,

Their wares effulgent with littoral arcana—seric, myrrh, and stardust.

I palpate a textile—it resonates with thalassic cosmogonies,

A piscator’s reticulum, entwined with Orion’s apothegms.

Tabernae flicker, lucernae casting necromantic glamour,

I consort with Cavafy’s umbra, his stanzas an oneiric incantation.

Fumous tendrils trace sidereal hieroglyphs,

I divine fata in caffeinated lees’ apocryphal configurations.

Servitors glide, their salvers a sidereal liturgy,

Their cachinnations interweave through Alexandria’s nocturnal apogee.

Each calix elevated—a grail of cosmographic arcana,

I imbibe her verities, though I’m nusquam’s progeny.

Her bazaars are empyrean crucibles, where phantasms scintillate,

Each hue a strophe in fate’s ineffable canticle.

I wander, astray, where shadows intone her nomen sacrum,

Her vicissitudes portals to eternity’s ambrosial bloom.

Beneath the selenic orb, alleys writhe in cosmic terpsichore,

Hypatia’s umbra glimmers in sidereal resplendence,

Her vox a susurrus from inframundane transcendence.

From Euclid’s logocentric calculi to Hypatia’s perspicuous scrutiny,

Belligerence and sapience navigate temporality’s labyrinthine anfractuosity,

In each zephyr’s susurrus, chronicles unfurl,

Screams of the city, annals primordial.

Amidst detrital receptacles, arcana perdure,

Umbrae of hegemonists, belligerent hubris immured,

Eloquent servitors, hierophants of anamnesis,

Proffer reminiscences on salvers of tarnished patina,

Amid screams of the city, susurrus and oscillation.

Her markets pulsate with oneiric effulgence,

Each cry a thaumaturgy, each stall a cosmic fane.

I see Callimachus’s shade, taxonomizing muses’ lore,

Apollonius’s epics hum where waves and stars implore.

Arius’s disputations echo, sundering dogmatic chains,

In Alexandria’s agorae, where eternity reigns.

Let Alexandria’s mythopoeia enrapture,

Screams of the city, chronicles in apotheosis,

A symphonic historiographic conflagration,

In each crevice, her numinous nomen resonates.

                V

“You’re nusquam!”—the zephyr’s vatic dirge, my cicerone,

An evanescent eidolon, sans locus to arrogate.

No sidereal chart, no nomen to hypostasize,

Yet Alexandria’s conflagration immolates my ossified state.

Am I an umbra, a scintilla in her thaumaturgic effulgence?

A Nous’s scintilla, or cinders where constellations fray?

The urbs’s rictus—O, a cosmic falchion’s edge!

“You’re the aporia, incised on eternity’s pledge!”

Cavafy’s umbra, in tabernae where lucernae oscillate,

Inscribes stanzas where my pneuma’s both anathematized and consecrate.

I imbibe his logos, my vox a cacophonous antiphon,

I’m hers—though sidereal apogees disavow my genesis.

The Pharos collapses, yet haunts my febrile phantasia,

Its scintilla vociferates—O, through the astral anastasia!

What verity perdures where hegemonies transmute to detritus?

I ululate, I excoriate, through temporality’s unyielding crevasse.

Plotinus susurrates, “Seek the Monad, be consummate,”

Yet agorae enchant with vita that eviscerates.

Hypatia’s scrutiny, through aeons’ sidereal interstice,

Commands I pursue the verity, though verity’s my precipice.

In emporia’s radiance, I descry the cosmos gyrate,

Each mercator’s vociferation a litany where numina create.

I perambulate, apocryphal, through vicissitudes’ thaumaturgic anfractuosity,

My pneuma a comet, immolated in her sidereal effulgence.

Callimachus’s pinakes, a taxonomized cosmogony,

Apollonius’s Argonauts, navigating her thalassic odyssey,

Arius’s heresies, fracturing Christendom’s episteme,

Their voices weave through Alexandria’s oneiric dream.

I, peregrinator, am their echo, their aporetic refrain,

A vox clamantis in her cosmic, ineffable terrain.

                       VI

What’s this urbs, but an incantation in my venae?

A crucible where mortal oneirata and pangs amalgamate.

Colliding with sidereal numina, with apotheosized specters,

I, peregrinator, her cosmographic arcana dissect.

The Muses terpsichore where Bibliotheca’s cinders incandesce,

Calliope’s pneuma inflames my apocryphal essence.

Clio’s calamus, with annalistic sidereal inscription,

Inscribes my nomen—though I’m no mortal’s depiction.

Cleopatra’s eros, a comet’s pyric apogee,

Conflagrates where memoria and mythopoeia agree.

Her vox, her oculus, through temporality’s numinous veil,

I ululate her nomen—O, concupiscence’s cosmic trail!

The khamaseen fulminates, yet her anima’s unfettered,

Her lithics are constellations where mortal pneuma are tethered.

Each vociferation, each susurrus, weaves a sidereal filament,

I hymn of vitae that amated, contended, exsanguinated.

Her vicissitudes a cosmos, her lithics a sidereal mare,

Each anima a comet—none more errant than I ensnared.

In Alexandria, diurn and noct traverse,

I, peregrinator, am hers—her thaumaturgy’s verse.

Her agorae are empyrean crucibles, where phantasms scintillate,

Each hue a strophe in fate’s ineffable canticle.

I see Hypatia’s shade, her scrutiny a sidereal flame,

Plotinus’s Monad, a vision no mortal can tame.

Cavafy’s verses, etched in tabernae’s crepuscular glow,

Bind my pneuma to her eternal, cosmic flow.

 Coda

Indeed, when you embark for Alexandria’s littoral,

Eschew—eschew pusillanimity, like Bonaparte’s hubristic vainglory!

No sidereal scintilla in khamaseen’s cosmographic tumult,

I, peregrinator, expectorate conflagration from my vociferation!

Abjure haruspex’s avarice,

You’re no Magian, laden with aurum, olibanum, and myrrh at Bethlehem’s nocturn!

Nor articulate her vernacular, an antediluvian litany,

Yet consort with Cavafy in tabernae of numinous gloaming,

Or apostrophize Hypatia,

Socratic scion of logocentric vocations!

Sympose with Neo-Platonists, their dialectics a sidereal maelstrom,

Or calibrate, sub Ptolemy,

The Mediterranean’s thalassic ambit,

And taxonomize antediluvian papyrus in the Bibliotheca Regia!

Or glimpse a scintilla from the Pharos’s empyrean,

A flicker defying thanatotic dogma!

Tarry, peregrinator, thou art languorous,

Tarry and apprehend;

No execrable itinerants shall apprehend the urbs,

Thou art, an aporetic peregrinator,

“My consanguine!”—

Abjure refabricating Alexandria’s mythopoeia,

The Macedonian ephebe, a vagrant Achilles,

Excavated for himself a chiliad sepulchers.

No preeminent fossor, you apprehend,

“You’re nusquam!”—the zephyr keens, my vatic cicerone,

“Et-Ego-bin-nicht-terrestrial!”—I ululate, I excoriate!

Let us, then, progeny of nihility,

Assault the urbs where voracious pneuma proliferate,

Excavating detrital receptacles for tourists’ sidereal residuum—

Not Pharaonic detritus, ye ephemera, I mean their oneirata!

And harken to eloquent servitors,

Proffering obfuscated calices of the most exiguous ichor,

Cachinnating civic dialectics with precipitous alacrity,

Their vociferations a thaumaturgy, a sidereal liturgy.

Screams of the city, a canticle in thaumaturgic apotheosis,

From Euclid’s calculi to Hypatia’s scrutiny,

From Ptolemy’s tides to Cavafy’s stanzas,

I, peregrinator, am hers—for temporality’s consummate anamnesis!

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DEVILS

Kay Hassan

Oh,  Almighty … Dear  me,
 Look what those demons have got:
Eyes:  are  brighter than thy angels'.
Words :  are sharper than daggers ,
Poisons: are sweeter than thy Grace,
Lyrics:   are rhymed swifter  than, thy books,
 And  they are  luring   sharks,
quicker  then   Maldoror
Our  lovely devil :
The mighty chap of Les Chante de Maldoreor.

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SUPERIOR

Kay Hassan

Brother ; Master of  quarks ,
I am brewing bones of  the ancestors,
And  the Geometry of the old  graveyard,
On  the milky way,
Holding,  in exile, our  hermitage on my shoulders ,
And listening  to the big bang  preachers ,
Matrix- ing   Finnegan’s  waking -night,
 By The Three Quarks for Muster Mark!

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Immigrant

Kay Hassan

TO MY UN-ROGUE FELLOW
(A Chant for the Exiled, Beyond the Edge of Time)

Let us go, then—you and I—
when the sky is not a sky but a wound peels back,
a god’s forgotten suture,
stretched taut above the city that was never ours.

You—un-rogue, half-born of vanished maps,
your life not lived but counted in stolen breaths,
in rooms where the walls speak in erased languages,
where the dust is not dust but the powdered bones
of every shrine you ever failed to burn.

There is no flame here.
Only the ghost-taste of a tongue you cut out yourself,
only the father’s name rotting in your throat
like a coin placed there by the dead.

You gnaw the bones of second birth—
but they are not bones, they are the fossilized cries
of the hollow men, the fragments of a cult
you dare not pass down,
not even if your blood screams
with the hexameters of blind Homer,
the last command of Caesar’s ghost,
the steppe-wind’s hunger,
the prophets’ strangled vowels,
the whimper of Judah
drowning in its own gold.

You are the riddle.
Not the sphinx’s—but the answer no one wanted.
A wanderer in a city that erases itself as you walk,
your pride a funeral shroud stitched from old flags,
your confidence a mirror that shows only the wall behind you.

Death grins through you.
You are not a man but the pause between two heartbeats,
the white space in the letter of condemnation,
the joke the executioner tells the axe
before the blade falls.

Now.
School the caged beast—your rage, your unwritten epic—
not in words but in the silence between gunshots.
Rise—not toward any heaven that would have you,
but past the stars’ deaf witness,
past memory’s black hemorrhage,
past the blight that flowers in your name.

Un-rogue- fellow,
Un-rogue- fellow,
Stop somewhere
And show your tears
You are  not a  thriller-
You are a  grotesque mask

No matter how you Mourn  Your  Luck,
School  thy raging soul - and for good,
Lift  up  yourself ,  higher than ever,
Then  look up unto  topmost- eyes,
Not At Your Past ,Your  Nethermost Region.:
Your ancient arsenal of MALICE.

Do not look to the grave’s embrace—
look to the light that comes before dawn,
the light that is not light but the tearing of the veil,
where malice unravels into wind,
where time is a scroll burned to ash,
where you—no longer rogue, no longer ghost—
stand, for one impossible instant,
not shining, not redeemed,
but finally, flawlessly—
stay empty.

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MEDES DIASPORA

I am mourning  horses of  Ecbatan*  ;
Steeds  of Medes’ pastures
Galloping   in the meadows with thundering hooves,
and waves of  flowing manes ,
Drinking winds of the  ancient   forests; *The hotbed of  burglar gangs -now. (This is not part of the poem.")

I am mourning Mede's Court
 The education*  school of
The Cyrus the Great

I am mourning the four stalwart.,
 Tenderhearted dogs of my childhood,  "The dogs of the  old Vella."
  Brewing regal temperament
among-st  vulgar  cackles and groans.
 .
I am mourning  chambers of  theology ,
And  books of grammar -written with  Saffron waters,
  The parchments with straps and clasps ,
Of  Medieval  binding and (Razi's  Herms- head,)

I AM MOURNING  ILLITERATE BARDS,
 READING, IN INDELICATE BOOKS,
A THOUSAND  SHAHNAMEH*
 FOR OUR GLOOMY WINTER  NIGHTS,

I am mourning scholars had put trust .
 In those  creamy papyrus, and ,
 Never, in searching for Heaven,
 Taught  disciples  to hit the city for blood  ,
Or shout in the streets:
 'War is the only  act of God.'

I am mourning  my language - and my brothers,
Who are forged  in the furnace of a million  smiths,
To crown a little king, with  a giant whore.

*Ecbatana.
The image from  Wikipedia.
*Shahnama ;  Epic written by the Persian  poet Ferdowsi .
* Xenophone   - Book of Cyropaedia.

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THE SAD HEIGHTS

Duritiæ vestræ est saxa
Neque aqua neque sermones

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Official Google Blog: Who links to your site?

Official Google Blog: Who links to your site?

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GLOBAL STORIES

I HAVE NO SUCH A GIANT TONGUE TO SPEAK OUT MY MIND.

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A TREE ON PACIFIC

Kay H.

"If I could kiss your sole once again, Mother."                                     I SAT BY THE HARBOR,  TALKING TO THE  WIND, LIKE A HOLLOW TREE,  WEEPING FOR  ANCIENT SOULS,  FOR MIRACLES.  IT WASN'T THE  WISDOM'S  SEASON  THOUGH I  HEARD  A PASSER- BY, IN DISGUISE, WHISPERING "THE DEATH IS  THE ONLY RELIEF MAN IS  SCARED OF." BUT WHEN I TURNED AROUND ; OH DEAR Me- DAMN  ! HE'S  GONE.

If I Could kiss bottom of Your Sole Once Again, Mother

(A Poem of Hollow Harbors and Vanishing Voices)

I sat beside the harbor,
conversing with the wind—
a wind too old for answers,
too bruised to sing.

Like a cathedral of bone,
I waited,
weeping into the salt,
for souls that once were miracles
and now—are myths.

It was not the season for wisdom,
and yet,
from the mouth of a passerby  in borrowed form,
came a whisper shaped like prophecy:

“Death is the only mercy
man fears to meet.”

But when I turned—
Oh, wretched awe—
he was no more.

(The Unbelievable Epilogue)

Then—
the tide rose
in your voice.

Mother.
Your voice.

It called through the shivering dusk:
"Child, kneel not to the wave.
Do not tithe to the gale.
The sole you seek to cradle
has crossed the quiet veil.
Yet I am near—
in the ache between your steps,
in the salt behind your silence.”

I clenched my hands—
or were they yours?
For time had folded.
And the dead do not speak.
And the sea does not lie.

But there—
your shadow grazed mine.

Now, only the wind remains.
Only the hollow.
Only the unbearable almost
of your vanished soul.

No lips.
No breath.
Only absence—
and the memory of weight
where once the world was touchable near you.

***

And then—  then— 
where the tide bloomed beside me,
not water, but your voice:
"Child, do not kneel here.
The sole you grieve is not drowned—
it becomes the horizon’s edge,
the salt-light where waves fray.
Touch this instead: the air
where my shadow once weighed
the world down."

I reached—
(the bloom dissolved like a sigh)—
for the dead refuse nothing,
but take no shape we recognize.

Yet there it was:
your name,
written in wet sand
by no hand.

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