Tag: #Freeverse

I have no collection of poems or tiny messages
wrapped in wax paper / delivered by little gnomes

I see no fortunes ahead / in miniature globes with snow
handed to little fingers with pointy wedged toes and

there are no fancy delights ringing in our dreams of 
sugar plum scenes / nonsense to lessen the pain of No!

I cannot deliver magic and abundance on twinkle twinkle 
little star without acknowledging the loss / the tragedy / the sorrow

that lands on our door / cleaving open the closed / bitten heart of denial 
reigning pain / on our cities and towns / onward they march as we cower / we clamor

we collide in the streets / the thrumming of the New Year threatens / assaults / our confidence
lost in the dreams / some believed / some not / some scurry in doubt / and some— some retreat. 

©Jay Mora-Shihadeh

Photo by olia danilevich

Don’t beg me to enlighten and entertain that intellectual
old man who was your professor, or may well have been 
on his bike pedal/ peddling/ mingling on your stoop 

charming you to listen to his worldly
knowledge and the reading of his little book 
on astrology and moons.

He once gave you a reading 
typed on rice paper
cut, bound and glued,
a tiny thumb-book 

gifted— 
as clever as his bifocal laughter and 3 speed
peddler/ tooting his horn for your glamor
and youth. 

Who made him the boss of you?

©Jay Mora-Shihadeh

Photo by Brett Sayles

Blank documents/ in retrospect
alight the nascent day
sun cresting the horizon

meteor showers/ salted debris 
black canvas/ infinite twitches 
flicker against the night

the mind creates 
a fortress/ to ground the body 
to a meaning/ a purpose
to greet each day—

as the turning of lathe to leg 
on wooden post.

Would the Creator grumble if broken?
Of course you ask the obvious
not mistaken for frivolity—

you jester 
a crooked smile 
then proceed with caution. 

©Jay Mora-Shihadeh

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

I ask myself to batch it all up 
and let go
float the raft down the river
and watch it wash up later
downwind

stop pretending this doesn’t exist
and face the truth 
when will I see that it was part of my 
skin 

all the wounds
all the lines
all the ugly spots—

I chose to ignore

I try, I do—

but, however I parse it out
I lose in the end
the meaning—

of why 
I tried again, 
at all.

©Jay Mora-Shihadeh

Photo by Hamza NOUASRIA on Unsplash

We bleed fatigue now
as contagion and war spreads itself
like jam across the universe

jamming mutations / mutating jam 
from reason to reason to gone fishin’
perhaps no reason existed, just mutation.

Fatigue recites a Soliloquy
to the few who engage 
a wide-eyed gaze 

at the mutant vibration 
of mutations—
living amongst our dead.

We plod on with our day
fatigue welded to the end 
of our words—

muscles atrophied / nerves deadened.

Fatigue engulfs like petrol on water
flames / bombs / fire's
in our mind’s eye
skies lit / trauma’s blaze

a trail through Millennial moments—

but those mutants are mutating
again / the bitter bitten 
bastard enemies
of our future dreams—

Act One complete!

©Jay Mora-Shihadeh

Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash