East avenue irregulars hahaha that’s who we are I say after their query of my family and its unusual array a cast of misfits from Roslyn, Pa—
fighting/ backstabbing/ an unruly lot amixed-breed-brood from that darkie Arab guy who looks Puerto Rican and that red-headed American/ who shies away from everything puffing on her cigarettes/ inward and lonely—
mister and misses off-beat sure created an unseemly plot set amongst a backdrop drab/ ordinary/ working-class a usual story a cape cod/ a row of hedges a chevy in the drive—
then there’s you and him the mister and misses of my best friend with their questions and their gaping stares—
as if their discussing some crazy movie they just watched on their television
their kids 5th grade friend becomes their nightly entertainment/ a curiosity of a young lot from over there/ from the other side of town with less than—
mixed and messed and unseemly at best although the Irish like moms side are a blended mess too/ as are you two McCalls/ can’t get more Irish than that—
but in America/ the strangest strangers are dark/ foreign/ and blended not a purist like they think they are—
invaders and boundary breakers come in all shades and kids with silly grins often don’t notice them—
mister and misses invade from within the warmth and inviting promises of their pompous questions as I sit in their// we made it //suburban kitchen wishing I could shut my mouth—
but it runs like some uncontrollable leak from their scrubby toilet and sink while they push and prod at my little brain experimenting with how far they can poke me— and all I want to do is escape.
short-handled-hoe / black-socked/ little man digging dirt for fig trees you stand like a bull / suntanned / cursing the news back-breaking bloodshot fingering toward the moon you you / leave now i’m growing meat on these stone pits and figs
peach juices run down his dirty lips sound-off / jibber- jabber nonsense spit like tobacco chewed
go pick the koosa and the mint drive the kids ‘round the corner square the lot
swerve up / down the street write cursive-curses in Arabic on the concrete
Carvel-cones / vanilla bean sticky / messy / sugary treats back seat thrashing cursing old man foreign / distant / emptied old soul
never seems to know that— love conquers all bad news and tv shows.
Two poems today about my Tetah in honor of all Palestinian Tetah’s/grandmother’s – Keep the humanity alive. Never lose the ability to see the people in the face of the atrocities.
To honor my Palestinian heritage and to all the people of Gaza
and Palestinian people everywhere, a beautiful poem today
by Tawfiq Zayyad-
THE OLIVE TREE
by, Tawfiq Zayyad
Because I do not knit wool*
Because I am always hunted
And my house is always raided.
Because I cannot own a piece of paper,
I shall carve my memoirs
On the home yard olive tree.
I shall carve bitter reflections,
Scenes of love and yearnings,
For my stolen orange grove
And the lost tombs of my dead.
I shall carve all my strivings
For the sake of remembrance
For the time when I’ll drown them
In the avalanche of triumph
I shall carve the serial number
Of every stolen piece of land
The place of my village on the map
And the blown up houses,
And the uprooted trees
And every bloom that was crushed
And all the names of the experts in torture
The names of the prisons…..
I shall carve dedications
To memories threading down to eternity
To the blooded soil of Deir Yasin
And Kufur Qassem.
I shall carve the sun’s beckoning
And the moon’s whisperings
And what a skylark recalls
At a love deserted well.
For the sake of remembrance,
I shall continue to carve
All the chapters of my tragedy
And all the stages of Al- Nakbah
On the home yard olive tree!
originally posted on my blog April 5th, 2022, to celebrate Arab-American Heritage month.
Oh’ Palestine a dreamer
dreaming of freedom
freedom to care about the birds
the doves delivering baby breaths
and milk to the one you love
Oh’ Palestine, you elude the one
who dreams a dream laced in honey
and memory of roots once dug
deep within the recesses
of your rebellious son—
a love of sweet honey died a death
upon the blackening eclipse of the yellowed sun
Oh’ Palestine a dreamer, I dream of freedom
for you for your children to smell the sweet
scent of jasmine and taste the cedar the thyme
of history in tea cups and breathe the air
of freedom in daylight all night longOh’ Palestine a dreamer, the leaves swirl dreams
in sugar spun tea at the bottom of your last
sip and the fractured seam of your fortunes
lost at sea—
oh’ sweet freedom, a dream
a dream, a dream!
You you, what’s your name he mimics time and time again—
in his broken english he feigns to not remember who I am/ a loving playfulness only a grandpa can play this game
I sheepishly grin at the expected greeting left to repeating the childish laughing and answer him knowing it’s the only language we share in that awkward greeting we bear/ down
Oceans deep and years between the clan intact but the clinging to bloodlines stretched thin bare needles and pins/ what gravity we stand on keeps us there/ hopeful in history the fig/ the vine and earth/ tilted toward our ancestry they left behind—
the promise of hope soiled by decline in fractured family lines the feigning of play and fullness of love waned and waxed then withered to dust. Moon/ sun/ earth/ bore no existence to the fig/ to the grapes and the garden abandoned all hope/ mortal destructions placed under
time constraints. Pots and tables full empty of their plates/ a dream/ a laugh the play/ full belly debates/ feigned a reason to disintegrate.
I wave the white flag and breathe a sigh
of relief when I realize detachment is gained—
have I waited too long to feel the breeze
of this flag, waving alone / white in the wind?
Have the roads jagged
turned in
and lost their path, a wayward man’s sin?
I recognize the absurdity to which this leads
surrender is sweet
I do believe
Silence is master and in love I grasp
her, willfully I surrender in glee
Where escape once reigned over me
I now saddle the horse and ride free, towards
the silence I longed for and always hoped to see.
They say shame
lives quietly
under the skin
piercing pins
needling at
your humanity
and fondling
the inside
of your
self-esteem
shame, they say
prevents movement
freedom
a jail-keeper
a prison guard
mocking at
your door
I turned
my skin
inside out
to escape
the pain
of less-er than
you or him
you know
who I mean
THE MAN
of purity
who belittles my kin.
Butter white chalk milk
viscous thick cream
in a glass silk
smooth it runs
slow purposeful
like feline it stalks
soured puss lost
by mouse
it hones in on
butter white chalk milk
glides heavy
sleek
coating throat
drown
downpour
like slow-mo
milk rain spout
buttermilk yellow
white fermented chalk
milk
bellyfull mouth
full now.
There’s a discernment that one considers after the fall
the careful consideration of how it all ended
How? Why? Dismay settles down where reckless
abandonment lay,
there’s reason to banter, to be fickle and fitful
that isn’t today
Trends say/ dictate/ you should iterate
to find answers, get granular and nit-pick
the evidence for a kernel of truth
leading to that resolute moment
A fall without purpose is the worst of all
purport the reason to discern some
meaning in the encounter, buckle-up
your spine and lift your head, face to face
toe to toe, display some grace
The discernment comes as a reckoning
a sober cold slap on a hot face
What really mattered? Was it all a waste?
Discern it down to a tiny speck, a seedling
you placed.
Does it count if you don’t know them? You know—family, years of living under a family rite and ritual of practice/ if in the end/ or the middle/ family doesn’t matter. Answering to myself and my wife suits me better. I fear I let the ghosts follow me on my path way too long. I cared about running in endless fear. Fear to progress, fear to digress— fear, fear, fear. Hopeful for life to whisk away that fear, where one day I wouldn’t recognize it anymore. A reckless steerless burst! From dawn ‘till dusk, no rest. No wonder I live quietly to the chest and relish the silence in my head. Today not fearing but living in slo-mo effects. I understand the Gnomes/ the Hermits/ the Erdgeist—in life and in death. I manifest the tales that weave through the devil’s grip, to God in spirit—I slip, I slip! I materialize in incubation from due West to due East to the forests in my dreams— to ‘The Here, to The Now’ Erdgeist rises on misty vales. Water vapors turn heathens and materialize on the waves of oceans and mountain sides. Blankets of pelting Blackbirds dot the skies, lifting the veil of midnight through violet nights. I reflect backward to leap forward with antelope strides, a herd stampeding through space and time. African plains dusted from the quakes of my hooves, beating back those fears lost to my strident youth.
