On the Cusp of Spring

Her falling dress
a breath of fog and dew
lacing the forest,
naked she then wades
the blue water of dawn,
in the kiss of her skin
the morning sun rising.

In countless streamlets
the fire of her fragrance
replenishes my inkwell,
out of the hardness of stone
coaxing my will to rise
and face the world again,
shape the world anew
out of the depth
of my love and passion,
the maturity of my manhood,
the rejuvenating vigor of her presence
flowering in my heart,
pervading my being
with the light of eternity.

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The Ocean Within Her

She went out today
radiant in the light of the sun
his hands labored to plant
inside of her,
her body a forest
burning with the desire
that gave the stars their light,
her breasts
a spring heaving
in countless red moans,
on her lips and skin
the indelible wine of his kisses
seethed like a velvet cloud of incense
permeating with its fervent aroma
the inside of her bones.

The ocean of his poetry was within her
and the ocean could not be contained,
it flowed and overflowed
as she moved like a fountain,
a cup flooding with the primal source,
the liquid that gave love its reputation,
the blessed light
upon which time in vain
would try his teeth and moan,
vanquished! vanquished!
a rain of jasmines
falling from her hair
and calling the world
to come and drink
and again be whole.

Haiku # 393

Blessure à peau de rose
de ses entrailles naît
le ciel de l’aube

Pour C

Haiku # 384

More beautiful
for being torn…
patchwork heart

Free Verse # 359 (again and again)

The rays of dawn
slide through the clouds;
inside my ribs
an empty nest
aches and shivers
with a handful
of burning ash,
the smoldering remnants
of a poem
consumed by longing.

~

Place your lips on mine
and whisper
your heartbeats,
these grains of incense
amid your ribs burning
in the fire of forever,
that fated fire bound
to merge us one.

~

Again and again
tight against its bud
the flower of my heart
folds its petals.

Again and again
your touch flings me open,
deeper in the realization
of the reality of love.

~

Photographer unknown

Who are you,
you whose breath
has always whispered
like a dawn in my heart?

Where are you,
you whose heart beats in me
deeper than the voice of life?

~

Night gazing in
through the window –
on the table
a book of poetry
and a burning candle –
somewhere in the deep
the voice of love.

~

Heart decimated
by the pain of absence.

Heart becoming
for longing the oil
sustaining the candle
of the deeper heart.

Living With Faith

Even in old age,
Even when you know
You’re dying,
Live as if tomorrow
Belongs to you
And is yours to live
To the fullest,
Live with that faith
For tomorrow
Lovers will still love
And you will be there
In their belonging,
Birds will keep singing
And you will be their song of praise,
Children will still laugh
And you will dwell
In their innocent play,
For life does not abandon you
Even as she draws
Her last breath from you
And pulls you down
From the stage.

Haiku # 349

L’errance de ses touches…
Souffles printanier
Qui n’éveillent pas la terre.

Free Verse # 351 (the prophecy of her skin)

Mad with the prophecy
Of your skin
My hands prowl
The streets of the night,
My fingers coursing
Like burning rivers
Into your womb
Of poetry.

~

In each woman
A hidden core spins
Birthing the whole world.
To touch a woman is to live
In its velvet mystery.

~

O cloistered heart,
However high its walls
No garden is hidden
From bee and butterfly.

~

Kfarhay, Batroun, Lebanon, March 13, 2016

All the roads spread
From the root source
Of her heart.
Traveling I always
Roamed through her veins,
Swam in her blood.

~

We have not met
But at night
My dreams and hers
Collide
And rain in showers
Of breathless stars.

Gardener of Joy

I wake at dawn
and find you
stretching
ahead of me,
the honeycombs
of a day
flowing
with golden light,
each cell
a white abyss
pouring out joy
and calling me out,
into you,
calling me
to ready my body
and come out
and till your fields,
join your golden dance
and plant my seeds
inside of you,
in each nook and corner,
each stretch
of a verdant sky,
and become
with you, through you
the gardener of joy,
and call my labor
poetry.

Histoire de Création

Toujours contre mon cœur
La coquille de sa voix
Où se blotti en un nid
La chaleur du monde

A travers ma poitrine
Jaillissant de son centre
Les vagues fondant
Dans mon cœur qui bat

Le poème éternel
Qui va comme un oiseau
De ciel en ciel chantant
La lueur de ses yeux

Et ce parfum intime
Coulant de ses ailes
Arrose l’invisible
Qui articule la terre

In the Company of Death

Why must we isolate the world of the dead?
This awe before the spaces incubating
the bodies of those who travelled upstream
through the dark river — what is it?
Is it from fear of incurring
the violence of death
that our hearts tremble?
That stirring the deathly sleep infects us
with an indelible stain,
a stain waxing to engulf us
and immerse us in the dark realm?
Or is it to preserve those we loved
and who under the dark arch have passed?
The bodies of those we loved,
the playgrounds of our fondest
intimacies and memories
now so fragile that a most supple breeze
scatters their dark fires
and dissolves their limbs
like wisps in the air?
To preserve them, yes,
but also to save ourselves the pain
of watching those we loved
more than life itself dissolve
as the boundless hunger of death
feasts upon their flesh.
Or it is before the unknown that we tremble,
and death being the ultimate, impenetrable mystery?

And yet, ‘die before you die’ the Sufi said.

I Will Write to You

I will write to you
the way birds sing,
the way flowers smile,
the way waters run
and stars shine,
I will write to you
the purity of my heart
until I become the poem
flowing with your light,
until your silence
overtakes my every breath
releasing me into the womb
of eternal love.

Ruba’i # 22

What is it worth this short life of ours
If the sun breaks not in darkened hours?
If a breath is not allowed our hearts
How are we to shatter the bleak towers?

Free Verse # 226 (one with the sky)

In the desert of myself
I linger, imprisoned,
My passionate breath
In supplication rising
For a drop of your water
To set me free.

~

Like a seed in the earth dies to become something new, in you I perish and am born into light.

~

She rises through my flesh like the spring through the skin of the earth. My darkness into light she redeems with her touch.

~

Ancient as the stars
My passion for you burns,
Ever more fervently sighing
Your name from each mouth.

~

Your whispers
through my soul,
birds in cloudless skies.

~

I kiss her as though I were the sun sinking in the moon.

~

I can feel her wind blowing through my soul
Eternity in a touch making me whole

~

She is the feast and he is famished, always, ever more, famished for her flesh.

~

He touched her
and a sun
through his finger passed
to burn in her womb

~

To breathe dawn from her lips, the sacred fragrance of silence.

~

I placed my ear on her belly to hear heaven sing, the ocean laugh and flow.

~

Closer and closer
our merging lips become
one with the sky

~

Alone with the night
and her voice
a jasmine scented whisper
caressing my eyes,
sighing against my lips
her ineffable name.

~

Like water receives the light
your breath through my being seeps
imbuing me with your color,
etching your scent into my throbbing heart.

~

Overwhelming—the silent burn of your words in my heart; in my veins, the throb of your pulse.

~

Your breath has surrounded me and entered my heart; wherever I am, I am in you; and every facet of the world reflects your divine face.

~

O my heart, keep your eyes set on the face of love.

~

I have been made a prisoner
by the scent of your skin and hair,
the curve of your chin and lips,
the pool in your eyes,
yet my very slavery
has set me free.

Senryu # 37

Under the willow
Her tears slept; kissed by his dawn
They blossomed, flowers.

Senryu # 29

Even these mountains —
But a dewdrop
In time’s memory.

~

So gravely serious
Yet, in this earth,
We shall all end.

Quatrain # 10

Through the curvatures of her skin flowing,
Life, a serpentine verse of woe and mirth,
And I, a barque of heart keenly burning,
Sailing forever the seas of her birth.

Free Verse # 144 (a pulse in your heartbeat)

Blossoming in the silence of your heart
I am a flower which scent is your art

~

Solitary as a star
in the womb of the sky,
unreachable,
yet overflowing with light.

~

Hidden,
in a world of their own,
yet the waves of their love
embrace one and all.

~

In the scent of the flower,
in the sigh of the leaf,
in the silence of the night,
in the birdsong of dawn ~
your voice was ever calling me.

~

Your butterfly-kiss
melts into my neck
like a firefly,
entering my bloodstream,
enlivening my heart
to a pouring divine.

~

Let your voice fall
into the vessel of my heart,
like dawn’s breath
overflowing with light,
like twilight’s whisper
an infinitely warm wine.

~

Not when the sun rises or sets
does my day begin and end.
Daybreak and sunset
are the motions of your face
deep within my soul.

~

In your palms I burn softly
like a tender flower
aching to kiss your lips,
the lips of dawn.

~

All night long
my longing dews unheard,
pure drops covering the earth
hoping that, at dawn,
you walk out,
and I get to kiss your naked feet.

~

Let us disappear under the cloak of stars
where no one knows what heaves
between the shores of our hearts.

~

Let my pen trail along your skin
like a comet across the nightsky,
its fiery nectar burning through your skin
then vanishing deep inside.

~

Tangled in the ribbons of my passion
as in a fisherman’s net;
with each quiver and move
the binding grows tighter
burning skin and breath.

~

O beloved,
are these coals burning
on the curves of your lips?
For your each kiss sears my skin
into my blood and bone
wielding me as your sun and torch.

~

Sinking into the silence of the night
you’ll find me,
a pulse in your heartbeat,
a quiver in your breath.

Setting You Free

With dawn’s hues
I smear your eyelids,
with night’s stars
I brush your lashes,
then raise my palms
to your shivering lips
bidding you to drink
from love’s pure fountain
and setting you free
in the garden of my heart.

Free Verse # 141 (forever in your pull)

Our fingertips touch,
two wings over an abyss
ever harmoniously gliding,
rooted in the dawn of love.

~

The moon,
even when hidden
from the sun
is forever in her pull ~
and I,
twined to your smile,
the dawn of your eyes,
your breath in the wind.

~

Our breaths,
dying on each other’s lips,
shiver through our bodies
a river of flames,
melting us,
down to our bones,
and merging us,
one…

~

I sleep and I wake
and you are the last
and first thought
to whisper on my lips.
I am a river;
the ocean is you.

~

Night falls liquid
over our merging bodies,
his stars like embers
searing into our skin
the wildest poetry.

~

From night’s womb
I pluck the ripest stars
and with poetry’s threads
weave them into a blanket
to cover you all night,
my love…

~

Out of the well of infinite solitude
my poems rise,
like stars from the invisible womb
filling the night sky.

~

From a hidden shore
her jasmine breath travels
through the infinite night
to find my face,
and breathe me into life.

~

Let night’s melody
hum in your blood
an endless froth of stars,
rivers of dark wine…

~

O beloved,
let me pour the dawn
into your eyes,
reap from your lips
the purity of his dew,
from your womb
his morning star.