Black Pencils

egyptian chaos.

for two ounces of silver
a deep-red fish scarred at its heart
swims in Picasso Water
i won't tell
the sacral white chaddar,
oh sacrament
the one that drapes Jesus' naked body

so neutral

jehad in a woman?
daggers in a jar full of berry-nectar
pleasant as honey-sugar
ordinary, crowd senses as usual.
where to hide the sinuous font-ah
of my poems, the devil that lurks
on my mind, I know it now

I must take on the hejaab

the sophisticated hue of
chalkened twilight, green in
embers, bronzed in forced light

i know that boys
can play the gui-tar
i was stung by jehad

so neutral


all over in the night
boys go to music school
so liked by their mentor
medals, cars, bikes with
golden scars

I can never ride
Stamina, oh I can't go that far

I am a girl, they say
its a curse to be born that way
in the suicidal City of torture
I said it another way..

didn't take me far..
the writing so sensuous
it diverts the mind
from legal occupations

and I can't help it
the black-butterfly sits
so alarmingly near my
tongue, performing salutations
to its god, the little-butterfly's
imagination
noticing the shard of a thought

I wouldn't let her fall
I couldn't let her fall

I won't let you fall

strange things happen
when you meet a girl
some 16 younger
than what you are.