Read it Live
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For a long time a poem has been circling in my mind, a dazed rotation, now clockwise, now counterclockwise, words swirling everywhere. My journal has so many phrases — unattached, but somehow connected, coming together in a haphazard arrangement, like one of Jackson Pollock’s pieces.

Mosaic

There is a mosaic

Trapped in my words.

When I speak of

Small, dark alleys

And graveyards

That smell of burning incense

And have scatters of rose-petals,

You see only a thin sliver

Of this montage.

These eyes saw locusts

And loose sheaths of

Ruined crop

Carried by heavy summer winds.

And they saw oceans

Dark, brooding, terrifying oceans

Running and receding.

Faces appeared,

Whirlpools within the waters

And disappeared,

Lost to the depths

That embrace all,

Swallow memories whole.

I speak of places

With love and disease,

And strangers who share

Coffee, music,

Some money to buy

New strings of an old guitar;

A bed,

Rickety and unmade

With mosquito netting,

And a lazily burning lantern;

A little laughter

And some tears;

A day old pizza in a cardboard box,

Refried beans in a can,

Cheap hotel rooms

With buzzing air conditioners

And showers that spew hot water;

Houses with blackouts,

And hand-pumps in front yards,

Henna covered virgin hands,

Kohl-rimmed, downcast eyes,

And conch bangles jingling,

Pictures of innocence -

Lost and bartered,

Sold cheaply.

Trapped in this unfortunate

Collage of my words,

Is a rigid mosaic

Of regions,

And people,

And memories.