The Spring Flowers Own & The Manifestations of the Voyage

The morning after
my death
we will sit in cafes
but I will not
be there
I will not be

*

There was the great death of birds
the moon was consumed with
fire
the stars were visible
until noon.

Green was the forest drenched
with shadows
the roads were serpentine

A redwood tree stood
alone
with its lean and lit body
unable to follow the
cars that went by with
frenzy
a tree is always an immutable traveler.

The moon darkened at dawn
the mountain quivered
with anticipation
and the ocean was double-shaded:
the blue of its surface with the
blue of flowers
mingled in horizontal water trails
there was a breeze to witness the hour

*

The sun darkened at the
fifth hour of the
day
the beach was covered with
conversations
pebbles started to pour into holes
a waves came in like
horses.

*

The moon darkened on Christmas eve
angels ate lemons
in illuminated churches
there was a blue rug
planted with stars
above our heads
lemonade and war news
competed for our attention
our breath was warmer than
the hills

*

There was a great slaughter of
rocks of spring leaves
of creeks
the stars showed fully
the last king of the Mountain
gave battle
and got killed.

We lay on the grass
covered dried blood with our
bodies
green blades swayed between
our teeth.

*

We went out to sea
a bank of whale was heading
South
a young man among us a hero
tried to straddle one of the
sea creatures
his body emerged as a muddy pool
as mud
we waved goodbye to his remnants
happy not to have to bury
him in the early hours of the day

We got drunk in a barroom
the small town of Fairfax
had just gone to bed
cherry tress were bending under the
weight of their flowers:
they were involved in a ceremonial
dance to which no one
had ever been invited.

*

I know flowers to be funeral companions
they make poisons and venoms
and eat abandoned stone walls

I know flowers shine stronger
than the sun
their eclipse means the end of
times

but I love flowers for their treachery
their fragile bodies
grace my imagination's avenues

without their presence
my mind would be an unmarked
grave.

We met a great storm at sea
looked back at the
rocking cliffs
the sand was going under
black birds were
leaving
the storm ate friends and foes
alike
water turned into salt for
my wounds

*

Flowers end in frozen patterns
artificial gardens cover
the floors
we get up close to midnight
search with powerful lights
the tiniest shrubs on the
meadows
A stream desperately is running to
the ocean

*

The first ring of the battle called for
a marriage of smell and form
narcissi cyclamen African violets
in the garden's
secret
get ready for their weddings
camellias are whiter
than Ophelia's skin
the night of her terror

Gradually large tropical leaves
raise their arms
they tumble across an expanding space
lovelier than a
woman dancer
lovelier than my thoughts.

*

I see heading East the pearl-colored
march of clouds
roses lend their blood to young
soldiers drowning in the Tigris
flowers triumph
over the human race
their tragedies are
short-lived
their agonies exude incense and myrrh
at the entrance of
temples they are the
ones to be eternally eternal.

I envy their youth
their lucency their
quiddity
we are the shadows and they,
our hosts.

*

Beauty was my maiden name
in the sun's familiarity
only the sea could
claim my body
and flowers lead me my grave.

*

The sun darkened for one
hour
that day
we were on the beach
playing with fireflies
light filtered through your
eyelashes
your eyes darkened with the sun

*

She moved through the crowds
like a bunch of flowers
breathless was I like a young
mare
she was a light-wave through
my hands
nations were at war
and men falling faster than
leaves on that Indian
summer

but she was the beginning of
the day
flowers do not grow on rifles
believe me hey rise and never
bend

they use colors as e use words
they recite poems in my ears
they never die, oh no!
we only cease to see them...
as I stopped seeing hr in my dreams.

*

One night in Wyoming
there was a sky and a road
the stars were outshined
by radio satellites

my memory spills over
my days
and like a balloon occupies the
whole universe
because she ate flowers and
pills
she is not here tonight
but in a field of
white flowers
she is planted, as they are,
in the soil in the heat

*

There was a king a hero
and a prisoner
they wore chains and had
supper together
we the women stayed in bed and
red roses came in through
the windows
to keep us company

*

The Moon Mars and Venus
were on a single line
the next night they formed a
triangle.

Spring is a naked body standing
in glory
sounds are helpless women are silent
the flowers of my garden are waiting for the bees.

The moon darkened as soon as she
appeared
I trembled with apprehension
fearing the length of the
night.

There are no rites for this Spring
its splendor runs
from one horizon to the other
my feet acquire its speed
my eyes fill with its terror
it crushes its own roots and
mine
nothing is left nothing
I am not born to this world

The sun went into total darkness
the stars took over
the sky became a garden with
billions of flowers
Spring seemed to be
with us forever.

She broke into a dance
and carried the plants in her turns
we were neither on earth
nor elsewhere
Yosemite Falls
turned the valley into water
and air,

*

Flowers flowers more flowers
is this a wedding or a wake?
So many women are sitting
still
listening to the traveling
flowers
the electronic age is a rose
roses are electricity
are
Voices.

*

Often at night camellias glow their
phosphorous whiteness in the
garden's hushed silence
my reason falters
losing its
steps
and stumbles into some
somber music
this side of the oneness of Reality.

*

We walked many nights through
beds of flowers
telling each other that
mountains move secretly stars
betray their order
rivers and flowers
are women in love.

*

The Great Wind
blew from the Valley
of the Dead
carried my ashes
over the mountains
of it dark kingdom

I am sitting
with you
this morning after my death
not having the means
to feel my sorrow

Her name could have been Rosemary
could have been Camellia
Rose or Lily

*

The morning after my
death four circles appeared around
the sun
the moon darkened 3 nights
before the Spring Equinox
Arab astronomers turned flowers
into names for constellations.

*

There is a black rose
growing in the middle
of my heart
its scent makes me sleep longer...

it is a summer afternoon
I am fourteen years old
the jasmine is tormenting my soul
it 's power weighs heavily
on my breast
it competes with my young love
and the movies which storm
my brain
a spring fever in Beirut lasts from
dusk to dawn.

*

There were two moons
and two suns
that morning

I will not give a name to a flower
which never dies.

*

The sky is the beginning of a new
continent
unmapped is my space
unchartered my vision

Flowers push their way into the hollow
of my ligaments
make roots in my veins
and clutter my throat

trees press each other
in a parade of angels
they circle move on and
gather moss on their limbs
they belong to a Theater-Universe
cities are their stage
they perform under balconies
and undress
in the winter when a curtain
of fog
has fallen

those trees who are silent
creatures
whose souls reach deeper than
ours
preside over oxygen's destiny

a great drama is unfolding
in their forests
nothing will stand
tall the day of my
resurrection.

*

This unfinished business of my
childhood
this emerald lake
from my journey's other
side
haunts hierarchies of heavens

a palm forest
fell overnight
to make room for an unwanted
garden
ever since
fevers and swellings
turn me into a river

the streets were steep
winds were running ahead
of ships...

There was indeed the death of birds
the moon had passed away.

*

The morning after his death
pursuing him beyond his bitter end
his mother came to
his grave:
she removed his bones out of
their pattern
and ditched them into mud:
woman came at night
a claimed Rimbaud their own

that night there was much
thunder it was awesome

*

Laurels and lilacs
bloom around my head
because I stood up to the sun

You see the Colorado River runs
between flowered banks
I repeat my journeys to seek the
happiness that overcame
your absence
I was happy not to love you anymore
until the sunset reached
the East
and broke my raft apart
there were other rivers underground
covered with dead flowers
it was cold it was cold yes it was
cold.

*

Under a combination of pain
and machine-gun fire
flowers disappeared
they are in the same
state of non-being
as Emily Dickinson

We the dead have conversations
in our gardens
about our lack of existence.

The gardener is planting
blue and white
flowers
some angel moved in with me
to flee the cold
temperatures on earth are
rising
but we wear upon us some
immovable frost
everyone carries his dying as
a growing shadow

*

I left the morning paper
by the coffee cup
the heat was 85 like the
year
and I went to the window to find
that flowers had bloomed overnight
to replace the bodies
felled in the war

the enemy had come with fire
and ruse
to stamp the names of the dead
in the gardens of Yohmor
It is not because spring
is too beautiful
that we'll not write what
happens in the dark.

*

a butterfly came to die
between two stones
at the foot of the Mountain
the mountain shed shadows
over it
to cover the secret of
death.

*