05 June 2009

Kazim Ali

[from Kazim Ali's The Fortieth Day, BOA, 2008]

Dear Sunset, Dear Avalanche

dear thunder without lightning
dear window sound of last year

dear mountainous landscape
unfolding

water in air unraveling
dear ice filled clamor that fetches

I'm fetching, tolling, a libelous suit
sold and soldiering up the slopes

navigating the trails without adequate supplies
opening up the roof of the ride

a somnambulist, a compassless climber,
a lunchless hack, naked on the rock road

my ear cocked to the distance
dear solo slipping sun

this is the part the slow whispering interrupts
dear disappeared, dear desperate

this is the part you're always interrupting,
the part you want to be buried under --


The Desert

To make the darkness possible
you close the shutters

When light streams in
it is harder to see

You're inside arguing about whether
a cloud was once a river

While outside a man stutters,
trying to talk to the cacti

If you could receive only one answer
would you choose to know

what he is choking on
or what he is trying to say

Buy Kazim Ali's book @ Amazon

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