Maya Sleep Poems

July 19, 2005
iranian.com

I.
I watch you sleep
Exhausted with chagrin after the lioness
Has yielded the last of her haunt to her king
And I too, have remembered that manipulation leaves everyone empty
And the whole love thing gives me an enviable solitude

II.
You had the scent of memories drowned in grateful tears
And if I’m not mistaken, it’s a derivative of grapes and honey
Your legs quivered like a brazen wine and your back harped like
Smooth cedar bent on the verge of snapping
Pure fire is burning relentlessly out of the swirls in your hair
Love, how I wish to iron your clothes on the canvas of my warmth
And to wash you like a child fully empowered by its caretaker

III.
Eyes we’ve shared pass through time like the rose to a petal fluffing the breeze till
It makes its recourse back to the earth
I recall a memory of you in a moment of birth and of dying
And haven’t even jotted one note about when I first saw you in sunlight
The memory exceeds me much like the innocence of a child, long after suffering as an adult
Long after that child has grown to love and love again and felt the fullness of death pulsing within love,
Your memory remains in a memory
And today I bury my palms deep within your stomach and mouth and struggle to remember
How sure I was that you’re mine

IV.
Little by little
I have learned satisfaction by all shapes and weights
And once it has gone on, I know that dawn is taking upon us a justice on your
Shoulders that mingle in the oceans of sheets like two bags of coins magnetically drawn together till washing ashore
And in the morning, I’m sure it’ll dwindle down to the heaven
That we drape over our sorrow; to the hope we sell inside our sleep
To the existence you work into my shoulders as your hands tease me like a yellow star in my dreams
You awake to the spring of my alarm
Seeing you swim to me as your lips full bloom

V.
All the places I’ve been
Had something to do with fleeing
And goodbyes were never retraced into anything else but the happy harpoons of solitude
Now, your two clenched fists stitch together my ancient sheets and the hours of the clock humble me
As I dial points to poems like circles to wood, like perfectness to hearts
And all the places I’ve been don’t matter
Unless I pass along the vibrations in fresh grass, the amazement of harmony
To the honor of your famous sleep Maya,
And now you’ve turned my thunderous clap on the keyboard keys to fable
Goodnight my love, sleep full stories, I lay dreamless
In visions of you -- with me -- wandering in a city with no walls.