Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
If my nostrils were bigger
My inhales would last forever
Then,
I can breath.
Firstly. Profoundly. deeply
Fill my atom with Suns
A glittering flowing breath
fly elaborately to Cairo
Sit on a nightly spot
Warming the center of the world
close the book
let dust manifest
Why do we insist on coming back
If we hate it here so much
Why do we come to life
The skin enveloping you
Is no match for the windy state
Skin up my child
Reach out and fortify
When they tried to kill 'your people'
They killed all peoples
Death have no skin
Skin is mortal
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
To never see your face again
To lose the map of your body
To misplace memory itself
For example
Today I lost your nose
I couldn't remember which nostril
Was bigger
Last month it was your facial hair
How it felt against my flesh
I still hold on to your aftershave smile
But the hair on your forearm
is still vivid
Brown red and black
An earthly pallet
Like ivy climbing up you arms
You hated your bodily hair
You shaved it every month
I begged you to save it and love yourself
I recall diving my face
Unto your chest hair
It got warmer
The deeper I dove
those lazy afternoons
How the fog transcended us both
I took naps on your stomach
As the cats watched us
Remember when you punched that guy
And he tried to strangle you
I clawed his face
His wife pulled my hair
That was our honey moon
You called the police
I called my mom
And cried
You visited me in the hospital
With guilt dripping from your eyes
Words flew like poisoned darts
Others wanted us apart
But we stuck
Each carrying their cross
Were we ever Heroes?
Doubtful
We were the fools
Laughed at by the children
we never birthed
I wanted to say goodbye
But I was too angry to realize
That goodbyes are a formality
When your soul suddenly dies
We will never have Paris
We hated it
Instead, We will each cry
In a separate house
Until one day
Not far
My face becomes elusive
Your face turn muddled
What is left
This emotional leftovers
Is the essence of what once was
-----
Manar Ammar
Cairo, 2015
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
On the state of the world today
To Alphie, the African baby who died today from Ebola
Alphie, my child
Earth swallowed your cold tummy
Dirt is slowly seeping into your nostrils
Your bare limps are now covered with crawlers
But alphie, my child
Your tummy was never full
never quite that warm
The air you breathed
would have killed you if you waited
And your limps were always Exposed,
Vulnerable to surface elements
Alphie, my baby
Was death more merciful than life
Why are some children
more precious than others
Why are some bodies worth saving
While others
heavily grace charity billboard
Like painted ghosts
Lumped together in one symbolic face
Because, Alphie
Our son, my baby
This is the state of the world today
rest my love
Under the dim lights of gasoline lamps
Your torso will turn to wood
And green will sprout from your eyes
And I will water you
Daily
Until we meet again
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
A small patch of earth
Is all I need
I can be fed and feed
I'll grow lettuce and colorful illusions
I'll grow the kind of strawberry that chases after you
giggling so hard
How about mangos you ask
The type that knows four languages
And can recite pre-historic poems
Mangos that glow when you least expect it
My favorite would planting dancing bananas
Bright yellow, light feet
They like to take over dancing floors
Twirling until dizzy
then stand aside for a quite reflection
You asked me the other day
If potatoes were grumpy
All the time
Of course not, silly
They just had a rough time
Potatoes can be sweet too
Tomorrow I will seek lavenders
They make me sad
Thinking about them
I'll tell them a new joke
And watch them laugh
On the subject of zucchini and tomatoes
We will have to set a meeting
They play around all day
And gossip loudly through the night
The river is afraid to flow into our land
She knows our fruits and vegetables
Are sensitive with complex inner lives
she prefers to gently descend from above
I will take our song to the market
And trade it for seeds
Trade it for earth
And invite the bees
Offer them a place to stay
I will build a fortress for my iris
They are private and anxious
And in the yellow canals
Rice will grow
so wild. so tall
It wont be able to contain its joy
I will grow wild too
And old
Shed the need to have or be
Just plowing stars in my head
Seeding my hearts with wine and bread
And one day
Our hearts will grow
Expand
so magnificently grand
we'll need bigger chests
But we will grow those too
And every sad person on earth
Will soon receive an invitation
To join our fruiting land
And they too can laugh
They too can laugh
While the giggling strawberry
chases after them
across the green field
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
Who are you?
I am the happy tree
The Mammal
The eggshell you avoid crushing
Who am I?
You are a red dress
Covering bruises and cuts
Socked in fabric and blood
Who are we?
You are the deep ones
Your faces don't appear
on white cellulite
Who are they?
They were here before us
Or arrived later
They linger on toilettes
Because they can
Who?
Not you. Not me.
A passing cloud shaping itself
around our daydreaming
A monster in disguise
Are?
Isn't it time to unveil
The new old face of blue
Seeking sand in a beach
Now?
Or later
Time can be shaped around our nightmares
In flows and breaks
Up?
Or down
Depending on where your head is
Earth is above
And old sadness below
In?
Or out
A body moves itself
As it learns to bend
Happy?
An Obligation in and by itself
Looking, searching, losing
Far from oneself
Intimacy?
Away from or direct soul penetration
shapeshift or mold
Run or freeze
Small?
Keep growing smaller
Until one day
we will call this cold drawer home
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
A persistent dream
Where all my family
Anyone ever born
In my blood line
Is sitting
Waiting for me to wake up
in my living room
Thousands of cousins, grandparents
and second moms
A Fleet of similarly composed individuals
Kiss and embarrass me
As I come to in fog
Even the thousands I have never met
Know exactly how to lift me up
Rock me to soberness
It is difficult to fit all that blood
in one vain
The faces in the back
Are always blurred
An uncle' tongue
Stormed out of his face
Slapping my sister in the face
Old grandfathers
All sat in one corner
Wondering how to it all ended
Next morning
Awake
In my living room
TV hums something about family values
As the room feels bigger
Rather emptier
A room as Saggy as life
When people are removed from it
Against their will
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
Burning
My skin is burning
Soul is on fire
Eyelids full of red
Angry
More angry than to use an adjective
Rage seeps through my eye balls Toes curl
I've been pickling this rage
In rusty jars
For too long
Now it is sour and ripe
My dreams are saturated
with tiny angry me
Running everywhere
uncontrollably
Jumping off cliffs of fear
Hello foolishness
It's me
Nothing beneath my broken feet
No beat in my shattered heart
Children take aim at me
Adults stand still
While my corps
Is dragged in the streets
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Manar Ammar Poem
it’s time to admit you have no poems left
They all fled before light
Steaming out of your pores
cloaked in Humiliation
visions ashamed of the visionary
I have a photo of your younger body
bare feet
trading dreams for soup
Aimless with purpose
I broke my right foot
You heard me weep in the trees
As I took off my old leg
And poured cement in its place
I find shoes. I find a map
I find a box and build me a family
Build a dog, build a boat
build me a getaway car
Copyright © Manar Ammar | Year Posted 2018
|