A silly girl
Loved a stupid boy
He was her everything
She was just his toy
He played with her emotions
Put mixed feelings in her head
For that stupid boy
A million tears that girl had shed
His friends would laugh
In his fun they would share
They knew he was a player
While she thought they were the perfect pair
Then came that horror
She was two weeks late
So she took the test
Could this possibly be fate?
She told that boy
The news she had found out
That was when she discovered
What he was all about
He showed his true colors
And crushed her pride
Left her all alone
For someone he had on the side
Born to her
Was a perfect son
This war she was fighting
The new mother had won
The prize was hers
To keep for a lifetime
A baby boy
Born to shine

Dear Mom,
Have you forgotten?

Sitting, waiting, hoping

Where did you go, Mom?
Did I do something wrong?

Lost, lonely, sad

Are you really gone, Mom?
I waited...
I'm with my grandparents now, Mom.
I have a room now.
Are you there, Mom?
Can you hear me?

Tired, crushed, defeated

Started school again.
It's my birthday, Mom!
It's okay, I don't need a birthday card.

Broken, lacking, sorrowful

Broke an ankle, Mom.
Got a school award.
Are you happy?

Undefined, sinking, heartbroken

Went to the school dance, Mom.
Had my first relationship!
Do you miss us, Mom?

Warped, torn, tangled

You're really gone now.
Why?
I'm moving on now, Mom.
I miss you.
I love you.
Goodbye.

We write no more poems
In the rain of bombs on kids
Yes, my poems died too!

I hate being in my city in Switzerland at the weekend
I'm in a really noisy place
I'm really in the middle of all the nightclubs
All these demons of the night make so much noise that I hardly sleep
But instead I try to study and read a lot
I really regret not waking up earlier but I think I had to go through that to understand things
There are so many interesting things to learn, so many things to discover
I'm going to continue to travel, continue modelling, save money and take care of myself as much as possible
Yes, I still have my crazy side, but I'm using that energy differently
I'm an artist and I love creativity, and I always will be
But I really can't stand it any more
Even cigarette smoke makes me want to puke
Normally I'd have to move to a quieter place
I still have to stay in Switzerland for a while to sort some things out
And also to be with my grandmother
I don't want any distractions
I need to take care to my family  
My son, my cat and God come before everyone else
And I know that this world is becoming rotten and that children are becoming more and more ****** in their language and that there's a lot of fighting going on
That's why I've considered the best schools for my son, to see whether we'll be in Switzerland or not
I especially don't want him to get mixed up with the wrong people, and I'll be a very strict mother
For the moment he's just a baby and I'm giving him all the love he needs.
And as far as men are concerned, i don't need a man in my life, I've realised that he's just a burden and a hindrance to the things I want to achieve
I have men when I want them and I have who I want in the high standard of goodure
But I don't have time for that.

I see some kids heading home from school,
bent over from the weight on their backpack.
In Palestine, children bear the politician’s schemes on their backs.
And bend further down,
grieving their parents’ lifeless forms.
Children, who used to be whole,
have their limbs torn off,
skin hanging from their faces and hands.

On my visit to the shop,
I see a kid throwing a tantrum over not getting sweets.
In Palestine, children hear cries of the wounded,
screaming for help.
While the world stands silent, aid delayed.
Red capes, a stone in their hands and a imaginary knife in their
teeth, they die as martyrs.

Politicians, no way you’d wield ruthless might,
If they were white children in your sight.

I spoke with two people at the party Saturday.
A young police officer, short-haired, fit,
chiseled face who had two young children.
He felt constrained by the law, without discretion
to question mopes (perps) aggressively
or to let go those who were obviously no threat.
Even at a family function he seemed straight-backed, correct,
devoted to his role as our protector (and his children’s)
yet I thought perhaps too deeply in debt, indentured
to the rules and laws of legislators and destined
to be disappointed (or worse). I thought his courage
and devotion (to whom or what?) would surely
be poorly repaid and that this lesson
was necessary to ready him with wisdom
for death or further living. I worried like a brother
about the unpredictable dangers, even terrors,
he must daily face, and the pleasure he takes in facing them.
How will he return to the fragility of family,
of the soul alone, after wielding the force
of the state, the blind, combined will of us all?

Next a business exec, retired from a well known
global investment firm. At first we talked about
the lush beauty of the northeast compared to the arid west
(although he loves every inch of the west, too).
Then somehow we got beyond light conversation
when he complained about the perceived decline in values
for instance how the Ten Commandments can’t be publicly
displayed. He said we can all agree on God
but I said I have a mechanistic view of the universe
(although the unknowable always sits just out of reach
of the known). I told him my dad’s theory of reincarnation,
a good man and a corporate seeker of God also, whose shoes
I could never fill unless I swore belief in a supreme being.
No hard feelings. Then he told me the story
of his dying friend, an atheist, not even a deist
like the founding fathers, who opened his eyes for the last time
to correct the exec’s misperception that now he’d meet his maker.
Having exceeded the bounds of acceptable conversation
I went looking for my children. Nothing more to question.

Roses are redoubt
Violets are a horn, blue
Sugar is sweat, in a dark pout
And hell is crying, and so are you...

Pain, the magic and the cruel
Forever, is a shoe...
Live by a creed, and you say hi, to a tool
Know a you, for a sweet tooth...

Done, to hunt a misery
Found in a gutter, no man's
Land, has a sick flower of mystery
Told to a child's shadow, a risen chance...

To become a family's cannibal?
Creation, is our view on rage
Though put to such, much is beauty
Tarry with us, to live without music to face...?

Treasure of the ******?
Hell to pay, a quiet dowry
Of dues and tomorrow, a question to hand
You, a seduction's voice, with hunger as its quarry...

Oh happy Sunday hour
after five and before the tea-time tide
when those who filled the beach
with grubby toddlers, toys and spades
return to roasting hotbox cars
and stow the cool-bag in the boot,
along with salty dogs who want to sleep
creeping under blankets kept especially for them,
farewell they wave,
with lollypop sticky, sun-touched infant hands
a tired last goodbye to the sand
that battlefield land of dug-outs holes and hollows
a ruined castle landscape
that the sea will fix tomorrow

In the shadow of water
I know your true face.
not in the shadow
but in the feeling of
being in it.

…do you understand?

there’s a coolness
that wraps around me
just right,
like when evening comes
and the southern sun
finally relents its strength of illumination
to the unknowing of night.

through the shade of a wave
opaque enough to dilute
the intensity of the light
but not enough
to stop it from reaching me,
I recognize you.  

who are you
that you should linger
in my inner sight
like a sunspot
staining my vision wherever I look,
changing colors
behind my closed eyes?

a stranger?

perhaps I’ve known you
in other lives.
maybe we were lovers.
maybe we were almost lovers.
maybe this is our dance.
we circle each other
like leaves in an eddy,
a brief swirl of proximity
before we’re shot back out
to the flow of the river
like children on a slide,
laughing in our innocence—
in our ignorance.

then comes the
inevitable separation,
the distance,
the peculiar ambiguity
we wear like a skin—
like a camouflage.

but I still see you,
from time to time,
behind the eyes of a stranger

and

I still feel you
whenever I am in
the shadow of water.