Paper Plane / I found an unsent letter to my grandpa who is dead; stroking the surface, like a cheek, or wrinkled knuckles, made the sheet into a paper plane — the balcony! — and I won't watch it land, because the true one is still flying. @verse by MR

Cycling alone
Past Andrew Wyeth fields –
No lid on the world!

#haiku by MR

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." (Seneca)

I’d fill my sail at once
with prayers and
sweet winds, were I
to know which way
my prow should face,
to hasten me
toward the shores
on which it grew
and first extended
gentle branches to
the moon – before
the shipwright’s hand
had hewn it into this,
the homeless figurehead;
the shores I do so miss.

@verse by MR

Astro-Physicism /

If you pray
to a black hole,
your prayers
may never
escape ⦿

@verse by MR

Crash /

A little bird
knocked on my window
with the full force
of its gentle body.
But I wasn't home.

@verse by MR

This too /

And every war will end,
if only when no people
have remained for dying.
Every refuge will become
a home – if just because
you’ve finished drying
bedsheets, freshly washed,
the seven-hundredth time.
And every pang of pain
will stay a memory, but fade
when you stop crying —
up until it's bleached out
like those ads in long-
abandoned stores. And then
evaporate — the soul
has little room for sores.

@verse by MR

A journey from pain to health in 8 poems, with thanks to everyone involved — and a warning to anyone working behind a screen.

https://telegra.ph/There-and-Neck-Again-in-8-Poems-03-04

@verse by MR

Telegraph

There and Neck Again (in 9 Poems)

To the rest of you, who definitely need motivation to improve your working environments (at least get a laptop stand and never work from a couch). TLDR here. / 1. Joke's on us / I don't have faith. I couldn't ask the God residing in this mosque to take away…

The thing about clouds /

I used to write a lot
about my clouds –
one language and
two continents ago.
Their snowy march
across my spring
was proud, like
arching backs
on certain beds, and so
seemed future paths which,
back then, flowed ahead.
My cloud processions
led the way a while
and yet, no cloud’s reliable –
they fled to leave behind
a new life:
new apartment, empty skies,
save for a haze of sand
on the horizon, and the rising
heat of January’s end.
A “cloud”? In this Dubai,
it’s but the tenth time
that I squeeze the word
into a poem – Boeings
paint my skies with
semblances of these,
not saturnine enough
to prove the mantra
still holds true:
whatever you might think,
whatever you might do,
the clouds above you

MOVE.

@verse by MR

An account of my father /

I have no demons,
save for those
with horns of plush.
Nobody hit me,
and my father
walked out gently:
took me months,
to notice that
his gradual withdrawal
was complete.
We stayed in touch
over much email,
up until my girlfriends
took away all bandwidth
(at about 15). He got me
residence in Canada,
I moved, we saw
each other sometimes,
he became a
grandfather (another
duty to abandon
10 years in). I left
the country, lost
my residence to greener
pastures (walking out
on him?). The pastures
turned to sands,
if greener than before.
More years passed —
then he disappeared,
six months ago.
Today his Telegram
account got wiped.
A silent well of email's
all that's left for
my unanswered stones.

@verse by MR

Unity /

Marry someone you talk to
for hours, and hours
— until it is dawn —
over weeks, over months
upon months, upon months,
upon months, upon months.
You'll stay married for years
— upon decades —
till death do us spare
(lest our chatter
should stir up its waters
and fuck up its shores).

@verse by MR