Tottering Time

by Sana Khalesi

All I see ahead are
fading lights
        future and yet
faraway past nights
but if you ever find me
after two thousand light-years
        or seven
remember me
        here and in Heaven
hide deep inside me
try to remind me
        of what lives behind me
ignite me
for all i see at the moment
is murk and meant
for a nostalgic torment

Solitary Spheres

by Sana Khalesi

near and far
for and against
carry on
in such solitary spheres
widely apart
in the long-legged lullabied skies

though
to be retrieved through his beady eyes
too varied and too wearied
the god
perches in a cluster of red and mud

near and far
to us
seems harmonic enough
the sound and the fury
of a wakeless more-walk-less-talk guitar

Paris-Shiraz

by Sana Khalesi

beneath the spell of your hazel eyes breathing
when right-or-left choices of
death or dying
arise
a glare
a caution
with a respite on the cushion of your lips
or when
the innocence of your heart
rips
my only belonging
and departs
with a 4-foot hole
in my still stale moth-eaten soul

oh trail me
regale me
seek this sick-me
with your equilateral longing legs
seek your poison snogs
on my lost-in-smoke-and-ashes lungs
TRASH me!
and turn this crude cremation
into Louisiana Iris
and TRASH
all the bridges
from Shiraz to Paris
and TRASH
memories, reveries, treacheries
all gracious photos
and post-hardcore songs of EMERY

while nodding your hideous head
while sipping your afternoon coffee,
while listening to your only insanity-plea
peering to your vicious voice, uttering:
"oh oui oui!"
there's no ME,
NO WE!
and you are propelling
another mistress, Dionysus
with curly creamy short-cut hair
smiling
lost in her castle-in-the-air
smiting
peeling avocado pear
with your tender solicitous care

and I –
now dust –
beneath your steps
and missteps
giving an ear to Joan Baez's "Diamonds & Rust":
"...smiling out the window of the crummy hotel over washington square"
I dare
I dare you
pretermit me
by giving your fictitious look
a more factual gloss
in my loss!