Are You Abdullah?

Are you the father?
The father who carefully escapes
overland the dread, the torment,
threats, fire and bombs of Syria,
then gathers up your family again
with small bags of clothes
and biscuits, climbs aboard
a rubber raft heading
to the island of Kos, bound
in an armor of hope?

When high waves topple
the boat and the captain deserts,
do you steer until impossible?
Are you the father who watches
your wife float away,
your little boys struggle
for air, then vanish?

Are you the father who cries
as he picks up one beautiful son
washed up on the beach,
who wonders where the world is
as the ocean swallows his nation?

• Published on newversenews[dot]com, Sept. 4, 2015
• Awarded First Prize by Illinois State Poetry Society, Oct. 2015

New Rain

Sky a mellow gray,
a train whining as it goes,
and I wonder what to write.

This will be a day of calm,
wounded coming back on planes
to questionable conditions
in Veteran’s Hospitals.
What worse than loss
of legs and eyes, but damaged
brains, hidden in the skull,
not to be examined,
overlooked by military doctors
until too late, and more troops
are sent to the endless war.

The train is gone, the sky
still gray, and passing tires
are whining in new rain.

Graffiti in Tunisia: Merci Facebook
A Pantoum

When his fruit cart was confiscated
he lit himself in gasoline,
police deprived him of a living,
no chance for work in Sidi Bouzid.

When he lit himself in gasoline:
Mohammed Bouazizi became the martyr,
no chance for work in Sidi Bouzid,
as in all towns, even Tunis.

Mohammed Bouazizi became the martyr,
sending flames through Arab lands,
through all towns, even Tunis—
their despot fled across the sands

sending flames through Arab lands.
By Facebook, word spread of liberation,
urging despots to flee across the sands
in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Yemen.

By Facebook, word spread of liberation,
tyrants had deprived them of a living
in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Yemen,
ignited when his cart was confiscated.

        This poem won first prize from CURRENT in Ann Arbor, July 2011