Gaza
"Forget the philosophy of bullets, we are tired of funerals" M. Darwish
He closes the door to darkness and bends like a old tree over his son
Wraps himself around him with the calm of a summer shade
While terror bombs scatter butterflies in the happy flowers
And shatter the faint smile on the boy's quivering lips.
They wait with pain for all the dying children to stop crying
If only a thousand prayers would lift them to heaven
Where the stars are bright faces of kids skipping in the clouds.
He never found them under his father's father's house of stone now dust.
And when he wept for his true love she had already become a galaxy
As he lifted her from the rubble her heart became the song of birds
He hears every morning when they visit her grave of roses and tears
Under the tree he and she climbed as children imagining happy stories in clouds.
Paul Lobo Portugés-- Teaches creative writing at UCSB, taught at UC Berkeley, USC, and the University of Provence. Books include Sorrow and Hope, Breaking Bread, The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg, Saving Grace, Hands Across the Earth, The Flower Vendor, Paper Song, Aztec Birth, The Body Electric Journal, The Bullet Had His Face in the Soul of His blood, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, Ginsberg: On Tibetan Buddhism, Mantras, Drugs, Witness, and Falling Short. Poems are scattered in scores of small magazines across America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia (Prairie Schooner, Floricanto, The American Journal of Poetry, Hambone, Chelsea, River Styx) and anthologies (El Tecolote, Overthrowing Capitalism, The Asian Writer, Naropa Anthology).
