My Grave
I visit my grave
quite often
It's nearby
No one knows its location
except me
I never pray there
I might shed a tear
or two
for no specific reason
But on happy days
I pluck a flower
place it on the tombstone
in my lapel
. . .
and smile
The Day
and then the day came
when the earth was spent
and overbled
it lost its gravity
tree leaves stopped falling
dead birds too
their corpses kept flying
up in the gray sky
which had become
a colossal screen
of the underworld
In the Beginning
in the beginning was the stab;
the dagger made the wound
in its own image
then it went away
looking
for another body
the wound wept
for forty days
then it healed
it became a heart
and crawled away
looking
for another body
Autumn in Heaven
trees are evergreen
gentle winds
comb their branches
the elders read newspapers
children play
their mothers watching
but there are whispers
that another angel
committed suicide
last night
A Heavy Heart
I've finally understood
that the heart is a box
I can empty its sorrow
and fill it up with joy
whenever I wish
I don't always succeed
At times it becomes too heavy to carry
So I put it aside and lean on it
Then I get up and carry it again
To be fair, there are times
when it's quite light
It spreads its wings and soars
reminding me
that I am its nest
. . .
But these are the requisite illusions
for a poem
The truth is this:
The heart is a long shelf
stacked with heavy boxes
No wings
Just dust and pain
I lied, again (for the poem's sake of course).
But, since we are approaching
the last few lines
I will come clean:
I know nothing about your hearts
But I do know that mine is an old palace
So vast I used to wander and get lost in it
Today its rooms and corners
are stacked with hundreds of boxes.
There is not much space left
Except for this narrow spot by the gate
where I squat
and write
this poem
© 2019 Sinan Antoon
2019
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
