Category: Free Verse

A cat has nine lives.

So they say But I’m not sure that’s true.

I think they have more.

Maybe even an infinite number

Because they always seem to land on their feet

No matter how high they fall Or how hard they hit the ground

They always seem to come out unscathed.

It’s like they’re invincible.

But they’re not

They can get hurt

And they can get sick.

And they can die Just like any other living thing

But they always seem to cheat death.

And I think that’s why we love them so much.

Because they’re like little miracles

Always surprising us

And making us believe.

That anything is possible.

Written by: Ali Lmalki

Swing

You are so strong about right and wrong

White and black

You don’t see colors

because white is all the colors

and black is none

You don’t see gray

You hate gray

Yet you live in gray

Because life is gray

When you are passionate you are like fire

When peaceful you are like air

You love passionately, it’s toxic

and when you hate, your indifference kills

Your touch heals when you are high

and when you are low, it burns

Your happiness radiations make everyone sick

and your sadness kills the flowers you walk by

Your expectations are too high

that when you fall, you break into pieces

You laugh until it hurts

and you cry rivers

and I love you as you are

Life has strange sense 

Sometimes you break 

Like a branch of a tree 

Sometimes you fly 

Like a bird in the sky 

And sometimes you collapse into yourself 

Like a hill built along rivers 

Maybe we will grow green again 

From abrasive woods in the forest 

From pieces of rock in the mountains 

and then 

I impregnated the world with my eyes 

With madness 

With immortality 

It was with the wind of my hair 

That the forest passed through the winds 

I reached the city 

Wilder 

With dreams full of bread and salt 

With faces full of light and darkness 

With hands full of hope and salvation 

I loved the mountains 

My voice echoes in the heart of the mountains 

My fatigues 

were leaned on the mountains 

When I reached the cities 

I forgot that the wind of that mountain 

hanged my beloved tent on the plane trees 

I forgot 

The sun shines on old vents 

And rivulet 

has exposed the roots of tall poplars 

By Amal Mrhailaf

This Picture is haunting me,

Since the day I saw it, I hug differently.

I’ve always loved hugging,

But now I feel it more,

I feel the other heart.

I picture this every time I hug,

I find this extremely beautiful.

I have never seen you so tranquil

As you were lying on my lap

Indulging in the affection

Your face resting against my thigh

A smile filled with serenity

Your delicate hands around my waist

Looking at you sleeping so peacefully

I couldn’t get my eyes off you

How can there be such an alluring being?

A being so fragile and vulnerable, yet so captivating and charming

The feeling of you between my hands

Is getting harder to remember and understand

As time whittles our recollection of that moment

And even if life is a roulette

Just give me your hand and walk beside me

For we will make it our duet

Mountains of flames devouring all creatures

Eyes gouged out and burning people running around

Civilizations crumbling to the ground

Fragments of the moon hailing down earth

Erasing any existence of mankind and with it

Raising oceans’ tides to unprecedented levels

What have I done to deserve such end?

What have We done to deserve such end?

The reckoning is upon us, the reckoning is upon us

I wake up drowning in my own sweat

Heart racing inside my chest, breathless and tired

Yet my mind and soul more worn out than my body

For even if it was a dream, I was not ready for the reckoning

For the reckoning brought out my insignificance and helplessness

Black suit, black coffin, black cat, a stream of people.

Where do the black coffins travel to?

Their routes under de burial-ground must link all the dead stars above it

 

The droplets of water falling on the cemetery’s grass

The trees mourning with the mortals

Nature holding in its silent tears

 

A man walking in procession at his own funeral

People swirling around him like the black death

Withered branch, withered limb

 

The galaxies with his soul in the palm of their hand

Where does such an existence go to?

Truly a secret for the cosmos alone to unfold

Lost frightened  

A crowd around her  

Some just curious others supportive  

Two anxious eyes searching for safety  

I don’t know how I found myself among them  

Asking her in a calm voice hiding a beating heart  

Are you lost?  

In a terrified voice, she answered  

Yes, yes, yes  

I took her hand… She surrendered to me  

In my miserable attempts to calm her  

We walk together towards the unknown  

Voices calling me saying the police are the solution  

I nod my head  

My hand will not leave hers until she finds her family  

What is your name, little one?  

Angel  

Who are you here with?  

My mother and my aunts  

We walk and walk and she forgets for a while  

Then she remembers and goes back to the screaming  

Mom, I want mom  

I understand beautiful, we will find her  

We are only meters away from the police  

I don’t want to leave her alone  

*****  

I did not reach my fourth spring when I got lost in the middle of the legs  

I was holding my mother’s gown  

To find myself alone  

The police station was my shelter  

The search journey took hours  

They thought they found me, but no way  

That day I wore a mask of courage in the midst of a world of strangers  

******  

She left my hand towards a forty-year-old woman  

Her relatives gathered around me between the questioner and the thankful  

My eyes see no other  

Are you happy…she answered yes  

I want a goodbye kiss  

Blush cheek kiss  

*****  

While holding her hand, she was the one who held mine  

That day, she brought me back home after a decades-long wandering journey 

 

Papal purple, velvet purple, split purple sky where my lady leaks 

How can these purple Lavender be so royal that you call them Majesty? 

Steely sky growing a million of fruits hanging on the sorrowful clouds. 

But the smooth calm sea became disturbed, a cold breeze giving me chills. 

Waves fighting with their bubbled swords, 

Where you can sit, talk and listen to their advice forever. 

Lights cut out into golden cereals into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber and rose. 

Purple lightening rippled in the air nearby remind me of your eyes, that love at first sight. 

Never thought it would turn the sea into bloody dark swamps where bodies are drowning. 

Andromeda shining alone in this empty universe, 

Can’t I join you in this paradise and be a Milky Way? 

This is my last melody floating on my third drink tonight.