I Love You I Love You Not
I.
Beirut I love you.
My feisty grandmother
is throwing rice from
balconies
Bullets, bullets,
in the sky
shooting fate in the eye
what a merry wedding.
II.
I saw Abu Saed
The cab driver in debt
Weep, weep,
Children overdosing
On your streets
Falling one after the
other
a domino
act after act after act
a foreign show
Or are they
sleeping?
perhaps...dreaming?
of a brighter tomorrow?
I
can’t
hide
the
sorrow.
III.
Your women are beautiful.
rounded and sharp almond eyes
sticks and twigs for thighs
sea-shell hearts that open and close
they’re asking why
IV.
Why?
Why didn’t you write back?
Was it the booze?
Was it the smack?
Was it the young men I saw
dancing in the forest
to gods they don’t understand?
Was it the girls in their 20s
Walking out of bars
10 minutes and 23 seconds pregnant
when it was unplanned?
Was it your fertile land
and your sky pink and blue
your cedars your views
that you had to screw
over the only thing
that might’ve been good for you
your people.
V.
Beirut, I love you not.
I can't walk straight anymore.
Your teens are
deep-throating life
vomiting their futures
in the toilet.
I love you.
I love you not.
I love you.
I love you not.
It's raining rose petals
God is bleeding
I see him
in
the
sky.
|