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2015-10-29-Four-Poems-Handal (1).jpg

Four Poems by Nathalie Handal

December 1, 2015

Twenty Tattoos

“Misspelled lives—their beauty lingers like tattoos”

Prison, Tomas Tranströmer

I asked you not to hurt me

the way history did

 

asked you if the moon will expire

if a helicopter and a bomb will fall again

 

if the light posts will light up, if we will find

what starves the lonesome inside

 

the years we weren’t allowed to enter

the mind we weren’t permitted to unpack

 

you played Haydn because Tomas did

joked that there’s freedom in the afterlife

 

and I fell in your eyes to find

the perfect somewhere

 

I wanted the bird in your chest

the bird on the balcony you tried

 

but couldn’t get rid of

so you wrote about longing

 

stole a secret from the bird, then asked

if it knew the meaning of time

 

and if beauty will only survive

if we stay misspelled



 

Jesus Hung the River

 

You get to watch triple x

and I get to sing the blues

 

You get to wear a jumper

and I a fuchsia skirt

 

You get to smoke a pipe

I get to screw with what gleams

 

You get to spell Amen

I get to spell Adieu

 

You get to cut your stanza

I get to cut the exit line

 

No chasing or escaping

the degrees of fever

 

in our vocal cords

So let’s wear our polka-dot shirt

 

and make sure we save

our alphabet in a safe place

 

because here no one walks straight lines

or slow dances

 

no one understands

what avant-garde means

 

or follows the clock

disobeys compulsions

 

or keeps refrains

that grow shades of black

 

or collects miles of prehistory masks

Here everyone carefully pick the nouns

 

they will use later

because look who hung the river




 

A New Era in Space

 

Some call it heaven,

others a cheap place to fanaticise

where bets are made—

gladiators versus barbarians—

by those who

carry their cell phones to the toilet,

only permit barbecues

and country music,

leave the engine

of their Mustangs on

and tell their women:

Honey, I got a mean soul,

sleep with me anyway,

heaven cost nothing

when hell's not around.

I never could but I did.

You see,

I needed my body

to resurrect in their borders—

there are beauties we

can’t inhabit immediately

like the stars the moon the universe,

places that force us to draw

a knot to our names

so we can better understand

what it means to hesitate.

 



 

Submarine


 

You trip over a cold wind

but you have no part in cursing the moon

 

You trade your honor for her love

but have nothing to do with kinky motels

 

You listen to Tom Waits

and deliver your twisted heart

haunted by wild daisies

to some higher divine

 

You throw God out the window

swallow some feel good pills

recite word for word

the sermon you heard at City Lights

 

You pour fame on her body

(can’t hold her back in your breath)

and call another lover to forget your pain

 

You walk to every parlor

then tend to your toothache

to the memory of your mother

with another man

that numbed you forever

 

You look around for another bay

but damn it—realize—

you can’t love underwater


Nathalie Handal’s recent books include the flash collection The Republics, which Patricia Smith lauds as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers”; The Invisible Star; the critically acclaimed Poet in Andalucía; and Love and Strange Horses, winner of the Gold Medal Independent Publisher Book Award, which the New York Times says is “a book that trembles with belonging (and longing).” Handal is a Lannan Foundation Fellow, winner of the Alejo Zuloaga Order in Literature, Honored Finalist for the Gift of Freedom Award, among other honors. She is a professor at Columbia University and writes the literary travel column The City and is the Writer for Words without Borders.
Polka dot photo: Cheryl / CC BY-ND
In Poetry, Print Tags Nathalie Handal, 2015 fall vol. 8 issue 2
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