Poetry — April 24, 2014 10:23 — 0 Comments

Three Poems – Maged Zaher

Then they baptized me with dirt and I became fit to smell the perfumes of the world.

I am constructing the map of my solitude by tracing my kisses on your thighs.

The tree vanished today. They said before that: it won’t heal you, but if you believe in it, it will protect you.

These poems are the hymns I failed to memorize in childhood.

 

*

 

The moon, being the ultimate voyeur, watches nothing. My wound is the trees. I sit quietly and study Marxism.

The architect constructs our shadows. We create a night without aesthetics.

The revolution calms down. We learn to be contained by the world. I am finally able to administer your absence.

 

*

 

This is for you, and for nothing. The erotic is awaiting. It is in the description and in the yard grass.

Postmodernism is the trees. We walk into a garage. Jesus multiplies in the corners.

The PDF format is romantic. We use it to talk about the revolution and to say that we own our breakfast.

We entered several museums in order to weep. Yes, we have been expanding our usage of lingerie. Every silence is different.

Bio:

MAGED ZAHER is the author of THANK YOU FOR THE WINDOW OFFICE (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012), THE REVOLUTION HAPPENED AND YOU DIDN'T CALL ME (Tinfish Press, 2012), and PORTRAIT OF THE POET AS AN ENGINEER (Pressed Wafer, 2009). His collaborative work with the Australian poet Pam Brown, FAROUT LIBRARY SOFTWARE, was published by Tinfish Press in 2007. His translations of contemporary Egyptian poetry have appeared in Jacket Magazine, Banipal, and Denver Quarterly. He performed his work at Subtext, Bumbershoot, the Kootenay School of Writing, St. Marks Project, Evergreen State College, and The American University in Cairo. Maged is the recipient of the 2013 Genius Award in Literature from the Seattle weekly The Stranger.

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What am I?

Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies

Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;

Scientists can't find me.

Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—

Remind me:

The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…

Tick, Tock: Divine me.

-- Richard Kenney