FROM BEHIND THE WINDOW PANE

From behind the window pane

Is a TV screen

Beyond which

Are fish swimming

Almost linearly

Without each seemingly looking

At one another.

A man a little ways from me

Sipping coffee and spewing nicotine

Is hitting keys with one finger

On his mini screen.

I too take a drag from my hookah

And exhale a smoke screen.

Fog from the mountain

Is descending.

Humility settles on my lenses

Half thoughts behind my eyes

Are forming in the shade of the evening

And no one and nothing is looking.

Hold on. I think I have received an imaginary note

On the screen on my retina.

How nearly exciting

It’s all cool, calm and serene

For hours on end

With water bubbles from here or there

Or elsewhere not seen

Periodically rising.

Dawn is imminent

Seasonal clouds are approaching

And the mind’s eye, the screens, and the fish

Now vanish into nothing.

Ali H. Raddaoui

 Sept. 23, 2016

I KEEP THEM SIMPLE, MY PLEASURES

I keep them simple, my pleasures

Without pretense or endeavor

I untie my shoe laces

Get rid of my socks

Place my plates on the gravel

So the Salalah night breeze

Destresses my nerve ends.

My employer doesn’t know

I am drinking tea with thyme

And feeling a drizzle on my arms

And watching the low-lying clouds

As they wrap us from up there

Without fretting for a second or an hour

About the little things of the morning hours

The misgivings of the afternoon

And the impatient evening rush hour.

I feel free not to tip the waiter

To the tune of 18%

Our eyes meet and we smile.

I holler like crazy

In the din of the youth throwing dice

And ordering chicken masala,

Cream with saffron and mango juice

The city lights flicker in the misty evening

And the evening lingers

And dabbles with the drizzle

And the drizzle dabbles with my tea

And thyme grows in my backyard

And baby mangoes sprout all around

And their roots curl up

To drink straight from the skies.

Ali H. Raddaoui