BETRAYAL

With the palm of your hands

Amidst the cries of seagulls

and the deafening thunder

You could barely holler  

Your voice lost in the brouhaha.

I paddled my way to you

Despite the tumult

And against practice

I reached out

And by any measures

I delivered…

As the scribe later penned the bond

The waves and the clouds and the moon far up

Bore witness to our deed

Only to realize

Ten cycles later

It was mere theater

To be replayed

On other random stages.

Ali H. Raddaoui

10/19/2019

ASH-BOUND

Sand in my hourglass
Slowly seeps down
At eventide.
The sea is slowly
Turning its hourglass
Upside down.
I twist my hourglass
By the isthmus
And submit the sand
To the crematory of the soul
And blow its ashes
Into the Sea.

In this post, I wish to share a poem and to shed some light on its inception. I imagined a situation in which there was a swimming pool for children, and another one for older people. The narrator gets into the children's pool and describes its sweet noises and joys. He remembers suddenly that at fifty plus, he is no longer a child, though he could almost see the child in him. In the midst of this thought, a life guard asks him to leave the children's swimming pool and go to that for grown-ups. At that point, he feels the water is getting rather cold. He goes to the shower to warm up a bit, and then, goes out into the street.
***
COLD DREAM

As I jumped into the pool
The life guards didn’t see me.
The water was uterus-warm
Children’s voices filled the air
They hovered and flapped their little wings
Splashed water with their feet
And threw drops on each other’s faces.

At fifty plus
I didn’t have the feet of children
I couldn’t afford to tie swimming aids
Around my waist to keep me floating
But my heart hovered
I could nearly hear the child in me…

From her promontory
A life guard whispered to me:
“Please proceed to the pool for grown-ups,
This one is only for children”.

The water turned cold
I retreated into the shower
And soon out into the street.
January 19, 2010