MANTRA FOR MAHMOUD DARWISH

Mah
Mahmoud
Mahmouddar
Mahmouddarwish
Mahmouddarwishgrande
Mahmouddarwishgrandepo
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoet
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoetla
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoetlanou
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoetlanouveau
Palestine chantera tes mots comme des cris
Incendiaires et pleins de compassion dans les oreilles
Du lendemain glorieux

--Jack Hirschman
Hirschman is the former poet laureate of San Francisco and the author of many books of poetry, including The Arcanes, I Was Born Murdered, Fists on Fire and Front Lines.

LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORIES

The New World was small.
An airless room at the top
of some stairs. The floor
Covered by a worn layer
of blue linoleum.
& curtains drab as flags
of a defeated country.
What could we build here?
What could we sell?
Outside the smeared window
the sky glittered like
Heaven's graveyard
on a Saturday night.
Perhaps El Dorado waited
beyond the hovels
of Orion.
Too tired to push on,
we establish an embassy
in a dusty corner,
a trading post in another.
Happy as Rajahs on the sagging bed,
surveying every inch
of exploitable space.


Michael Shepler
--Michael Shepler is the author of several books of poems titled Angel's Flight: New and Selected Poems and Dark Room Elegies.