ISRAEL

plhyams@isdn.net.il

Fleeing

And so the hot dry Sinai
Beckoned like an immense vessel of refuge
Perhaps like a woman in the throes of seduction
So I fled to the oasis and Nueiba with crystal
 sharp lights of blazing orange/brown hues
And at night…piercing quiet…at last
With a marble of cobalt-blue skies
Massaged by the washing hands of a Red Sea in slumber
To quell the turmoil in the heart
Of this high-tech refugee from a 
Land lit up by diodes and Web-driven Fantasies
This fantasy was momentarily needed above
The reality-check days of pressurized
Urban madness
The Fleeing…accepted by a heart
Beginning to quiet.

To L.

L. for love of my life
And a score and a half
Of full living…the ups…the downs…
But always my passion for your sweet
Smile and warm body next to mine in the nights
When the visions tore at everything.

My everything is you L.
A secret to your identity in this tome
For it is written we are 1 (ONE) for eternity
My love for U is forever.

Once Was A Hope

The hope once was a
Dream for us in a 
Nightmare of war we
Believed in Peace
But now the stones mixed
With the blood of the children
And the plans of murderers
Hit each of us enemy or not
In our souls with dead
Thuds

Another human being is buried
In Holy ground
While Peace the greatest victim
Escapes for generations and the
War of brother's resumes spilling
The guts of families across a
Wasteland of historical imbecility

Dead Ringers

Dead ringers.
Who? You. Me!
Cousins with dark features and
Weathered brown complexions.
With names like Mohammed and Moshe,
Avi and Ali, Michal and Mustapha.
Dark stars, cousins killing brothers killing
Mothers killing fathers killing children
Killing cousins over and over and over
Till the bell tolls:
Enough! Truce! Wasted lives
Lives meant to be lived but instead
Lived to be killed even though
Death will come in due course for us all.
Dead ringers!
You look like me but are not.
I look like you and am not.
Who? You. Me!

Birth Pangs

I come from a land which
Gave birth to the world and
Now destroys itself while the
World watches.

I come from a country where
Ideas formed other freedoms and thoughts
But now has no ideas except the
One buried on the lips of martyrs.

I come from a place where
Cultures and peoples were born and
Died out like petering embers of
A global campfire.

Only ashes are left. Birth pangs?   

© All Copyright, Philip Hyams.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.