Selected poems from 'Tabular Rasa' by Jeff Raheb

  • Havana      
  • Paro Dzhong - Bhutan      
  • Dal Lake - Kashmir      
  • Bamboo      
  • The Center      
  • I Pour You A Cup Of Tea      
  • For The Women Of Bosnia      
  • You Say It Is Raining      
  • Zimbabwe      
  • The Comet      
  • Pygmalion      
  • Ganges      
  • Nasca - Peru      
  • Zu Twa Szi      
  • Body Rain      
  • The Shadow Puppet (Jogjakarta )                      
  • Songkla - Thailand      
  • 5 Haikus
  • The Center

    I was lost in the Bermuda triangle
    It was like Egypt in a sea of flesh
    the great pyramid
    sucking in all surrounding life
    A tilted triangle I thought
    circumscribed around your hunger
    but you knew my weakness
    Told me it was a fig
    fresh, succulent, sweet
    so I bit into its sweetness
    wearing your smile on my thighs
    Told me it was a grapefruit
    you were right
    I bent down and tasted it, pink, juicy
    kind of sweet, kind of tart
    I ate every section
    lingering around the center with my tongue
    There were tremors in your skin
    as I swallowed your body
    as you swallowed my hardness
    as your body swallowed the milk
    of my trembling
    I came to Egypt
    I came in the great pyramid
    between sky and sand
    The Pharaohs were waiting for us
    You were waiting for me
    I visited the pyramids in Mexico
    and was Jungled in like green-iguana-slowness
    Like Asian fever
    sweet and sweaty
    swollen like an anaconda moving in and out
    digesting the heat of a fresh kill
    In Sudan, the Saharan winds
    crack the pyramids into pieces
    I lick their dryness like a cat its fur
    let the heat burn my bowels
    Now there are tremors on my skin
    I exhale breath of wet fire into your lips
    and rain down upon your body
    like night crashing into the surf
    like sweat pouring into the sea
    like sand screaming into the wind

    I even became the wind
    so as to enter every part of your smoothness
    slipping past even your seditious skin
    the wind has no mercy

    We draw shapes in the morning light
    with our naked bodies
    while only the birds cover us
    with their fluttering wings
    made of the down of your brown belly
    I tasted that too
    like Indian velvet
    like a Bahian feast of papayas
    maracaja and guarana
    Da danca do mar
    In Brazil the sensuous sun
    seeps into the scorched sand
    where our form was
    and cuts through the hot flesh
    of the earth
    To the center
    where all desire
    has fused
    has seeped
    through the surface
    To the center
    where my mouth
    burns from wanting
    To the center
    where your wetness
    burns my tongue
    To the center
    Your center

    I
    Will
    Return


    Copyright 2004 Jeff Raheb