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

Nasca desert skulls deformed, bleached sun-white and nervous the million scattered bones never buried in the rainless vacuum hollow eyes stare we are rude to stare back into the worm-cleansed eggshell emptiness uncovering your rituals dead black hair clutching your penitent frown dry and flat death spreads brittle and tightly woven around the desert crust like the bloodless-red cotton guarding your secrets from the air I see the giant spiders and lizard etchings crawling over the skull-like globe of your world just like the tiny insects crawling over the globe-like skull of your emptiness we are left with a reminder of the future-past Copyright 2004 Jeff Raheb