Birthed by Xylem

Isn't it good to be born, yaar
in this time of transpiration?
flying to the sun
Surya's golden arms
stretch cold womb
a radiant midwife
softening,
untangling green veins
from brown
with placental permission
each sigh dilates
maternal portals
coaxing seedlings
to the leaf pile
beneath the nest.

Yasmeen Najmi


(yaar = friend, Surya = Sun Deity)

© 2010 Yasmeen Najmi

Kutch Rain

Rain has come to Kutch
you set fire to grasses
in preparation
burning core
melts laterally
travel through
my shattered landscape
bound centrifugally
by your gaze.

Submergence
etched, carved
arms frame
blurring edge
rebuild me with cool adobe
blocks of silty skin
cut from salt flats
of our shore.

Lips gather
pick gently
at seared flesh
epicurean vulture
elegantly scouring
to nothing but
bulbul songs,
whispered mantras
of past lives
haunting Ghat currents
through canyons
of blushing ears.

Rain has come to Kutch
at night
I know surrender
I hold you in my step well
for future drought.


Yasmeen Najmi

© 2010 Yasmeen Najmi

The Elephant in the Room

The elephant in the room
is a ceremonious diva
she carries her weight confidently
like Queen Latifah
and she can get you with that Queen look
you know the one I'm talking about
sideways, eyes slit
burgundy lips
wrinkle a warning
and a "mmmhmmm"
vibrates from a place
deep beneath her blouse
you know you'll never see.

The elephant in the room
seeks low places
not for the company
she hides behind a burqa
of clay and cottonwood leaves
but uses her eyes as a weapon
sleeps on cool sandbars
tail thumping unconsciously
to bullfrog, deep pool bass
casting flies and other,
more savvy suitors
to the corners of her dreams.

The elephant in the room
has hips that can knock a man
off bar stools
and bus stops on Central
she sways her trunk
like a bossa nova
through the bosque
and down the ditch on Atrisco
sweeping for emotional land mines.

The elephant in the room
stands lonely in her exhibit
because branches and balls
can't bathe her
with mud and cool water
and she's forgotten
the ancient acoustics females use
to call a mate
or their herd
and doesn't know where to look.

The elephant in the room
is afraid of being alone
but elephants never forget
she wears the scrubbed coffee stains
of her shackles
and refuses to board the truck
to the next circus.

The elephant in the room
is so large that noone
can share her space
or get past the couch
placed near the front door
nothing grows in her shadow
not even tumbleweeds
the misanthropic nightshade
or love.

The elephant in the room
is every woman afraid
to be stuck with something
worse than celibacy
one less pillow or paycheck
to extract the fragments
from scar tissue sprayed over
3am grafitti on back doors
that read "too much"
or "not enough"
to those close enough
to decipher the swerving tire script.

Yasmeen Najmi

© 2010 Yasmeen Najmi

A Wall in the Heart

A poem from Salah-al-Din (Saladin) to Simon Wiesenthal re: building the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Dignity and Tolerance on top of the Mamilla Cemetary – a 1000-year-old Moslem burial ground in Jerusalem.

They say in death
we are equal
but our dead cannot rest
peeled awake in layers to witness
the long-awaited arrival
of dignity and tolerance
the latest chapter in the Holy War
You said, Shimon,
that a People are not evil
only individuals
shifting sands
revoked sacred geography
for neglect of our brothers.

We are no strangers to death, Shimon
the red rivers of Jerusalem and Krakow
horses and boots slipped and snared
in kudzu of limbs
as they forded them
drunk with power
swords and bullets whirling round Vienna waltzes
and Crusade became crucifixion
Aliyah, apartheid
Charity, recruitment
for God’s armies
Jihad, a brutality waged on others
but to the internal struggle
we must return
salvation is not possession
but liberation.

We are not so different, Shimon
I remember the words
of my great father, Ayuub
to battle only when
all bridges are impassable
soldiers will sacrifice
for cause that transcends them
a whispered promise
in Mecca prostrations.
Are Jerusalem’s gates beyond repair?
Is it the fate of the place
that gave birth to our prophets
to wave the flag of intolerance,
flaunt scars and stripes and D9 damn the different
Did we not learn that suffering
is the enemy of nobility
power and devotion
the twins born of Myth
and every breath conceives a choice?
Salah-al-din’s army
recaptured Jerusalem
Abraham’s children returned
Muslim and Jew rejoiced
the victors rewrite history
but when we finally reach the promised land
we must ask, was our cause just?
Did we live by our books
or by eyeless faith and lust?

Jeremiah foretold that the law
would not be inscribed in stone
but deep in our hearts
where this wall remains
and there are one way arteries to reason
not compassion
we can always find scripture
to justify reaction
but I pray we don’t forget
the good, the merciful
who live by their word
give us comfort and wisdom
with bread in darkness
when the Temple wall exhales
the western sky
returns wails of the dispossessed
their hungry, hollow eyes stretching barbed wire
of No Man’s land.

A lonely call to prayer
announces a new dawn
they say the Moors dwelt
in the drowning sun
washing flame and sin
from our Saharan star
placing it anew
each morning in the eastern sky
so nothing's irreversible, Shimon
we’ve proved
that the dead, like our humanity
can be forgotten
but so can our transgressions
and failures to love the stranger
and the vulnerable as our own
to see divinity in each of us
one thousand golden domes.

You fought for justice not vengeance
contemplated forgiveness
and envied dead Nazis
decorated with names and sunflowers
their brilliant, yellow optimism
made you forget for a moment
that God had abandoned you
at Mauthausen
silently praying
someone would care enough
to plant a sunflower for birds
to carry you pieces and seeds to Zion
so I ask you, Shimon,
who will plant sunflowers
on the tired, shattered graves of Mamilla
who will forgive you?

Yasmeen Najmi

© 2010 Yasmeen Najmi