Poems of Place

I happened to be the editor of the student literary journal at my modest Middle Eastern university, and as such, I charitably contributed two poems, even though I have never submitted my poetry anywhere ever, and after you read them, you'll probably see why. Nevertheless, these two poems, as bad as they are, say something about my first-year perceptions and feelings while here. The first is appropriately accompanied by a photograph:

To My Building from Gate 4

On each side of the old soccer cage

There is a walkway, accidental but bricklaid.

Two other buildings wall the paths,

The northern wall is tall, aluminum, and labeled science; 

The southern is short, angled, and labored. 

The northern walkway has parallel walls as well,

The southern does not--its walls begin wide

On the western side and gradually funnel

Into an eastern gap no wider than a meter.

If I have a briefcase, wear a backpack or a jacket,

My fabric appendages will snag on the cage

Or rub against the rough dusty concrete.

I wonder if a woman's abaya snags,

But I wouldn't know because I've

Never really seen a woman 

Navigate that funnel,

Although I haven't 

Been watching 

Very carefully.

Besides, what

Really goes 

Into the

Decision

About

Which 

Path

To 

Go

On

?

Not my decision, but the one with the abaya.

Ex-Petrarchan Sonnet

My mistress is really a country.

You see, I have no high ideas, not yet. 

I do, however, live in constant agony 

For natural and civil laws, like Antigone

Plea-bargaining for a little compassion--

Just a little--or like Myrrha, whose passions

Should have been governed before deceit

Made her leave, with a child in her trunk.

My mistress remains, also waiting,
And that is the tragedy that keeps me
From devoting more energy to the cause
Of Antigone or Myrrha, or the Souq-

You wait, once a promised leave seems permanent,
I will look back through my own crumbled sediment.