The Book of Moulay

THE BOOK OF MOULAY
Poetry Anthology of Kathleen Woolrich

Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia 2002 to 2015
By Kathleen Woolrich
KAHINA BOOKS
THE BOOK OF MOULAY

by Kathleen Woolrich
Copyright 2015 Kathleen Woolrich
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The Word of the Author
o be able for you to understand my interest in

Algerians , you would have to know something
about me.
I was raised pretty normally but when I was 23 , I married a
violent alcoholic. I endured beatings and abuse for almost 11
years non stop. When I wasn't being hit, I was told I was
worthless and nothing. In May of 2001 , I went to Paris and I
happened to be staying near GARE DU NORD. I went
downstairs from my very little hotel and went across the
street to eat at a little cafe. I walked in and there were people
laughing, hugging, sometimes yelling at each other and the
tv, sometimes quiet,but always welcoming. They were
Algerians. I went back to Paris again that year and I was
determined to find out who Algerians were.
*
That year I got the strength to leave my batterer. It has been
very hard and I have not made a good transition into my
new life. But something happened in 2004. I got the idea that
I wanted to start making a scrap book for Algeria, full of its
past and pretty things. I know the years that I was abused, I
did not keep records of even the good things that happened
and when I left , I wanted to leave it all behind. The problem
is many times you lose all the things that were part of your
life when you try to protect yourself from the memory of
pain.
*
I don't know exactly what to do for Algeria. I know most
Algerians have a great deal of NIFF and really don't want
help or anything to that effect. So I have decided what I will

do for you ALGERIA. I will collect articles about you. I will
collect books about you. I will collect photos of you and
postcards of you and I will make you a virtual museum,
right now in books, but eventually on the web. I want
the world to know that you have many chapters in your
book, not just dark ones. You have beautiful strong chapters.
And I actually went to Algeria with my 2 children
in January 2006 and saw you . I saw who you are . I know
you, Algeria. And now it is time to make peace with the pain
and your glorious story be told. You lost millions
when France invaded. People you trusted , sometimes even
your brothers betrayed you. Now it is time to rise and be
proud of a collosal history and let the world know that there
is so much more to you than darkness. I know this
from being abused because I know what it feels like for
someone to hurt you and never pay a price for what they
did to you. I know what it is like to have to keep on going
when you feel that everyone has lost faith in you. I know
what it is like to look at a mess and not know where to go to
fix the pain. I want you to see each one of these items and
know that I did all of this for you. I am not wealthy. I have
spent any extra money I have had to buy these things
because I felt that I needed to start building this collection
for you. Everyone says that they have this photo and that.
But the photos sit in drawers and no one sees them. It
doesn't matter if you have a big collection of things
concerning Algeria if you don't let people see them. I believe
that it would be a wonderful thing if everyone's personal
story of pain and survival be recorded because someday
Algeria will not have this painful legacy and it is important
to record all the stories of the martyrs and the fighters, both
male and female while they are alive. The children of the
PIED NOIRS have a story too and no matter what , all the
stories need to be recorded to give Algerians a full
appreciation of what they survived. I have a degree in
history but I never thought that I would be diving into

history daily , looking for remnants around the world of
Algeria's past. I just feel the calling inside my heart to do
these things for you as a people to inspire you to save your
memories and talk to your parents and grandparents to
know their stories one by one. Each death was a life and I
am here to tell you that each life mattered. Algeria matters to
the world even though they have not seen her and my love
for Algeria grows each day greater and greater because I
want you to understand how critical it is that history be
recorded and all these photos recorded and protected so
that all the children and grandchildren of the dead will have
a connection to their families. Connecting myself to
something more than my bad situation saved me. You can
say that Algeria saves me every single day because I love her
so and she is a living survivor of hard things and is still
beautiful. She is still beautiful, despite occupation, despite a
horrific civil war, despite the heartache, she is beautiful and
I love her. Please make copies of your photos and document
the sacrifices of your people and you will see that justice will
arrive in the form of reconciliation and progress.
Kathleen Woolrich
email: kwoolr@aol.com
10
Algeria
he massive white mother of Africa. She captured my

attention when I met her children for the first time in
Paris in 2001. I had never heard of Algeria nor met
an Algerian. I met several while vacationing in Paris and
began to read about Algeria.
*
My reading and research took me down many

paths......through a musical odyssey of rai and chaabi. It
took me through the history of the dark recent years and
into the cradle of the Aures Mountains. Algeria is not an
easy puzzle to solve. It is a massive garden of wonderments
and has a history that is rich with good and bad guys,
sinners and saints, the unjust and the just, the right and the
wrong.
So I will do what any gardener does when they enter a
garden. I will look for the roses.
Algeria is a land of many civilizations and is a melting pot of
cultures. It has a deep and varied mix of bloodlines.. the
byzantines, the greeks, even turks have been on their shores.
It has a rich native population of whom are rumored to
share blood with perhaps the celts or other Europeans. No
one really knows where the berbers are from, perhaps that
will be revealed as DNA is taken from places all over the
world.
The French entered into Algeria after the failure of France to
win any decisive military battles against their enemies.
France entered Algeria and was met very quickly with
11
opposition by Abdel Kader, a young brave warrior who

fought them from 1832 to 1847. Abdel Kader was eventually
exiled to Syria by Napoleon but not before he spent years in
prison and many of his family died there. Abdel Kader was
a true hero during his time in Syria, saving non muslims
from maruading violent criminals and was awarded a gun
from Abraham Lincoln that you can actually see at the
museum of the martyrs. Abdel Kader was not allowed to
return to Algeria upon his death. After the independence of
Algeria, he finally was allowed to rest in Algeria. The French
prevented his return to Algeria.
Abdel Kader is immortalised in Algerian songs. " ABDEL
KADER YA BOUALEM" means Abdel Kader the flag
because he used to ride into battle against the French with a
green flag. The flag of Algeria is green and white and it is
thought that Abdel Kader is the father of the Algerian flag.
Houari Boumedienne, one of the most famous leaders of
Algeria used to have his portrait hanging in his office.
French generals have admitted in the recent press that many
crimes were commited against Algerians during the
occupation of Algeria from 1830 to 1962.
Over one million landmines were placed by the French on
the borders of Algeria and have never been removed .
Numerous massacres by the French Army and by the French
Foreign Legion
Entire villiages and cities burned to the ground and
hundreds of thousands of Algerians left homeless and
landless
12
Algerians unable to obtain proper food and education and

land ownership rights
Over a million and half Algerians killed by the French in the
years between 1954 and 1962 alone
Critical infrastructure destroyed by retreating armies
Torture and rape used by the French as a means of
humiliating and destroying the psyche of the Algerian
people
A collective refusal and denial of the crimes of the French in
Algeria which led to more suffering of the Algerian people
When the truth is told to the world about what happened to
Algerians at the hands of the French, then many of the other
problems of Algeria will be revealed. Justice needs to be
served, no matter who is affected.
These pictures, although they record what Algeria looked
like under French occupation contain parts of the history of
Algeria. The painful thing I believe is seperating a painful
time from personal experience. In every pretty book, there
are ugly chapters. The beauty is to salvage the beautiful
things from a painful past and that is what I want these
postcards to do.
These postcards hold much of the history of Algeria. I
bought these postcards from Estonia, Iceland, Italy,
Germany , The USA and many other places. Some I bought
in lots of 3 , some one by one. They represent the beginning
of a life long gift to Algerians. I will collect articles and
artifacts, one by one , to return to Algerians their memories
so that they can move to a new day with one foot in their
past without only seeing darkness.
13
14
About the French Colonialism in

Algeria
ustice has many forms. Pain in Algeria has come from

brothers that have turned against each other. It has come
from people taking what is not theirs to take. It has come
from the outside with unethical and horrific acts by foreign
powers to steal from Algeria's golden land.
But there is a new day coming for Algeria. Reconciliation.
The brothers and sisters are finding each other and now the
books of pain can be opened and looked at when the
wounds are not so fresh. Each family can remember their
shaheed but they can also look to a future with commerce
and a new beginning. Often when horrific things happen,
many things are not recorded, like a bad family gathering
when no pictures are taken because everyone is so
unhappy. Now the books can be opened and the stories told.
In between the horror and horrible times, there were
marriages and births, songs and celebrations, love and
romance, tragedy, poetry and heartbreak. They all are part
of the fabric of Algeria and all stories need to have their
place in the book of Algeria. The story of Algeria is not the
story that the world has seen with heartbreak and conflict.
The story of Algeria is its people, some heroes, some sinners,
some saints, some driven by different reasons to give pain,
some became heroes in the darkest night.
Some people became more than they ever would have
become. Ali La Pointe was a simple thief but he became a
hero with his resistance against the French and became a
symbol of individual Algerians and their struggle against
opression. The story of Algeria has been told in bits and
pieces to the world but has never been shown as a full story.
15
It is time to reveal family photos and honor the dead and the
missing. It is time to tell of happy times and love that took
place within the heartbreaking years. Women and Men who
met and made children despite the world crashing down
around them. It is time to tell the glorious story of rebirth
and strength, of culture and over coming obstacles. I can see
you Algeria, for all that you are and I see your hidden
beauty. Your children always come home like birds (
hmam)because they see these beautiful things and who you
are. Your tragic beauty, the warmth of your people, the
beauty of your landscape. Justice is served when the books
are read and the story of Algeria is told.
To Algerians. To the world.
16
17
Setif
nd the bread that you would not share

And the nose that you would break
And the baby that never got more
Than broken and lifeless milk
From a woman who watched the others eat
And she walked as if to say
I want the same as you, I want the bread, I want the hope
I want my baby to have good grains
Not barley or aged and lifeless food
To feed a baby to be big and strong
But the rifles became hammers
And came down upon the skulls
Of walking hungry
And bodies lay bloated and swollen
In the days when the world was freed from one monster
The liberators let the Beau Geste have their own children to
mame.
Food to steal and things to covet
And the prize was bread yet the hungry did not scream
Then the world was surprised when lack of food
And the actions of the civilized became a massacre
And how much bread can I have?
When the streets of Paris are full of warm smells?
And they take what they want and leave nothing behind
And the Beau Geste were the wonderful fairy tale men
Who somehow danced in my history books while the
hungry disappeared
18
And the babies

And the frightened
Setif
Holy food and evil men
And selfish people
And screams
On a day when the world danced with the news of freedom,
bellowing over radios
While the women washed the bodies of the dead
After dragging them from the streets
In the streets of Setif
19
20
Algeria, my sky
bdel Kader rode with his green and white flag

And saved thousands although exiled in Syria
And he was seperated from his sky
And Franz Fanon fell in love
With a people that he witnessed being abused
And then he asked to lay with them when death took his
body
The moon is the land that holds me to her
Tethered to her soil
And the stars her enduring people
Whose broken hearts are healing
The sun has risen for Algeria
Not meteoric
But the sky is filled with brilliant sunlight
And the sea is glistening with a million shards of gold
Broken glass but gilded
And her body juts into the cresting sea
In the cradle of Tipasa
Her people are a canvas
Of thick and diverse oil paints
And watercolored memories
Of painful times
But love endures
In the faces of the martyrs
Who's photographs speak to me
Saying my babies, my people
My strong, enduring beautiful ones
The darkness is ending
21
And the sky is full of gold and azure fabric

With black earth receiving the tears of the lost
And the new trains are arriving
And the birds from other countries are arriving
And carrying joy and acknowledgement
Of all the mother sky, my Algeria has endured
My sun, my glorious Algeria
I see the roses that haunt your streets
I see the joy that is illuminating the eyes of your children
I walk beneath the monument of the martyrs
And I hear the martyrs say to me
Tell our stories , one by one
Tell of our bravery, sacrifice and loss
Then tell our children that we did not die in vain
We knew that a day would come
when we could be mighty and beloved
And the shackles of the foreigners would be released
And we would grow
And we the Algerians would suffer
And then one day
The sun would shine
And we the Algerians would call the people
Of the world
And show them that although we were beaten
Although we had lost so much
Although it was painful
And we bled and cried
That we would stand like a sentinel
For all to see
Mighty, beautiful, Mother Algeria
With the sunlight filling the sky
Cry no more my children
22
The martyrs died for you

And left behind a savagely beautiful land
Who's heart could not be killed
And people not buried and destroyed
Because Algeria is a sunfilled sky
And her people bloom like flowers
And water cools her thristy sand
In my garden that I love, the land I adore
And Algeria my sun is the mother of them all
23
24
What they may not steal and what

will be restored
ittle is known in the western world about the savage

acts of the French before ,during and after the
occupation of Algeria. The French destroyed the
tomb of one of the greatest rulers of Algeria, Massinissa.
When they left Algeria, they burned libraries,
buildings,stole artifacts and pilliaged a civilization that they
no longer had control over. The western world has never
asked the French to be accountable to Algeria. The least they
can do is remove the landmines that pock mark Algeria and
to restore the tomb of Massinissa. If the French would tell
the Algerians that they are sorry for what they did and
actually return items to Algeria from French museums and
bring their art experts and building experts into Algeria to
repair what was lost , hearts between both countries could
heal.
When the French raided the Casbah, they captured over
50,000,000 Francs. All the beautiful treasures of Algiers
disappeared and they created a mercenary force full of
rapists, criminals and murderers and and made the
monsters a base in Sidi Bel Abbes. The French Foreign
Legion, created especially to deal with the " Algerian
Situation" became a monster all of its own. Little is known in
the western world about how the French used Napalm in
Kabilya, threw people off the side of cliffs and asphyxsiated
non combatants. Yet the French are very critical of other
western countries , especially the United States. The actions
of the French in Algeria and their murder and torture of non
combatants have never fully been spoken about. In fact, the
museum underneath the Martyrs Monument was known to
be the site of a torture chamber.
25
Children burned by Napalm, landmines surrounding every

border of a free country,torture chambers,non combatants
asphxiated,tombs destroyed,libraries burned, women raped
to extract confessions and no apology in sight. France owes
Algeria an apology and its riches returned. The louvre and
every major French museum holding items from Algeria
should immediately repatriate the items to Algeria and help
restore what they plundered.
And France says that the UNITED STATES has bills to pay. I
think the world needs to look at the destruction of the
French and have them finally make retribution.
26
27
Reach into my jacket
y hand lives there alone

I dont need a promise for you to hold me tight
I dont need a corner for my shoes
I accepted dark hallways a while ago
Just share a moment with me
And fill my space like whiskey fills a glass
And place your hand at the base of my neck like someone
who will accept me
And let me forget all things I can never be
Help me find the solace in knowing I am here in the living
world
With socks that have sisters
And hangers that hang in closets with ironed clothes
Not wrinkled pants upon the floor
Let me pretend that you did not call me at 2 am
When no one will pick you up
And I dont even bother to brush my hair
And I drive with drunks swerving all around me, merging
into me
I dont know who should I avoid
The cars or you
Take my hand
Its in my pocket
But dont touch my face or try to kiss my lips
I need honey to seal them closed
Cross my heart
Because change feels really heavy, although I shouldnt save
it
28
A dime has stood between me and thirst before

A penny stops a computer
A penny can short wires and start a fire
And I am not haunted
Because I prepare myself to lie alone
And dance alone
On vinyl floors yet I know
That well worn high heels can sometimes be fixed
If they have somewhere to travel
But all I travel is to my car
And to the bed where I rest my body so that I can find
The strength
To hold
Tiny hands
29
30
Mimouna
he etheral cries
of moroccan violins
play in my heart
as I walk along with you
in the streets where Larbi Batma walked
and I hear Mimouna playing on a radio
tucked behind the bar in a coffee shop
I thought it would be a different dream
perhaps starlit nights and the scent of jasmine
but the sun is brightly shining
and the ground feels hot beneath me
a broken record plays inside my head
and I reach for each moment
that God will let me have that is good
because I am looking for the blessings every step
every moment
I cannot hold your hand
But I can walk with you
And hold my head up
For a moment anyway
And look for ways to keep it up
and trancend this mortal earth
and look for the immortal
the songs and the holy
and chants and sacred things that the eye cannot see
so we will see the doorways and the gates
that grace the city of red velvet hats
and stand in squares of mystery
and watch the shores and watch the boats that come and go
31
for this is our destiny

to share this moment
and know the things that no one taught us
for life arrived faster than we could accept
the blessings and losses intertwine
Mimouna, mimouna
the tears for the young
I missed the sacred path
But I found the sacred place
where I could meet the thinkers and the dreamers
and the ones who held the mystic in their hands
and taste the wine of andalucia
and sit in the darkness and look at our moon
32
33
Flowers in the middle of Algiers
halky blue and broken white

who do you belong to Algiers?
horses that dance in dry ponds
and subways that venture no where
I walk along the naval base
and wish it held an aquarium
instead of barracks with men
with crisp white suits
The shiniest marble on one building
the paint peeling on the next
Algiers you remind me of myself
on one hand together and the other
Falling ...................apart
Can I wash your walls and paint your shutters?
I want to make you whole again
military money from my shores is not what you need
you need someone to love you as you are
and fill your gardens full of plants
and make studios for your artists
you need a place for fish and animals
you need chances for a freer economy
not brutal might shoved in your face
i asked your children what they wanted
34
they didn't know because it had been so long

that they hadn't seen a sunny day
or felt like love and hope belonged to them
so they became accustomed to class separation
and the haves have and the have nots suffer
the moneyed walk in hydra
and they ignore the tears of el harrach
Who are you Algeria?
And who am I to ask?
Shall I talk about what you need and who you are?
Or shall I just leave things as they are?
Where are the children's parks?
Where are the finest animals in the zoo
In a country that has countless oil reserves
Perhaps Rumsfled in his quest for oil
Can drop off a few elephants
And actually leave something for the Algerians
That actually makes the natives smile
And while we spend money bringing soldiers here
To train them in the art of death
Why don't we give them the good things we have?
Instead of missiles and weapons
35
36
Why don't we build libraries there and help them?

We seem so good at rebuilding Iraq
Why don't we rebuild Algeria?
Instead of treating it like every other invader
Why don't we bring artists here instead of soldiers
Why don't we preserve Amazigh?
Why? Because we don't care.
Algeria is a booty, just as it was for France
But I am not fooled
I love Algeria
I don't want anything from her
I want to give back to her
Because Algeria is more than a place to steal from
Algeria is a place to be protected and preserved
So think as you may
I am not buying it
Bases in Tamransset seem important to some
But I want a national museum in Kabilya
I want a living arts center in Algiers
I want a flowing fountain with lots of plants
In the botanical gardens
I want a zoo with lots of Animals bought with all this oil
money
If we can build a missile hanger
37
We can bring a tiger or an elephant to Algiers

We can have an aquarium
I want to know what the United States will give to Algeria
Besides take their oil and use them strategically
What will we leave behind in Algeria?
We seem so interested in teaching them
Why aren't we rebuilding El Harrach if we love Algeria so
much
Why aren't we building hospitals?
Why don't we rebuild Algeria?
Maybe if we tried, rich people would pocket the money
But I am still am going to try.
I want a garden in Algiers
No heartbreak will stop me
No life choice will stop me
My dream is to wash the walls of the casbah
And plant flowers in the middle of Algiers
38
39
Hold me close
y dearest friends
I miss you so
I held you in my heart when I arrived
And I left you behind when I went home
I touched your buildings
I saw the faces of the Shaheeds in the martyr's museum
And I knew what I must do
I will be your dearest friend
And as you are living and working and busy
I will look for your memories and give them back to you one
by one
I hold the pictures of your people in my hands when I open
the mailbox
I unroll the newsprints from 100 years ago and read about
the adventures of Abdel Kader
And you don't know I am doing this
Because you didn't know what you did for me
Algeria
I love you
You are the one place that I can feel like an adventurer
I live the revolution with you when I read about Djamila
Or see Ali La Pointe's simple face
And know no matter what you say, I will never give up on
you
And I want nothing from you
Only for you to know that I loved you
Anything I sell, I give back to you
Everything I hold, it is yours
For you Algeria gave me my life
40
41
Algerians gave me hope that I was still alive

When my world fell apart
Algeria remained
So I do this for you Algeria
And I promise you
As long as I am alive
I will look for you
I will look for your memories and books
I will look out for your people when I meet them, offering
them kindness, understanding and compassion
I will defend your memory to anyone who speaks your
name
Because I love you
And I have so little to offer you
I want to give you everything back you lost
And fill your museums full of pictures and memories
I want to give you all the roses to fill your gardens and so
that you will know
That when you are sad
That someone loved you so
And when I return to see your face
I want you simply to know
That I loved you so
Dearest Algeria
42
43
44
All the things life never was
ave become the markers of my life

And the joy that seeps between the hardest stones
Softens life's blows
And pulls my body in from the rough surf
When someone holds my hand
It feels so much sweeter
When Someone really cares for me
I taste their love and it is so much sweeter
All the things life never gave me
All the people who broke my heart
Have left behind savagely beautiful things
And I walk and live among the residue of what has been left
behind
And I learned to sift the sands to find the shells
And I learned to dance as much as I can
To every song I like
Because when life deals you tragic cards
You need to take those cards and line them up
And play poker
You need to play black jack
You don't need to fold your hand
Because when the stakes are high
The risks become a part of a very big life
Like Hemingway or Camus
I want to live a big and painful life
I don't want to be safe
I want to love and be broken
45
Dance and get tired

I want to live a big life
I want to love in a big way
I want to walk past weaker ones
And take the harder roads
Because I don't want to be remembered
For
All the things life never was
46
47
48
Bologhine
see you from above the city

A field of soccer players fills my view
I wander through your pied noir cemetaries
I feel the sunlight on my face
And walk along your streets
Your sons and daughters are scattered
Throughout the world
But you Bologhine still stands
I want to send mylove to you
But I am simply a visitor to your timeless town
I don't belong you to you, My Bologhine
49
50
The sun is shining
he spring has returned

I want to feel my skin revealed
With summers boiling heat
And icey pop exploring my throat
And a restless night with you in my arms
I can feel the beach beneath my feet
And I cannot feel yesterday inside my heart
When springtime welcomes summer's glory
And I can walk down different streets
And watch my children blissfully happy
That summer has graced my door
51
52
The Fridge
s if to say
As if to say I never mattered
The syrup forms in a puddle in my fridge
The toppled jars inside the side compartment
And the sludge that built up from too many lazy Saturdays
I never saw you put the trashbag back into the container
And you never picked up what was overturned
Sticky messes all over our kitchen and a sticky mess inside
my heart
Neglect
Neglect
And the others wanted pancakes with syrup
I just want syrup to be anywhere but all over the shelves
That wobble and teeter
On precarious pegs that need to be replaced
The mustard that isnt liquid anymore
The cheese that I thought would make me feel like I have left
this humid hell I live in
The margarine, misshapen and with a battered cover
And no one will come if I dont clean up
The nasty reminders of all the things I was too busy to do
Fantasy
Fantasy
That a man will come into my life
And clean the dirty shelves
And restock the elements of a kitchen that doesnt have a
cook
53
Nor forks and spoons that match

With chipped dishes
And foggy glasses
From brutal encounters with the heating elements in my
dishwasher
And I sit in front of the open fridge
Wishing it were cleaner
Wishing I had the energy to wipe it down
And throw away all the things I never use or grew tired of
And soften the hardened messes in her body, the center of
my kitchen
Because I am like her, working but messy
54
55
56
15 miles to hardeeville, south

carolina
5 miles to hardeeville, south carolina

the road rises up like bacon in a hot pan
the air is clean until I idle at a truckstop
15 miles from hardeeville,south carolina
grits and fatback and syrup on the side

4 day old bread and a 30 year old chair
ripped down the back like a slashed tire
a sticky menu and a dirty bathroom
15 miles from hardeeville, south carolina
poor black factory workers buying pork chops
and birthday cakes at the piggly wiggly
and clean little children sitting in the back of a flatbed
15 miles from hardeville, south carolina
an AME zion church watches the commotion across the
street
its doors form its mouth
its windows its eyes
the building watches its children drive by
15 miles from hardeeville,south carolina
57
58
Dancing Lying Down Not Moving
ot a word
Glass come to me
I have my hands on the table
Palm face down, looking at the colors of my fingers
And jump tear jump tear
Bounce, and cold pillows
Soft sleep with the ceiling fan wobbling on exposed wires
that are the only thing left holding it to the ceiling
And I move like a ghost through the halls
And dance laying down
With ghosts on either side of me
Arms crossed across their bodies
Holding staffs and we all sleep like Egyptians
The ghosts and I
I turn and they turn
And I count the minutes till the dawn arrives
And I watch the angels knowing I am not an angel
And I dance lying down not moving
59
60
I am in exile in my own heart
am not a part of where I live

Yet when I return, I am not a part of the land that
birthed me
My soul remains in the land of the white
Algerie La Blanche
But when I go home
I cannot adjust to the changes that took place when I was
gone
I was dreaming of a simple girl
That I could bring a cake to and marry
But the girl of my dreams has a cell phone
And she isn't wearing a jelaba
She is more naked than the girls in the land of too many
things
I am an exile
I am exiled from my family
Yet when I return, I am a stranger in my own land
When the terror existed
We all had a common fear of being butchered at false
checkpoints or losing everything we had to a horrible
hunger
Of mortal things and things we thought we needed
Now I die another death
I miss a place that no longer exists
I am an exile
61
Dahmane El Harrachi said all the birds must return

But I have no streets to walk down
Only memories of my broken world
And the blood that flowed
And the memory of the collective
Is simply to wipe away the past
Albert Camus said " A page has turned"
It turned for Algeria but they won't embrace the lessons of
the past
As my exiled land moves foward
With me left behind in the land of too many things.
62
63
64
The Fountain
hold my hands in the shape of a cup

And the water flows across my face
And I have become a fountain
As the water arches and falls upon the ground
I have become a fountain

And love pours out of me and through me
And the pain is washed away
Flowing, dancing water that wets my back
And the water dances on my skin
I released the pain I held inside
And instead became a vessel
To carry water and carry joy
My heart was broken
But I decided that I could give my love to everyone
Like a fountain in the garden
And all could drink from me
And find solace in my presence
Arching water, dancing streams
For the end of heartbreak has arrived
And springtime claims its body.
65
66
At your wedding
hen you return to Algeria after your

adventures
Know I loved you so
I am with you in the summer
In the spring and in the winter
And I will be at your wedding
In the tears of the ones you love
I will be with you Jugurtha
Because I loved you so
I will dance across the winds
In the leaves that are aloft
I will be with you when you see Algiers
Because I love her so
I will be with you when you kiss the one
Who will be your bride
And when they play Kabylie songs
Know I am dancing with you
Know when you wash your face
I am with you in the water
I am with you when you are sad and scared
Because I love you so
I know I wasn't what you needed
But know I miss your face
I am with you in the evening
When you eat and laugh with friends
You need not think of me
Because I am in a quiet place
67
I am here no longer wondering

If you will ever return
Jugurtha please touch the buildings
And enjoy the starlit evenings
With all the lights across Algiers
And eat the best food in the city
And enjoy your life
Because I love you so
I cannot be in Algeria
You own her, I simply can see her
Although I wish to be there in the last days of my life
You need not remember me
Because I will never leave you
I will never leave you because I loved you
Jugurtha
68
69
70
When you realize
hat your heart doesn't have a home

You get out of the car and you tell him
" No thanks, I will just walk."
And you walk and you walk till you cannot remember why
you left him
But he hurt you so you needed to leave and run very far
away
Because to keep riding in the car would mean the end of you
I felt the sweat on my face and the tears in my throat
As I walked 9 months pregnant after he hurt my feelings
He had taken me for our anniversary and told me that the
other woman
That tended the bar was a real woman
Not me, carrying his baby
I always jump from cars now
I have a childlike trust for men
But when they show me the face of not wanting me
I am not able to do a slow dance
I just jump from the car
No matter how fast
I cannot ride in cars with men who don't love me
Not then, not ever again
It is better to walk than be with a man you don't matter to
Or beg for love that no longer exists
71
Sometimes a woman needs to throw herself from the car

We need to tell ourselves that we are more than what men
think we are
We need to roll out of the car
Onto the gravel, bleeding and scared but safe
Because you are still in one piece
Because when your heart is in pieces and you have nothing
left
You at least have yourself
So I am grabbing the door handle and rolling out the door
I will wait till the car rides away
He won't notice I left
72
73
74
Spanish Leather
want to be a book of pretty pages

An angel with gossamer ribbons and shiny hair
But all I am is the girl that sees the angels
Not flies like one nor sees the clouds
I want to be a lyric, a book of prose
A landscape
But all I can see are landscapes
I never get to walk among them
Or perhaps a seascape
But I would be the crashing shore
And not the glorious tall boats that shadow the
shores
I want to dance in Spanish boots
And feel black lace all over my body
And have roses in my hair
But all I can do is venture in the garden
For I am not allowed to live there
75
76
Dancing with Jugurtha
hings we never did I do

At night , I dance with you
You embrace my face and kiss my forehead
And tell me I matter to you
We never danced in the moonlight
We never bought that bottle of wine
Don't ask me to wish I never met you
Because I am so glad I did
I am so glad I held you
I am so glad I knew you
Even though loving you has brought me so much pain
I would go running straight into your arms
And tell you who you are to me
My pride is worthless in the face of your essence
I would dance the last dance
Even if I knew it would end
Because you unleashed a torrent of feelings
That I needed to embrace
I would never regret loving you
Although my initial words were angry
I meant not one of them
Because you were a calm in my storm
And a key to my life
Who inspired my heart
For these reasons, I love you
I love you here or without me
I love you without seeing you
77
I love you no matter if you grace my door

Because loss is more than gain sometimes
I miss you so
Jugurtha
78
79
80
A Dead Womans Dress
hold out my hand

to stop the cars
the truck that is hurtling towards me
I run across the street and lose my shoes
I lose my balance, and fall in a heap

on the curb with my hands over my head
to break my fall
I ask the girl who carries bad news
When will I have paid a big enough price
For refusing to conform
To live like you
She stares at me blankly as if to say
" I do not know. If I don't make you feel bad about yourself
I will have to focus on myself and I am not ready to do that."
The price you pay for independent thinking is a great one
but no where near
the price you pay for living someone else's life, that they
direct and choose
I want to be crucified dead and buried before I wear another
woman's dress pattern
Because I already wore a dead woman's dress, and it never
fit me well.
81
82
Let's be outlaws, you and I
et's break every rule

The whole world pronounced us dead and gone
But I have news for them
Let's be outlaws,you and I

Let's break every rule
We will make the biggest messes
And love the wrong people every time
Because it is so much more fun that way
Let's be mobsters you and I
And run along the jagged glass
And drink the wine that we didn't buy
Because life is moving quickly
Let's not talk about who we are
Just drive real fast and drink the rain
Let's be outlaws you and I
La Vie Boheme is all we have
Let's throw our days and eat as we like
Let's use the good china and drink like fish
Let's be outlaws , You and I
83
84
Notre Dame
couldnt believe how lovely the church is

Sitting on the hill
And when I went inside
Young lovers were sitting in the pew
A girl in hijab was whispering to her lover

Many people stood outside
And I could look down at the soccer fields
And to my right, I could see the beautiful white city of
Algiers
And the road that led above the church to go back down
Was strewn with trash which made me so sad
But the beauty of the church amazed me
Much like the beauty of Algerians never ceases to amaze me
I cannot say I ever felt completely at home in Algeria
But now that I have left her side, I miss her so
Even when Algerians hurt me which they sometimes do
I forgive them for I became a part of them
When I stood outside Notre Dame
And looked down at the sparkling city
My love
My Algiers.
85
86
Tipasa
inding streets and little villages on the way to

Tipasa
I could feel the sadness and happiness in these
areas outside of Algiers
I was so happy to see the sea and the mountains that rose
from it
And I saw the seahorse murals and toppled columns
And could hear the roman soldiers calling out
From the soil
From the ocean
My blessed Tipasa
My little place of oceanic life
I left my heart in Algeria
And she came home with me.
Beautiful magical Tipasa
Maybe I am a princess and that is my citadel
And that is my mountain as well
And as we drove back to Algiers
I saw the checkpoints
Which seemed so scary to me
But a normal part of life for Algerians
And I could feel the beauty of Algeria
I just wanted it to be summer
But it was not
It was cold and it was January
And the beaches lay empty
But I will return to Tipasa soon
And I will swim in the waters of Algeria
87
And I will taste fresh sardines

And I will fall in love
I havent met him yet
Maybe he is in Tipasa
And he will unlock my soul
88
89
90
The Ocean in the middle of Algiers
want to make a big fish museum

In the middle of Algiers
And glass would surround all the ponds
And every fish that fills the waters
Off the coast

Would be in this museum
I would give all my life's money
To give Algerians an aquarium
So they can see the beautiful fish
That are in their waters
I love Algeria so
I wish I could give them a place
To see the beautiful creatures
That live off of the coast of their shores
91
92
Barbes
nd suitcases are falling out of the door of a

shop
On the way to Chateau Rouge
And the car next to the curb
Is parked with the wheels locked
And an Algerian soccer scarf is tied to the hood
To offer protection from a Paris thief
And Rue Chapelle is wet with rain
And the sounds of Algeria are streaming out
One moment I hear Chaabi
And the other Benchenet
And I walk down to Tati to catch a chair outside
And maybe venture in and buy a five dollar bottle of
perfume
Perhaps some black eyeliner
And I can be Laila Alwi
I am a bomba today
This afternoon in Barbes
My feet are hurting and the steel stairs at the
subway look brutal
I dont want to climb and change trains again
Unless I eat something first
Perhaps I will find an excuse to pass my day in
Barbes
Or sleep standing up
In the middle of Algeria.
93
94
Drinking wine
and the house is on fire
am drinking wine and the house is on fire

I cannot find my shoes
I made my bed 2 weeks ago
But I put on my best perfume
I smell like royalty and my blood runs hot
But I am in a burning house
I refuse to flee
Perhaps I will let the whole thing burn
Because it never mattered anyway
I never tasted the wine I needed
I never got the kisses my lips desired
So let the damn thing burn
I just wanted a moment I could remember
And I am drinking wine as the ceiling falls
Upon the floor and the floor caves in
I am drinking wine and the house is on fire
95
96
Where angels fear to tread
n symbiotic motion
The angels visit my garden
With fluttering wings
They dare not step upon the soil
For no one will welcome them past the clouds
They wait and record names
I shout and say "Please mark down my sins"
Then cast me into punishment
Because a heavy hand is a welcome hand
I protect the angels and they wander
And I call their names
Gabriel visits and sword in hand
He told me that I must acknowledge the wicked
And make the path easy for the good and the just
I slept and angels filled my dreams
And a boy washed and wrapped in cloth filled my soul
Bathsheba's tears are of no use now
They cannot cleanse the burning house
Nor put out fires in fields of bad choices
I picked the rose and held it close
To ivory skin and walked along
The garden gates swing swift and violently
Catching my knuckles and I struggle to move the iron latch
To open up the hidden place
To make paths for the angels to rest in solace
I made a garden in a land
Where angels had feared to tread
97
98
I told you that I buried things
know you didn't understand the metaphor

I bury my feelings and my heart because to feel my
truest self is painful
I carved a little ornate box and decorated it

I placed my heart inside it and gingerly closed it
And went out into the night and searched for a moist place
I clawed at the soil and made a place for my heart
I placed my heart into the ground and on top of the broken
flesh, I placed a stepping stone
I knew that my heart would be safe and protected inside
that box
And my solitude would be the thing that saved me
I got my copy of EXILE IN THE KINGDOM and delved into
Albert Camus
I felt the comfort of an aching soul
But no one has to see my heart, for it lies safe away from
people
Sometimes when it is quiet, I look for the stone
I gaze at it and sometimes touch its texture
But don' t ask me to dig up my heart
I need it there because there is no safety with it in my chest
It cannot be broken in the ground and I am not ready to give
it to anyone
I remain interred in the broken soil
where I want to remain
In the safety of the the shadows of the stars
99
100
My lighthouse in Algeria
an American's journey to mother Algeria
will sell everything I own to be there

Take me to Tipasa
And leave me at the citadel
I will lay against the side of the mountain

And when summer comes
I will float upon the waters
Don't tell anyone where I went
Because Algeria is my only real home
Sell my car, my house all my possessions
I would rather walk in Oran
And own the night in Gambetta
Take me to Algeria
The only place I feel safe and alive
Take me to the bled
My love, my heart, Algeria
Let me stand alone in Algiers
And let the boats float by and I can see
The buildings of white
That grace the shores
Take me along the mountain roads
There is no sadness for me in Algeria
There is no loneliness for me in Algeria
Only peace and retribution
101
Let me rest forever in Algeria

For she alone understands me
Let me cry alone in Algeria
It is my adopted home
Let me live in Algerie
For she is my lighthouse
She is my precious one
She is my garden, my light and my love
Algeria
There is only the simple things in Algerie
Where love exists and friends make ties forever
Where kisses are contracts
And the food is the sweetest heaven
Take me back to Bologhine
And promise me that when I die
That if I am not in Algerie
That you will let me return
And dance with Massinissa
In the mountains
Promise me you will buy me chicken in Kouba
And kiss my face in Sidi Frej
I want to know that when I turn on my radio
That I hear darja and the strains of andalous
Promise me that Algerie is still mine
Even though I'm not married to an Algerian
102
Let me be a citizen of Algerie

I promise to care for her and love her as my own
And never leave her
And paint her buildings in the casbah
And plant flowers in the botanical gardens
And shine the floors at the Shaheed monument
I promise to give this blessed country
All that I am and can be
So we can say
We will meet next year in Algerie
Promise me
103
104
In another woman's coat

A watch ticks and jumps
In another woman's shoes
I could have walked many miles
In another woman's hands
I could have held more than I deserved
But all I have is feeble hands
That do not belong to me
In another woman's heart
Love danced and held eternity
In another woman's face
Light shone and and emitted glorious sunshine
In another woman's garden
A savage beauty grew
In another woman's place
She would have sold her soul for your beauty
Only fate would keep me safe
And only life would be an anchor
My choices be a small victory
But my innards knew
That I only held another woman's life
In my two hands
In another woman's eyes
There was sunshine and hope
In another woman's eyes
There were 2 that talked and danced
105
Because I knew who we would be

In another woman's book
In another person's future
In another woman's shoes
I ran and I could feel
That all I had was true savage beauty
To save me from uncertain endings
Of stories that belonged
In another woman's book
That you left on the table
When you walked away
With another woman's hand in yours.
106
107
108
Love Exists
Though she doesn't grace your door
With her wings touching the doorstep
Love Exists
And though she may not knock
With roses in the form of a romantic gesture
I have seen her grace my door
Holding a baby in her arms
Or in the tears of a sad little boy
Love Exists
In the eyes of young lovers
Or the way an old man holds his elderly wife's hand after a
lifetime of struggles
Love Exists
The angel may not arrive in linen and lace
She may bear the robes of loneliness and sacrifice
She may watch how you embrace your destiny
And reward you with treasures you never imagined
You need not watch for her
For she will arrive at any given time
With rose scented air and beloved looks
Love exists, I promise you
109
110
With all the Gods dead and buried
look to humans for the proof that deities exist

With Camus on my front seat
And his face looking up at me
As I glance at him as I swerve into oncoming traffic
And back out of it again
Looking for evidence that optimism is alive and well
And I planted roses, not caring if the petals fell
Upon the soil and blew onto the pavement
I screamed in the night of the sun that still shone
And the sun rose in the evening for me
And I felt asphyxiated by its heat and gas
That it seems to emit when I look into the sky
I am counting the weeks
The days
The hours
That seem to line my year and my decades
Like tile around a fountain
Not necessary
Just decorative
Because I know that without my own decision
To dig up joy and plant roses anyway
Knowing that they will die
111
And pass into the infinite

But knowing
With All the Gods Dead and Buried
As my lover Camus says
I have to plant the flowers

Because the flowers need a Goddess
To give them meaning and life
I shall become the goddess of the things that I can control
Because life wont stop for me
And with all the Gods dead and buried
I must take my heavy chains and bear them with grace
Because no one is coming to tend the flowers
Only me
And the memory
Of when I believed
That I did not need a theory
Or a book
To make me want to taste a rose
112
113
114
The things the skin hides
nd under the place where we all used to meet

The bridge begins to loosen and creak
With every step and dropped cigarette
The burning of skin on a hot summer day
The walking on white lines to protect your feet
The pavement melts and the tar smell escapes
And I feel scared that I wont make it home
I pull thorns from my feet and jump back on the white line
And alternate standing in a protected zone
And the day is ending and a sprinkler starts wetting the
sidewalk
50 feet further
50 feet further
Eve cigarettes
Baby oil with iodine
Not knowing if I will cry tonite
Or maybe not
Drying things found on a different day
From the ocean
On my window sill
The television says that 15 Haitians washed up 10 miles
south
And my mother is still at her hairdressing appointment
And I cannot find any food to eat
But the grass looks so green in the yard
115
I think I will crawl inside my closet

And wait for someone to come get me
116
117
118
Along The Palms
et me take you a sacred place

where we can see the angels walk
I can see the angels there
The martyrs with their floating robes
The Algerian rose follows them
Their blood is turned to jasmine's vines
And we will walk along the path
Where they used to talk and smile
Because they lost their precious lives
And we are there to hold them close
Let us unlock the gates and sit with them

Because I must return to Algiers
But this time I will come in summer
To hold the blossoms close to my face
For I tasted winter's bite
In my garden named Algeria
119
120
Stairways
tairways
winding upwards
plunging into the ground
I hold the wet cold rail
and my hand seems to freeze and become like meat
and i cannot find my foothold
on the icey steps
no one will catch me if i fall
no one to greet me at the bottom
nor meet me at the top
I am simply climbing stairs
with no destination
no end in sight
and holding guardrails that freeze my hands
and losing my breath,day by day
121
122
Place This Ring
lace this ring

upon your hand
he will speak to you
and warn you quietly
that if you take what you don't want
you will interrupt the wheels of fate
To take what you never wanted
To feed your hunger
Take this ring
It burns your skin
It will remind you
That you will not have
The pretty things that are not yours
Because you saw a different world
And we walked to the shore and I was not with you
But we were brave enough
To do what we needed to do
And that was walk away from each other
You will remember me
In the night when you want to talk
And no one hears you
Or when you tell her what you must have
And she listens intently but never loves you
Like I loved you
And I don't want to keep your memory
Although I have to
And I will place you in a book
123
That I can look at in years to come

But not right now
You will sit in stacks of pictures and negatives
Until I am ready to see you again
But not right now
I cannot see you
Because you hurt my soul
When you left my side
You didn't help me leave
You just told me I was nothing
Not that you were glad you knew me
Just keep walking because I am fine
I want to turn the pages until I can
Go back and see the shore again
And I will go with a different heart
And see if he helps me touch the water
And holds my hand and doesn't torment me
With his unhappiness with me
Dancing light that fills my eyes
And rainy skies that will come in fall
Are things I must anticipate
Because things looked so lovely but simply were not
They were not my morning
Or the starlight
They were not my soul
They were not my land
They were not the birds that flew from the water
The things are now yours
Because I can't see you
Because you swam with others and left me scared
124
I am not here for you to return to

I went back home with all my things
But I will go back to the place you took me to
Even though I was leading and the one caregiving
And it will end for me
But not like I wanted
I wanted closure
But not from you
I wanted it when I held my babies
or years ago when I read books
That had no endings or I never stuck with
So I will brush my hair
And let you go
Don't worry about fixing things
you cannot
Just be happy and do the right thing
because you need to , my love
125
126
Jars of sand and water
nd shells that turbulently dance with sand

they hold my spring time memories
of you and me and the sunshine
you did not belong to me
and yet you held me in a jar
with water around me
and the blue color covers me
as I try to reach the lid and float above the water
with a mix of oil and water seperating me from the
outside
I drive in my car
and all I can see are jars of water ,of oil and water
127
128
The sacred place
here sand and water met my hands

did not belong to me
the beams that jumped into my eyes
and purple hues that lied to me
because they were so fleeting
the time would run

like a clock that made sounds
in a pocket of another woman's coat
I could see my soul leave my body
and float above like a spirit
ghosts that swirled above my bed
like a whirlpool
because I had left my own flesh
and as I slept I knew only pain
because I knew the tunnel
the tunnel was hollow
and you knew your fate
and the mermaid upon the door
held the shell
that I had offered you
and you threw away
I almost exchanged the shell
for other paper
But I will keep the shell in a drawer
129
so when I look at beautiful things

that have no real value
I will remember
who you were
and why I was happy I stood with the prince
Because he loved me more
130
131
132
Sleeping dogs
hey lie in my room

I don't want them to sleep
I want to hear barking
And talk to the memories and watch them again
technicolor
frame by frame
let them lie still
they are quiet and no one will wake up
people need their beauty sleep
as my forehead wrinkles prematurely
From a stolen set of calendars and checkbooks
dripping moist breath
water on my window sill and mold in the crevices
I feed the dogs from my pillow and tell them
It is ok if you bite me, its ok if you kill me
But I cannot let you sleep in this room
I need to wake the sleeping dogs
and face their wrath
and set them free after feeding them until they are full
and lead them through the house and out the front door
To let them run in starlit streets
And let the air blow through my bedroom
And walk upon the carpet and not feel a body of a angry
sleeping dog
at the foot on my bed
133
134
Dates
need a compass
For we will wander in the desert
And I have to eat the sweetest dates
With clear clear skin
And softest bite

I need to pull my hair off of my ears
And put my finest necklace on
So you can kiss my neck
Across my shoulders
And feed me fruit
And offer me the coolest water
This is what I dream
135
136
Text extracted from an article published in 1886 in

The JOURNAL, NY, USA
ALGIERS AND ITS SUBURBS
he Algiers of today presents an extraordinary and

most comforting contrast. The French rule may not
be all that English and American lookers on could
wish, but it has at all events swept out of existence the
horrors of that time, with the bagnios and the slave prisions
and the old city gates, the Bab Azoun and the Babel Oued,
on which were exposed sometimes the heads, sometimes the
headless bodies, of the luckless victims of the Dey. The
Kasbah , the ancient citadel of the Janissaries, is now full of
French Zouaves, who in in Algiers somehow impress one as
imitation soldiers and therefore harmless. The old palace of
the Dey has become the residence of the French Governor
General, and military bands play dancing music for the gay
European world in the very rooms to which in the old days
the consuls of the great powers were arrogantly summoned
to bring their yearly tribute, and be dismissed again with
insult for their pains. Broad modern boulevard and streets
gay with cafes .... . Lines of tramsways skirt the sea and
mount the hilly suburb ; cabs and gayly painted omnibus
jostle each other ...
These are the people who crowd the narrow defiles of the
old city, sit cross legged in its little shelf like ships, frequent
its mysterious Moorish baths, and look down from its high
roofs and terrances on the sea ... We met them too, on the
highroads outside the town, astride of donkeys so small that
the rider's slippered feet almost touched the ground, or on
Arab horses with gay saddles and trappings .... Many of
them, too are regular venders of fresh eggs and vegetables
137
or of partridges and wild rabbits, carefully concealed in the

folds of the bournous if the game season is over ..
... Bhdah , a pretty little town at the foot of the mountains,
noted for its orange groves and its Vallee des Singes , where
wild monkeys are at times seen frolicking and chattering
among the forest trees , and a run up to Hammam Rhira , a
modest watering place among the hills, the baths of which
are of long standing reputation for their efficacy in
rheumatism. ...
138
139
140
Dearest Algerians,
know I address you as if you belong to me and I belong

to you but I have no other way to express my
admiration and love for you.
I give to you part of your past. The way all of this started is
that I was looking for music on the internet and I kept
running across different Algerian articles and items for sale.
About a year and half ago, I began to buy postcards from
different sources. After I had about 30 of them, I started
looking at them and realising they do not belong to me or in
a collection. They belong to you, Algeria. I commit to you
that I will acquire Algerian historical items from any source
I run across and I will give them to you one way or another
and provide them to you, as a nation by donating them to
the museums of Algeria and making exhibits about Algeria
for other countries and locations so that they can see the
beauty that is Algeria.
I know you have suffered a great deal and much of your
past has rainy days but more beautiful things are to come.
Life is like sand on a beach and sometimes you must sift
through many painful things to find the shells and treasures.
Camus always said a page has turned, but in those pages are
savagely beautiful things that pain has left behind.
I can not offer you explanations or condolences. I just want
to hand you your beautiful memories and pictures of the
way you used to look, Algeria.
I love you so, dearest Algeria.
I was lucky enough to see you in January 2006 and from my
postcards, I knew what I was looking at. Notre Dame, the
141
beautiful Algiers from the hill, Bologhine, Tipasa, many

many things. I want you to know that I am commited to
preserving your story and showing the world Algeria.
142
June2015
TomyfriendsfromMorocco,thenexthalfoftheebookisTHE
SLAVESOFALGIERSandthenadditionalwritingafterwordsbefore
andaftermyvisittoMorocco.Thebookendsintheearlysummer
of2015.
YouhavenotknowmeaswelloraslongasmyAlgerianfriends
butyouhavebeenthereaswell.Zahramydaughterisyour
cousin..yourblood
Thebeginningofthebook...isallaboutAlgeriabutIwantyouto
knoweventhoughImetyoulater,youarestillahugepartofmy
lifebecauseofZahra.Ionlymetyoutwiceanditwasrecentlybut
Iamfriendswithmanyofyoursonsanddaughters.Muchyouis
containedwithinsomeofthepoemsofthesecondhalfofthe
book,justlessidentifiable.Youwereanimportantpartofmy
journeybutIdidnotmeetyouuntilmuchlaterinmylifeIdidnot
choosetoignoreyoubutlifenevertookmetoyouuntilmuch
laterinmylife.Therearepiecesofyouallovertheendofthe
bookandasthefamilyofZahraIincludedyoubecauseMorocco
becamepartofthestorymuchlaterinmylife.
Thestorycontinuesafterthesummerof2006...andtilltoday
A series of photographs
Life becomes a series of photographs
And then we are not here anymore
If my heart can break
Then I am still here
If I can cry
Then my heart did not die
If I melt into the ground
Then its only up from here
Life becomes a series of photographs
And then we are not here anymore
Love becomes a series of photographs
And then we dance across the photos
We bend and move
And recall the nights and days without sleeping
God has not abandoned me
But some days it feels like I am waiting for God
For days to start and nights to end
In perfect synchronicity
Love ends love begins
In perfect time
Up and down stairs
He might walk into a place I am
Or spin me around by my coat
Life is just a series of photographs
-3-
Ill wait for the moon

Sometimes you run against the wind
And race against the storms
And sometimes you swim with the current
Just to survive its grip
Darling Ill wait for the moon
I know you are struggling
The moons smiles on you
Darling you are not lost upon the mountain
So many things will bring you home
I cant tell you the way I know
I just do
Keep your bonfire heart
And let it burn away the pain
Not everything will be a goodbye
So many things take so much time to unfold
Definitions of love and remembrance
Just look at the sky
Look at the night
And somewhere Ill look up at it too
And maybe our paths will cross
Jugurtha
Maybe some day Ill know more than the tracks of
your past
And help you see the moon shines for you
It shines for you too
Jugurtha
-4-
Did you think I would wait

Did you think I would wait?
Or grieve when you left?
Perhaps I do, and did and will
But my hair will be on a pillow as I did it
I will kiss the next one as hard as I can
And remember your weaknesses
Problems and faults
As I kiss him and listen to Ya Rayah
Did you think I would wait and eternally suffer?
Oh I do darling I do
But more that you know
As I make love to him
And remember your cruelty
I laugh at your faults through my tears through my
tears
Did you think I would wait build an altar and wait?
Perhaps I do, I do and will in my mind
But life is one of flames and passion even coated
with remembrance
-5-
The mountain in the room

You said when I left you
You never saw
Who I was till the room was empty
And my love not beside you
You said that you never expected the coldness
The loss and the pain
When I left you, when I left you
You said that you expected things to be different
My love is a mountain and adoring and eternal
But my nose is sharper and higher
That you will ever deserve
And I can love you and adore you
Yet refuse to return
And not ask Oualache... through my tears through
my tears
I swallowed the pain
And said goodbye to you
My happiness was worth more than loving you
And it was always the mountain in the room
-6-
Moonlight and asphalt

Moonlight and asphalt
And a thousand miles between us
And I cannot see the difference
Between aura and invisibility
You are on my mind and haunting me
Although it was so brief, so fleeting
The night was cold and your touch was warm
And I was so frightened I would not hear your voice
again
Yet you remained
As solid as the roads that line my city
Born in fire and paved with pressure
Nonsensical and unknown to others
The simplest touch and inner place
You shared with me, made me feel beloved
So there are a thousand miles between us
A million cars, asphalt corridors ahead of you
And behind you
But somehow I am with you in the moonlight
And you came and found me
And to this day, I really don't know how
We mixed this heady blend of moonlight and
asphalt... of night driving
And lost ways
But yet you found me
-7-
Somehow
But I found me when I left your side
My darling
Should I tell him that hes beautiful?
Should I tell him that even gone he did not make me
feel as if he was leaving?
Moonlight my darling
Think of me
And I am with you in the mountains of Setif and
always was
Waiting for your face and for you to come into my
life and show me
That what I thought were imperfections, were what
you wanted and needed
Moonlight
Asphalt
And a lonely place
Just you and me, Oumri
Just you and me
-8-
Justice took a bath

As we dove into the river
You didn't want to come
And I shouldn't have asked
And now I love you damn it
And you knew you were trouble
And yet you tried to warn me
But I wanted trouble like I needed oxygen
Justice took a bath
You were trying to save me
But I needed your brand of hurt
You wanted to save me from me from loving you
And you didn't want me to feel you
Or see you
Or have the windows opened
Or doors unlocked
You were just trying to save me
As justice took a bath
And we dove into the river
-9-
I had to paint it black

I cried and said I loved him so
As much as father son and Holy Ghost
He laughed and said I chattered so
I begged for life to take away
Everything that caused me pain
I had to turned the dials on the radio way down low
He mattered more than anything
To a witch, a ghoul a golden ring
to her and him the angels sing
I suffered so as patriarchs fled
and cherubs silenced
They all lay dead
- 10 -
And there was nothing worthy that could be said

I begged and turned the radio dials
I looked for him and all the while
He threw pearls to swine
And began to smile
In subtle protest I did close
The end of her, hail winters rose
There was nothing left, no words or prose
She led herself to the close of day
She knew her joy was led astray
As there was finally nothing left to say
- 11 -
If it makes you cry

If it makes you cry
It can possibly be real
You wish you could smack me
And Ill take it all back
Well you cannot
And I still can love
but you won't have access to whatever is left
I don't want to hear anything right on the surface
If it makes you cry I am in
If it makes me cry, I am in too
But if its more of the same
without salt without pepper
Eat your eggs by yourself or with dumber people
Cause I like mine with salt and I like harissa
If it makes you cry, then it was worth it, it was
worthy and fair
- 12 -
Everything else was a waste of your time

I choose betrayal and tears over boring any day
If it makes you cry
If it makes you cry
- 13 -
The spell is broken

The spell is broken
The enchantment over
I won't love you anymore
You are not the hero I imagined
You are not the man I envisioned
And I am free from you
The prison
And the idea I had of you gone
The spell is broken
The enchantment over
I am not impressed or entertained
When I saw you I thought you hung the moon
Now nothing you do cannot cause pain
I was trapped inside each word you said
And believed that you were not mortal
- 14 -
The spell is over

Enchantment over
And I left in more ways than one
- 15 -
My fearless desire has left me

My fearless desire has left me
The brave tears and warm longing has left
That longing and safety
That my memories carried to me
I looked in a thousand faces to find him
I crossed my arms
And curled my legs beneath me
Wishing he would return
I would breathe life into dust
Hold on to a handful of nothing if he would return to
me, if he would return
You are not him, you are mortal
And so am I... and I am sorry I placed a candle at
your altar and roses at your feet
You hardly need them or want them and I step
backwards
Head bent forward and shamed
- 16 -
No longer fearless and brave

Or adoring or strong
I could not face an audience of what I wanted to say
The shamelessness and fearlessness of my dress in
the closet
The audacity of love and I a prophetess of its power
Now hold it in a box and it will be buried
No longer given or willing
Only shamed and retracting
My valentine remains
Within my hands
As I walk across a frozen lake
To bury whats left of my pride
and my nose pointed down
will no longer face you
I cannot and I wont
The trauma too great
- 17 -
The fear is too strong

Jugurtha
- 18 -
A handful of nothing
what was I left with after love s bitter burn
a handful of nothing
and a dress in a closet
was it worth it, the pain that I endured and the
nights I lost sleep
or rocks and dust in my hands
If hearts could hold things like hands
I would have cold water and sunlight
Rocks and whirlpools
and every thing my mouth desired
what was I left after love s bitter burn
- 19 -
Algeria you make me weep

Vast and uncontrolled
Scorching and freezing
Salty and barren and lush and accessible
You make me weep
You make me weep
I long for you
I dream of you
I cant find my way here without you
The pain is too great
I am just existing without you
You make me weep
You make me weep
You hold people I love tethered to your soil
Yet I cannot be with you or hold you or own you
I can only watch myself linger and suffer and drown
- 20 -
You make me weep when I remember how much I

adore you
You make me scared when I know that perhaps you
were the only one that loved me
Broken and twisting and complicated and futile
Algeria
Algeria
You make me weep
- 21 -
I take it all back

I take it all back
Every word, everything I showed you
Because i have to, because I have to
You have no time for idle praise
Or childish girls with silly dreams
I take it all back, every poem every thought every
dream
You have no time to wander or walk with me
We ran out of time several years ago
This is simply a journey I must make alone
So Ill leave you to your grief
Because I can barely contain mine
A poets curse
a field of broken bottles and I laid it all out for all to
see
I take it all back
- 22 -
I take it all back

Ill bury it instead
Instead of showing it or sharing it with anyone else
I take it all back
- 23 -
A ship upon the water

I am a ship upon the water
A frigate without a home
a storm without a landing spot
A windstorm without a rest
I have no port to call my home
I want to cry but I must stay strong
Through unknown currents and in dangerous ports
I dance in my sleep and when I wake
I cry myself awake and wipe my tears
And begin the dance of the day again until I wake
from slumber
- 24 -
Did I shake you

Did I shake you
Did we dance on paper
Did my passion awake the poet in you
we can find time for nonsense and discourse and
song
and bad wine and strong winds
and every heartbreak in between
Did I shake you, did I move you
Is there more of you there
I see a glimpse of the boy you were and I am still
here baby
Not knowing or guessing whether any of this makes
sense
Would you run would you fly would life move you to
tears?
Is there much of you left to lose?
I think there is and lets save him and wrap him and
hold him
- 25 -
I am no answer but I might be the question

Because I have much less than you
So lets dance and lets run and lets break glass
around us
Let find common ground in the middle of pain
If I run would you look to see if I was anywhere
close?
Or would you let me disappear with the knowledge I
might have the key to unlock you?
The poet the writer the thinker my friend
Sometimes I am in sleep and cannot find shelter
I'm running but not towards you Jugurtha
Farther away lets pick flowers and settle our debts
Ill wait at the bottom and we will find our way out
When you are ready to climb i m ready....
Did I shake you, awake you... unsteady your feet
Is the poison your cure beloved..
Jugurtha
- 26 -
Love Sauvage
Some listen to books and need an instruction book
All I want is a love sauvage
To be devoured and adored in every possible way
Not analyzed and torn apart
Let me tell you the story of love sauvage
Its the man who will bathe you and put you to bed
If you are sick or weak but spread your hair across a
pillow
Because he adores you so
Its the feel of desire
Its the pouting and its consequences
Its the love you cannot stop but wish you could
control
That leads me into broken gated gardens
Some want the manuals the love stories and books
I prefer the pages torn and books tossed aside
- 27 -
I prefer a love sauvage spinning out of control

As I prefer waves rather than the safety of lakes
So heres to the women who want to hold on to the
moon
A lovers embrace, words chosen and thrown
A love sauvage is all I desire
the rest of my dreams are mere mirrors or dead
ended.
desire and pain hold hands in the end
Ill say good bye to good sense at every turn
the love sauvage is all we truly have left
after we have sold everything else to the world
- 28 -
My stormy boy
Hes my stormy boy
And Im his stormy girl
And I dont fit into his plans or on the side of his
mountain
I dont fit on his sidewalks or streets
But if there was a cafe in Paris
hed run right there to see me
to either sit outside and watch leaves blow
Or in a corner at night
He might let me see a tear
and I might cry too
But he does not have space for me
In his well-ordered life
But if there was a french cafe
And time was of no importance
Hed rush to meet me, down subway stairs
- 29 -
To Blanche or on Rue Republique

I know hed find me, its just the wrong place
Wrong time and his mind is just gone
Gone far away and maybe its not
My stormy boy
My stormy friend
- 30 -
With this hand

with this hand
If I was a queen long ago,
I could hold a sword
I could order the fields around me burned
As the enemies approached
Sometimes when I dream
I dream I am Kahina
With my children gathered around
I know I must defend
I dream I am on a mountain side
In Algeria
And the fields are burning
I am telling the soldiers flee to the east, keep yourself
safe.
I dream I am a berber queen, clothed and wrapped
with rope
With swords on my hips
- 31 -
and in the fire

And I yell Tamazight
and I claim the fields below me
A queen
I see myself alone and cold

But knowing my people are safe
To be a queen to be a berber
To be Kahina of the Berbers
To be brave and tall and full of fury
To be a queen of the winter and who curses green
grass if it means substinence to the enemy
her story quieted as the arabs invaded
And washed her away, her bravery, her equality
and left her out of the book
that holds Algeria in its hands
- 32 -
Whatever is left over

Whatever is left over
Ill take and Ill adore
Because life slipped by and gave me people who hurt
me
and battered and drank and too my spirit
I once was called left overs by someone I loved
He told me as he left I was too old to be happy ... that
he took what he want
A passport, my time
So Ill take whatevers left over
Maybe a broken hearted man and we will hold hands
together
And together so broken, but joined might be healing
And we might not remain leftovers or lost things
So lets ride the trains that we never took
Lets look out the window and drive real fast
Lets drink the wine we never could afford
- 33 -
For life will pass by ever faster

Broken and battered... I still remain
In many ways the woman covering her head and
begging for mercy
But as I run I escape the pain of the hurt
And look forward to days with leftover people
And together we can be whole and dance in the
lightening
So heres an ode to all of us who life left behind
We buried someone we shouldnt have
Or lost in love again and again
We will build our own houses and our own rituals
and be
not left over ones but whole and strong
Ill pick you up and you pick up me
and we can be whatevers left over together...
has been can be should be is with the right kind of
love
- 34 -
And we will wash our clothes and our sins in a

common river
the lighter side of baggage is we have a lot to look

through
Ill take what you have and you take mine
We will find the best in both of us
And move on in some way
Our love through the cast offs will forever shine
In the world that we live
Whatevers left over
- 35 -
My heart in a box
If it were only so easy
I wish I could love without strings and barriers
I wish I could be anywhere but here
So here is my heart in a box
my precious friend keep me close
forgive me my trespasses and my crazy ways
as I float out to see on a fresh hell ride
So here is my heart in a box
Please do not bury it or throw me..
Ill stick around and if we can we can open our boxes
together
And talk about yes and no and everything in between
I give you my heart in a box
- 36 -
It should have been me

So many nights I was cold and cried
I asked for you to appear
To share my days and nights
And somehow I knew you were on your way
And arrived so imperfectly
With lightening flying from your fingertips
You crashed into my life
But then I held on to the wreckage
In your arms
It should have been me baby
I cry at night
Why wasn't it me?
Why didn't I get the chance?
To take your name?
I would have held it close to me and never let it go
- 37 -
Why did we have to meet after the wreckage?

When so little was left
Why did I have to hold your hand when it was
frozen?
And I spend all my time
Looking for cracks in the wall to let the sunshine in
And repairing the damage life did to you
And you finally felt relief, it was relief based in lies
And when you finally were set free, what exactly
were you set free too?
Freezing rain and winds and burned clothes and
broken things?
What have we been released to?
It should have been me baby
I should have been my smile you saw when you
escaped the hell you lived
And I hold your fragile heart
And I just understand
- 38 -
That tragically beautiful man I ended up with

was everything I really needed in the end
And I don t despair the walls and the darkness
And I haven t lost faith in him no matter how darkly
he speaks
I still see the child inside of him
Who daylight abandoned
And somehow he preferred abandonment to being
annoyed
Electric fingers and jagged edges
A Marlboro man
- 39 -
Atlas Was Burning

I wanted to love like the world was burning
Time was of no consequence
...
And the world was on fire
I tasted of him, mercurial man
Who chased regrets across time immortal
And had his own demons to tame
I wanted to love like Atlas was dancing
Holding my heart in his hand
And beckoning me
Taunting and teasing
As if almost possible
The night held more possibilities
As Bacchus would flow
Oh I did my darling
- 40 -
Love as Atlas was burning

And woke up fractured and frightened
But still very aware
That some of the best moments in life are the ones
that are fleeting
And when we are burned by the fire of mercurial
men
So raise a glass to the taste of mornings bitter burn
And raise a toast to the people who singe our soft
skin
For they help us remember that we are still vibrant
And hold promise of love denied but ever alive
So heres a toast to the gypsies, the harlots and
clowns
The lost and the ruse less, the mysterious and
abandoned
For perhaps we are the Gods who dance across the
sky
And leave stars as our path to beckon the night
- 41 -
So I call to the heavens

Darling are you still lost?
The gypsy
The narcissist
The rolling stone I once knew
I am safe in my bed while he wanders and travels
But I know the taste of that wandering too
- 42 -
The distance between day and

night
I would love to tell you I do not understand
But I do my darling I do
I know the pain you carry
The ghorba is only a port
And the storms will carry us from land to sea and
back again
The distance between day and night
In mere hours
I count them and wait each starfall
Each windstorm and each sunrise
And I count the days I missed with you
And the years and miles between us
Before life twisted you and then the black years did
you in
That black decade with bloody triangles
and roadblocks
- 43 -
You lay behind walls and without a glimmer of hope

You held a radio instead of holding me
And no one came to save you
I died my own version of a death
But you struggled to breathe in the winds of Setif
And me on the ground, failing to breathe
The distance between day and night is far and wide
and light will always illuminate the path
The distance between you and I
is only far when I am awake
In slumber I lay beside you
In slumber you forgive me all the sins you put upon
me
We dance at weddings in the mountains
We swim through grain and wade through streams
I came to find you and we left together...in sleet and
snow
In storms and trauma
- 44 -
We remain without
the distance between day and night
- 45 -
The Disciple of Time

He was the harbinger
And he warned me that time was the enemy
It was the one thing we could not take back
Or get back
so I tried to infuse his life with music, with love and
cover him
with all the sunsets and kisses he had missed
He was the disciple of time
And I was his pupil
Get angry he said
Because time had stolen us from each other
be bitter he said
Because we would never again see those days
And I would never again be lady Diana
And he the one who watched and waited for me from
a window
- 46 -
He said be bitter be cautious

As I loved him without abandon
As I dragged him into the water
And pulled his pants from his body
And threw him into the ocean
I took him from the asphalt and led him into the
ocean
And told him to taste every single thing he could
taste
Salty water and bitter truth
And he fed me the poison that infused his blood
And I fought back
and told him time does not own us
You have to escape it like the rip tide
That almost took the children at the sea
Children who wandered too far out into the water
Like a rip tide, time is a natural master
You swim with it not against it or it will kill it
- 47 -
Along the shore as the currents try to pull you out to

sea
You swim horizontal to the shore darling
Letting it pull you means certain death
If you resist it like the rip tide, it will overtake you
But if you follow it and let it carry you, you can
escape its ravages, its pull its destruction
and you can escape the brutality of time, the
emptiness and the meaninglessness
I love you so disciple of time
It took me forever to be angry with time
And then time took over
And then I saw you and knew you were beautiful
And knew we were safe
And time was our master but it would not kill us
If we swam alongside of it and not against it
I buried my father and you were there
Telling me the truths all around me
- 48 -
Not realizing that I would be the one to lead the ones

who would not acknowledge me
That resistance could be futile
But it could be epic
I could stand alone against time, against pain,
against loss like the Spartans
I could drag you from the sadness that encompassed
you
And you and I disciple of time, could bury our
fathers
And make peace with our past
So I yelled at you, do what you have to do
But come home because I need you
Leave the clock at the road and remember when
Time stood still for both of us
Because when we are old and cannot walk
it wont be the busy moments we remember
It will be the times we did very little
And some might call me dumb or unrealistic or slow
- 49 -
But I find meaning in the meaningless

And love in the lost
So disciple of time, so bitter so hardened
I love you so... I won't let you go to be lost in the
meager, the abandoned and the fields of regret
I shall come back for you so we can dance in the
water again
And drink wine under the moon because we will not
pass this way again
I won't let you wonder or be lost or forsaken
I treasure those 120 days, those minute those
seconds
And while I am a student, I am not a slave to
The ministry of the disciple of time
- 50 -
I don't want to make a memory

Or wear flowers in my hair
If loving you is fleeting
Or if I am just a souvenir
I don't want to love with all my heart
Or throw my feelings into the wind
If loving you was just a moment in time
That I will never see again
You see I made all kinds of memories
With a man I loved more than life itself
I sold my blood and everything I owned
To give to him
And he threw me to the wolves
He took everything I offered him
And threw my love away
And when things went south in his small world
- 51 -
He looked for my hand to hold

You see I don't want to make a memory
If all I do is lose
I don't want to wear flowers in my hair
Or dream of better things
Those dreams will only bring me pain
And break my heart again
I don't want to dream of a better life
Or of holding hands until I am old
Or walking in darkened streets
Or smelling jasmine in the air
I'd rather know the ugly truth
Or drink bitter and cheap wine than sip merlot
I'd rather feel the cold and bitter wind
Than think warm winds belong to me
I'd rather know love is not in the cards
Than dream that things can change
- 52 -
Or lay in bed at night alone

Than know your touch could save me
If you will say goodbye
I don't want to love or give my heart
If in the end I will cry
I'd rather ache in pain
Of all the love I would ever have
Than know I loved in vain
- 53 -
For all those that loved and lost

For those of us who loved and lost
And jasmine's smell in midnight faded away in
photographs
And somehow things just did not turn out right
Here is my wish for you
May these broken roads you travel on
You never travel alone
When you pick up the pieces of your broken heart
just know that all was not lost
You tried, you danced and then you grieved

But you did not look at life out of the window
You saw life for what it could be and should be and
tried your best
For those of you that loved and lost
And grief became your friend
Know that one day somehow the roads will rise
And so will the moon above your shoulders
And you will understand
That treasures very well may await
For those that loved and lost
- 54 -
Burning ships upon the water

....Algiers
The burning ships upon the water
Algerian frigates, with pirates flags
And fire upon the deck
I am a pirate ship
Who sailed to places that most never see?
Yet is burning in the harbor
Burning bright
With timbers aflame
I am a frigate
Whose sails are etched with flames
And ropes turned into ashes
I sailed and took what I needed from life
Paying the price eventually
A pirate ship who never stole
But drank wine as the decks were lit aflame
A pirate ship, a frigate
Who has no port, perhaps Algiers?
If I can return as far her whitened walls
- 55 -
A little smear of ugly

Left a little smear of ugly
smeared upon my heart
left a little smear of hesitance
and my joy upon the pavement
I was innocent despite my years
And had never felt a twinge of malice
No one had taught me how to lie
Or walk across the barren land
That love and joy once owned
a little smear of ugly
remains across my heart
smeared with boredom, but could be fear
would be love but turned to spite
because love could never grow some place hard
and if you think its barren now
the softness still remains
- 56 -
like a scar or somewhere infected

the dirt remains
but the sorrow cannot grow
the ugly is but a souvenir
a damaged part, a bruised and bitter place
was what you left behind
an earnest kiss
a moonlit night
was what I left behind
I cracked your shell
And loved without reward
You left behind dirt
But I left you me
a smear of sweetness and unfulfilled desire
unrequited and beautiful
a ribbon across your chest
I left behind a piece of me
- 57 -
that you can never remove

You left me sorrow
but I planted roses
In that little smear of ugly
smeared across your heart
Darling does it shake you
Does it make you wonder
The depth of condition
The breadth of compassion
So undeserving yet so needed
The stanzas of bitterness won't set you free
But I did darling, I did
So now you bear it as if I wrote my name
Across your scar, across your scar
That ugly has turned to softness
Yes darling it did, yes darling it did
It burned as if pure melted metal
- 58 -
Or stitched itself with shaky hands

And held itself tight to blackened thread
And emptiness no longer remains
So ugly smear I see you still
On my white soft skin, that no one ruined
Despite their efforts, to turn it tough
And dirt is only dirt, its less than mortal
But love is eternal and lives beyond the grave
For if someone loves you, you cannot shake its
essence
Even if its rejected or ignored or toyed with
It stands alone like a sentry in the night
A path to come home, a moonbeam a star
The fire within me, will burn off its remnants
After all soil can be removed
With tears or a bath
And the ugly smear will be washed away
- 59 -
And yet I remain with you, vibrant and silent

Static yet volatile
A smear, a song, the scent of a woman
by fire rejected, the dirt washed away

but love remains
smeared across your heart.
- 60 -
Walking in the center

So many things I want to say to you
I love you
why did you leave?
What could I have done more than I did?
I miss you
And I am walking in the center
In the center of my soul
Missing every part of you
Wishing you were with me to help me mourn our
son
Wishing you were strong enough to see how much I
loved you
And all the things in my limited capacity that I
wanted to give you
I tried harder with you than I ever tried with anyone
in my life
To love and nuture, to caretake and to adore
But sometimes the shell we inhabit is not beautiful
enough or young enough
And sometimes we make mistakes
And I have had to say goodbye to you and a year ago
our son
And I love you more today than I did yesterday
And I want to know how deep my love can go and
where it can carry men
Is it possible to carry a lifelong torch for someone?
Is it possible to not say goodbye even though the
other person has?
I think its walking in the center
Walking in circles demanding love and loyalty that
- 61 -
another person does not possess

Or forgiving when you yourself are not forgiven for
any infraction
I am walking in the center
I should say I am walking in circles
Wondering why you mistreated me
Why you abandoned me without reason
Why you held me up to impossible standards that I
never could meet , only to switch the standards
My son is gone from me and I cannot say goodbye to
him without you
On the one year anniversary of him leaving us
I love you still
Although you yourself told me that if someone loves
you , they make sacrifices
Ones you were unwilling to make
So I will make whats left of us bloom
I will place flowers on his grave
I will treasure your memory
Because I love you
Because I know perhaps the pain of losing him was
easier transferred to me
And that maybe you need a new chance, to love and
grow and change
I adore you, I forgive you, I love you
Thats the question I asked myself
How much did I love you?
I loved you enough to understand that maybe
leaving me was what you needed to do to forget
about our baby
And that maybe like I visit him, I visit you and me
when I visit the cemetery
Because all my love lies there and you were part of
- 62 -
him
My beloved
- 63 -
The keeper of the flame

I know now who holds the flame
I looked for it in the eyes of others
It lies in the eyes of the romantics
The fire lies in the eyes of those who value true love
above all
Hopeless romantics hold the flames
Those of us who look for happy endings and slip
hope into darkened rooms
I know who holds the flame
The ones who hold the flame are those that know
that love endures past broken hearts
It endures past situations and the continuum of time
It endures past love and loves losses
It endures anywhere that someone continues to
honor and long for love
For devotion, in a soldiers heart who lays on a field,
who died for country
In endures in a mothers heart who buried a child
In endures in a lovers heart, who was left alone and
longing for someone who is no longer there
I know who holds the flame
- 64 -
What do you see when you see

me?
What you see
What do you see when you see me?
Do you see a dishelved 46 year old?
I have born 4 children, one not here
Three are here, one is grown and is a happy woman
One is a teenager getting ready to fly
And one is 8 and loves the wizard of Oz
What do you see when you see me?
Do I seem less than perfect? Or maybe past my time?
I struggle to walk as my bones burn and ache
I take medicines to breathe because water fills my
lungs
And maybe I dont arrive to you in the most amazing
package
But my heart dances, it does
I speak several languages and I have danced in the
- 65 -
Sahara
I have stood on Ireland s shores
And felt Swedens bite
I have stood in the middle eastern air
And lived a full life
So I tell you this
When you see the packages that arrive in front of you
When you meet a person who does not exactly
connect with you
Look beyond how they arrived and learn from their
journey
Grief may cover their face
But underneath the package may lie the answer to
your life
Or mask a friend who will be the one to save you
Because we do not always look like the queens or
kings we are
Thank you to the people that love me in this package
Worn along the edges
- 66 -
That love my words or the fact I always ask question

I treasure everyone who has walked with me
And yes I might be slower
Or older
Or fatter than you want to be with
But I have lived a full life and I will treasure you
My beloved friends
My compatriots
As we journey on this crazy long and winding road
Together, maybe disheveled , maybe broken
But always yearning, for one more happy day and
one more second chance
To be the Queens and Kings we were born to be
- 67 -
If I was beautiful
If I was beautiful
You would see who I was
You would hold my hand and dance with me and
honor me and love me
If I was beautiful
You would have wanted to dance with me, to walk
with me, to hold me
Maybe you would not have left
If I was beautiful
I would have had the happy ending, with the child in
my arms that we created
You would have seen when I gave every last thing I
had to make you happy
You would have appreciated everything I went
without to make sure you were happy
Every hair cut I never gave myself
Every dress I never bought
Every debt I incurred
Every mile I walked not knowing if I could walk the
whole way
If I was beautiful
If I was beautiful
- 68 -
A Rhapsody in Black
a rhapsody
a song
composed in black composed in slumber
if I could stay asleep till he returns
I would be the better woman
Only I know that I lie between the pages of a book
with wings flailing
trying to lift myself off of it
he does not know
that though I look like the stronger one
the straw that broke the camels back
perhaps was not the one anyone thought
a choice, a word, a poem, a phrase
hungry for the affirmation
I lay in bed in tumbling slumber
and moved to the couch
- 69 -
and tossed in fear

the love was strong enough to do me in
where others could not reach me
He did, my darling did
He only sees the stronger side
My broad strong shoulders to burden the truth
But my love for him is a rhapsody in black
in shadows and in longing, in fears and in betrayal
He cannot see my armor is pierced
with arrows carelessly launched
And an audience of one
Since only I know
The depths of my love for him
So if I am silent and melt into the bed
And do not awaken, will anyone notice?
Will the world spin without me?
Perhaps
- 70 -
Perhaps the wind will blow and life will go on

And my rhapsody in black
Be a song barely sung.
Maybe whispered and silently a durge will play
If love was enough
I would win the fight
If love was enough to win
But I was the lesser one, the more broken one with
more things than I could hold
The weaker one
Who sang brightly and clear?
But sank into the night
Perhaps slumber will save me, perhaps not
I was only the queen when he made me so
If my crown was pulled off, perhaps it wont be given
again
Perhaps I lost already and no one told me
I love him so, the winds please listen
- 71 -
I love him so, the winds please hear me

The water the lake the rivers who run
Tell them I love him so he can hear me
As I cry for him quietly for him to return
The blackest song plays as I lay in the darkness
The blackest song cannot give me rest for the weary
I love him, my winds that circle his feet
And that face his back with the heat and his
memories
Tell the dust storms I adore him and miss him I do
As I lay alone dancing to the rhapsody in black
- 72 -
Become one of the ghosts

When I close my eyes
You become one of the ghosts
Beautiful and intelligent
But simply made of thin air
you curse my breath and name
and yet I never was the one to cut your skin
or break your back or make the scars
yet you rain hell down on me for the smallest thing
Become one of the ghosts I say
Thats what you deserve
If you want to float and wander and take and hurt
Ill close my eyes and you disappear
And never face my questions
You want silence? You got it. I have rooms of it to
lend you
I have silence for years and days and months
- 73 -
You can walk in any one of the rooms and sit in the
middle of it
I am simply not mad but I wont wear a dress
That I did not sew and clean a mess I did not make
So become one of the ghosts
And haunt yourself if you must.
Its what you might need
Become one of the ghosts who haunts my brain and
my heart
Ill see you at night and hear your sweet voice
But to curse me, oh no you won't
Queens won't allow
So become one of the ghosts with your guitar and
your smile
And Ill lock you away in my memory
Become one of the ghosts with your song and your
stride
Just become one of the ghosts
- 74 -
Le Vent Boheme
You pay a high price to be a gypsy
the winds blow fierce and dryly
there is no rest for a gypsy soul
there is only understanding as the gypsy's feet hit the
floor
and begins to run as gypsy's often do
Is it freedom that names the gypsies life
For I am a gypsy with ties that bind
I might have every reason not to run
Or miss the wind or the open road
the gypsy girl doesn't have the freedom a gypsy man
might have
But she has the wanderlust and the thirst for
abandon
for blood to be spilled with temper or tantrum
or love to be made under a star lit sky
- 75 -
I stopped my soul mate from breaking what he loved

so much
and it was as if he longed to crush and destroy
that which he treasured to prove he was unworthy
I told him that cyphers that reminded him were less
than he deserved
He needed to be challenged not catered to not
ignored
He needed the safety of resistance a challenge
He wants no resistance to his gypsy ways
But I wont let him forget he is a king of his own
La Vent Boheme is what he seeks
He wants the easy answers, the passive and
unaccountable
but a queen has to stand for protection and take
decision
Not leave the gypsy to struggle without direction
Is she a bitch or a queen or a mother or both
A wolf, a tiger and the wind faces her back
- 76 -
She stands like a sentinel upon the mountains

And loves him without abandon without error or
trial
the night is a mistress for my gypsy king
the road is his mistress but Ill watch the road ahead
of him
like a queen guards her king when hes facing dark
knights
the vent boheme will always be a stronger wind than
the fragile will stand
It reeks of death and goodbye, it smells and tastes
like regret
his glasses are full of regret and bitter wine but there
is beauty up ahead if he would just take the chance
to trust himself and forgive his misspent youth
And to realize that perhaps the gypsy wind is
perhaps not in him but all around him and will warm
his way home, where ever he will go
Gypsy man can't you see that you were not ever truly
lonely
that love lived inside the ugly truth you clung to
- 77 -
as a reason for leaving for living or dying

that love surrounds you wanderer and floats upon
the dusty currents you want to own
The currents of La Vent Boheme
- 78 -
A handful of nothing
what was I left with after love s bitter burn
was it worth it, the pain that I endured and the
nights I lost sleep
or rocks and dust in my hands
If hearts could hold things like hands
I would have cold water and sunlight
Rocks and whirlpools
and every thing my mouth desired
what was I left after love s bitter burn
- 79 -
To come back
I am not strong enough
To come back
I am not strong enough
to even be fractured
or tossed and turned by indifference
Take it
here is everything I wrote upon the ground
here is every piece of paper, every word
I cannot hold it
I cant hold up one side of shroud
Ill let it drop to the body of where you used to be
When hope and love was your friend
I will not wash it I will not hold it
Your shroud is simply yours and yours alone
I cannot come find you
Only you are the one who can find me
- 80 -
To break that spell of thinking no one will ever know

so here are papers scattered on the floor..
I have to run.. I have to leave
my bonfire heart will rage alone
and candles flame
the whole night through
some trains you miss
some songs unsung
and some clutch their burial shroud rather than lay
it down
- 81 -
It wasn't in the cards

If I was not a priority
I sure won't be an after thought
I ll go out blazing and broken
I don't need an audience
To share my thoughts with the moon
It was always just the moon and I
I want nothing more
No other chance
No other thought
And no other song
And it won't be something that I will look to find
Red is the rose
My safety is in my sacredness and silence
- 82 -
If I can't have a thought between me and the moon

Then I don't want it at all
The stars are not allowed to hear my heart
Only the moon
It wasn't in the cars
And I cannot cross your path
Id rather be on the lips of a fool
than under the shoe of a brighter man
- 83 -
Let's write some nonsense

Let's write some nonsense
Cause we can cause we can
let's mess up syntax
Spell like gangsters
Because there is too much time to lose
Lets write some bad poetry baby
sweet and nonsensical
nasty and wretched
and lets love like its going out of style
You can have a warning label and I just might not
read it
lets just break all the plates and glasses and give up
on rules
OK Maybe I will walk a straight line but not this time
baby... not this time
because there is no incentive to behave
Lets write some bad poetry
- 84 -
and make up stuff as we go

Lets write some nonsense, you and I
- 85 -
Lounes
Some curse the day you became too brave
That your life would have been better suited to
remain with us
To dance to the sounds of Tizi Ouzou
and hold a teenagers pen to push him to write
But Lounes dear Lounes
You knew best
A berber spring would come again and you would be
there with your beloved
You are with us in the mountains
when a child is born and speaks his first word
You are with us when a promise is broken
Or we forget what bravery is
Lounes
Some curse your name for going home
And say why did you do it
- 86 -
Why did you go

To fail and die a heroes death
but perhaps you knew that love is bigger than
murder
and that you would be a berber flag
ya boualem
ya Lounes
- 87 -
Tahar
Farewell my poet
My writer
We shall not weep
For all that is gone is your flesh and blood
Your body lays abandoned
But we will come take you
Our son
To wash and bury and take you to heaven
Our writer our son
You asked too many questions
But died with the answers
Across your face and hands bound
Our tahar our earth
Our son and our heaven
Our darling child of the fields
- 88 -
We mourn you
- 89 -
The Base of the House

With this stone
I send you back my darling my darling
You have come but the wolf is at the door
Ill make you strong Lounes
Ill make you strong
And you will remember the man I married is you
Now war is upon us
And the wolf is at the door
Go back and save our honor
For there are no more days to waste
If you come home and they enslave us
Then we might as well have lost our life
I am the base of the floor of this house
I am your wife
Now turn on your heels and return to battle
- 90 -
And call my name when you have won

My king my king return to battle
- 91 -
Ill be a ghost
If I share my basket
and open up my heart and life
and you don't find me worthy
don't look inside and don't inquire
Ill walk like a ghost right past you
and never turn around
those things I carry are all I have
my strength is very minimal
I have very little left
so its not what you want
and you cant see its value
let me be a ghost on the walls
walking by in the night
I wont try to convince you
Ill simply escape you
- 92 -
And make sure I don't suffer from any more ills

Ill be a ghost in the garden
Its as if I never walked by
Or made a shadow on the ground
Ill be a ghost
Ill be a ghost
Ill be a ghost
- 93 -
The Gift of Algeria

If I could hold you in my arms
And tell you what you mean to me
In so many words
With pictures, with drawings, with things lost then found
this is what I would give to you Algeria
I would give you the ocean
And the stars in the sky
And the way that Algiers looks at night
With black silky fabric and little pin points of light
And the white walls twisting and standing and bending
And the dust on the cars envelopes me
And they just don't know
Who and what they are
I would give Algeria to the Algerians
And wipe away their tears and tell them that all the things they lost
are not the end of the story of Algeria
That love and hope exist
And the guilty will find their keeper
And the innocent will fly to the heavens
and the days that were long and painful
will some day be explained

I would give Algerians the most beautiful thing I could ever dream
to give them
I would give them Algeria
I would give them dates in the desert
I would give them malouf and chaabi, rai and andalous
I would give them their food and their languages and their intellect
If I had a gift to give them
I would give them myself if that were enough
To ease the pain of what they lost
I would give them words of comfort no matter what was occuring
and forgiveness when they needed it
Is this what love is?
I wonder so... If loving a country is like loving a person
And that I could find myself drinking the milk and eating the food
which is clean and real
like the people and their hearts
I am not Algeria and I am not Algerian
And I dare not try to be
I cannot cook one single thing nor make a home like a bledi
Or stand in their shadow
Or explain what they have survived

But I can be a keeper of their memory
While they are busy doing other things, because I love them so..
I can keep their stories and their pictures and their hearts in my
chest
And give them as much as I can regarding themselves
Because I love them so
So this is my song for Algeria
A song of many notes and colors
repetitive and old
And sometimes I feel my hope slipping
And sometimes my feelings are shortchanged
And sometimes I cannot feel the ground beneath me because I
don't see a happy day in sight
But the gift I give I give to you Algeria is my faithfulness and my
stamina
To do for you and to take care of your memory
To help your museums and your collective memory
To remember the faces of those who lived before you and their
stories and their lives
and in the middle of terrible pain...
beautiful things existed
I give to you Algeria

Yourself
The greatest gift
The land of many simple things
where love is pure and people may not be
But hope survives
I promise you
In the hearts and the faces of your people
She's come undone

May 18, 2015 at 1:33am
She has come undone

She knew she knew she knew
what lay in wait from you
All you can say is she became a tornado
But you ripped away the carpet beneath her
And broke her back with lie upon lie
And then laughed with glee as you betrayed her
She will be gone soon you said...as you laughed with another...
She has come undone
She changed she changed you clearly saw
But you never apologized for what you did
And left her to swing from a tree .. from a bridge
A woman scorned can be that way
She melted like metal thrust into a fire pit
She bloated with pressure
and began to flame
She' s come undone.. she 's come undone
a mess of a woman
she 's come undone
The Notebook
May 18, 2015 at 1:21am
I flipped through pages

streets and times
and then compared it to what I found out later
was every day we spent a means to an end
or did you see me somewhere
was I there some where in your plots and plans
and did you ever care
or was it simply b grade acting
I always wonder so
I wonder if when I was close to you
You felt my heart beside you
that I handed you everything I had
in little red taxis as the sun went down
it seemed like a burden
but perhaps it was more than that
a bridge or a path or a road somewhere else
as I read something else and thought of you
a notebook of things you should have said
but you said something else
they tell me move on but how do you do that
when you lost your best friend that you thought perhaps was with you forever
but who did not feel the same
I wish you well beloved
As I tear page by page out of my memory
And cross through lines of a passage that I kept of your betrayal
that I tried to fill with other things
But I never could find enough evidence to balance it
My notebook lay empty...pages strewn and unaware of what to do
Its a burden I cannot bear
I cry myself to sleep
as I pull apart and try to fill or re arrange
the
notebook
at the bottom of the ocean... in the sea of Casablanca

May 17, 2015 at 11:38pm
the waters crashed against the shore

and somehow I took the key to my heart
which was locked
and in my hand I held the key
it was large and metal
And I flung it as far as I could
Into the ocean.. into the cresting sea
and on its metal I scratched in every hope and dream
and it landed in the waves and began to sink
my whole life sunk with it
and now I lay at the bottom of the sea
I am there
my body flung against the walls
and rocks that line the shores
Am I still alive beloved?
How could I be?
The bitter truth was I wrote only hopes and dreams
Beloved I am now at the bottom of the ocean
I cannot be recovered
I might just lay there
You were the light of my life
And perhaps you saw a glimmer of kindness in your own eyes when you
looked in the mirror
a devious plan was hatched
and no one could save me
from conspiracy
from betrayal
just let me lay here
at the bottom , on a sand bar
in the sea
on the shores of Casablanca
I will see you in Anfa
In every storefront of 2 Mars
I will never escape you
And my body will rust in the salt and in the swirling waters
in the sea of Casablanca
Aaleche del ghadar... waaaalech why oh why did you

betray me
May 17, 2015 at 8:53pm
Into a well you threw me

You took my love from my hands as if I had a water fall to hand you
And threw me down a well
Aaleche Aaleche
The betrayal was swift my darling
You told her
sbar sbar
I will be with you
My darling.. my darling beloved daughter of the magreb
I ll be done with the daughter of the red stripes and white stars soon
Her body a boat and her blood our life blood
a stamp for safe passage and we will throw her soon
Aaleche my darling Aalache
Why oh why did you betray me?
I understood.. I understood
Soukti soukti Kathleen..its just the way of the world
But I will cry and throw myself against the ground
I loved you so I loved you soW Aaleche
Why beloved.. why beloved.. did you conspire against me
To hurt me.. to crush me?
Did you not think that I knew?
Did you not understand that I ignored the bitter truth
Till it became too much for my mouth
Was it so painful to feel my heart pound beneath you
Or wipe the tears from my face
WAaleche...W Aaleche
WAaleche
The Dealer
May 12, 2015 at 2:45pm
In a star shiney sky

Constellation Leo
Sat the dealer
He outstretched muscular arms
To move the earth and adjust the sky
Some how he dealt the dice of fate
And knew somehow I was his friend
An interstellar casino shown
And I reached for him
The dealer
That sadness you feel Kathleen is fate baked twice
You see the endings before they came
Your grief is just a shadow
My darling said the dealer, do not worry so, it is written in the stars
Betrayal is but love baked twice
You will find it again just listen closely
The stars clash and rattle so
Keep faith said the dealer
But I am afraid and I worry so
How can I weather heartache dealer.. tell me how
Be not afraid my child my heart
Its only fate said the dealer
Life will come and wash away the pain
And you will live again
and dice be thrown and memories splintered
Its only the sun and moon colliding my darling
Said the dealer... said the dealer
a ladder to the sky. rabat 9 2014

April 28, 2015 at 4:37pm
and i remember what the sky was like

and now that I see all the things that were never really there
only sunshine is left
only sunshine and wind
and the heat and the sky
I loved you so Moulay
I see a ladder to the sky and the clouds and the blue above us
In Rabat where we stood
and saw stones a thousands years old
and they formed a ladder to the sky
Please let it be me
August 31, 2014 at 8:32pm
A girl with her hand held tight

Chosen first and loved the best
Please let it be me, please let it be me
I feel high I feel low
I feel weak I feel strong
Please let it be me
Please let it be me
Let it be me , let the love flow over me
And let it be real, let it be real
the sunshine in my hair
the red lipstick
the night under the jasmine
Please let it be me, please let it be me
Everything I missed and did not get to experience
Please let me be the one who has a night without sleeping
Let it be me, Please let it be me
the sun shines where he steps


not where i stand but where he steps
I feel like a mess and yet I call for him
And he knows that I need care
I crawled into my bed and fell into a deep deep sleep
and when I woke up there was no one there to talk to
but I looked up at the sky and there he was
he was there among the clouds
and in the ticking of the clock
he was in each breath i drug into my lungs
and I knew I was ok
cause I know he is my friend
I know he puts me first and never asks and never takes
hes a special kind of perfect
a special kind of warmth and care


not where i stand but where he steps
I feel like a mess and yet I call for him
And he knows that I need care
I crawled into my bed and fell into a deep deep sleep
and when I woke up there was no one there to talk to
but I looked up at the sky and there he was
he was there among the clouds
and in the ticking of the clock
he was in each breath i drug into my lungs
and I knew I was ok
cause I know he is my friend
I know he puts me first and never asks and never takes
hes a special kind of perfect
a special kind of warmth and care
Dear Mr Choukri
May 22, 2015 at 11:22pm
As I dream of Tangier once more

I speak your name
The men have let me down
Lied or cheated...been false or self serving
And you alone remain
Mr Choukri light my path
For bread alone
For my sorrow sweeps
Across the streets that surround my house
leading me all the way back to Morocco
No joyous trip for me
One of healing and hospitals
My stomach will be cut open and I will spill blood in Morocco
Gasping for breath
Holding probably a strangers hand
Soukti honey Soukti
It will be alright
Well of course it will be alright Kathleen
I am with you says Mohamed
Choukri stands by the door drinking a coffee
You will stay with us crazy American woman
We need more of your words
And less of your absence
Mrabat... and me
and a whole lot of broken poets
And we call your name Kathleen
Come here
Come here
As you whisper
Mr Choukri
Mr Choukri
please save me from love and longing... death and desperation
Betrayal and sorrow
And I arrive in Morocco much sadder but broken
A poet of sorts
And my mouth is open

Mr Choukri Mr Choukri
With For Bread Alone in my hospital bed and the writers of Morocco surround
me
Mr Choukri... Mr Choukri
Do not leave me darling do not leave me
As I breath the gas and they begin to cut
Fill my head full of Tangier in the 1950s
And place sardines on bread and stars in the sky
And we will drink at Cafe Hafa in my dreams
Mr Choukri
A kiss is not a promise

October 1, 2014 at 12:39am

Ask me how I know
Its not the promise of patience
Or what life could or should be
A kiss is just a kiss
You must remember this
The only thing that tells you if love remains
Is as time goes by
Not a nudge, not a push
From deadended slumber
Could ever shake my heart from the place that it stands
But as good hearts must sometimes do
I must realise
As good hearts often do
realise
its simply a kiss
a snapshot in time of how my heart feels
but thats all it is
is a kiss
a kiss is not a promise
I love you so
Can you feel that darling can you feel that
Do you know that no matter where I go, or what you do or say
I still remain with you, somewhere with you, in a picture, in a photograph
remembering
telling myself
with tears in my eyes
that a kiss is not a promise
its simply a kiss
its nothing more than that
I wish kisses were contracts
I wish when you gave them somehow you wrote your name in the sand
saying I'm here....hold me close...Ill never leave
but they are only pictures I took with my hands and my heart
oh how I long to wake you.....hold you

but something came between us
and it was just black and white
but it just screamed
but I silenced the words
and I just told myself
as tears flowed and the dawn broke
that a kiss is not a contract
die to live
March 15, 2014 at 3:38am
some of us must die to live

we fight the fear
we carry on
and then some of us simply live just to die
awaiting their fate... the minutes the seconds
as I struggle to breathe
I envy the air
that people spit into
they pollute they abuse
all the while I just want to taste it.. to live and to breathe
was the pain to great
were the walls too high
I cant reach
I cant help
I cant stop whats happening to me or anyone else
I can barely accept or forgive
I can just back up to the wall and put my hands flat upon it
cheek sideways and hug it because I see no way out
Some choose to die while living.. they take their health for granted
each breath is wasted
I choose to live while dying.. I simply live while dying
each failing breath I try to sing
each labored move becomes a story
waste not sweet prince
you will never pass this way again

March 14, 2014 at 5:15pm
When I close my eyes

You become one of the ghosts
Beautiful and intelligent
But simply made of thin air
you curse my breath and name
and yet I never was the one to cut your skin
or break your back or make the scars
yet you rain hell down on me for the smallest thing

Become one of the ghosts I say
that s what you deserve
If you want to float and wander and take and hurt
Ill close my eyes and you disappear
And never face my questions
You want silence? You got it. I have rooms of it to lend you
I have silence for years and days and months
You can walk in any one of the rooms and sit in the middle of it
I am simply not mad but I wont wear a dress

That I did not sew and clean a mess I did not make
So become one of the ghosts
And haunt yourself if you must.
Its what you might need
Become one of the ghosts who haunts my brain and my heart
Ill see you at night and hear your sweet voice
But to curse me , oh no you won't
Queens won't allow
So become one of the ghosts with your guitar and your smile
And Ill lock you away in my memory
Become one of the ghosts with your song and your stride
Just become one of the ghosts
Port Malheur
Let me tell you bout my baby
Hes a rain cloud in the spring
If there is something to complain about
You know he will jump right in
I can see his childhood in his face
And love him even so
But hes a dark dark force in my life
who is sure to drive me mad
If I say this world has lots of light
He will rain on my parade
He will pop all the balloons around the table
And say YAY what a mess I made
I could leave him in his corner
And let him sulk alone
But I know the only way to get him
Is to ignore dark dark heart
See I love my port malheur
My liar and my creep
Hes such a jerk, I swear to you
And thinks he anonymously creeps
I can feel him in the thunder
And in every villain in the book
I know hes just a country boy
Trying to be the joker and a monster
But I know him and I love him
That rainy dark, miserable door of
Darkness he is
his death door I wont walk through
I ll pour sunshine on his head
And smile at him and tell him I love him
Because mean people never win
The doors of death and sadness
Will be slammed shut in this house
We will roll on grass and dance and sing
because I am a light giver
So bad boy sulk and tantrum
You'll find no sadness here
I love you port malheur inspite of you

Inspite of you
Inspite of you
Your darkness wont envelop me
the joker, chaos will not win
So heres to the port malheur men everywhere
Who rain on our parades
Its margaritaville and spring and summer
In Spite of you , in spite of you
We live we laugh we sing
And love you just in spite of you
your dark door will just be dusty

The Book of Moulay

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The Book of Moulay

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THE BOOK OF MOULAY

Poetry Anthology of Kathleen Woolrich

THE BOOK OF MOULAY

The Word of the Author

o be able for you to understand my interest in

help or anything to that effect. So I have decided what I will

history but I never thought that I would be diving into

he massive white mother of Africa. She captured my

My reading and research took me down many

opposition by Abdel Kader, a young brave warrior who

Algerians unable to obtain proper food and education and

About the French Colonialism in

ustice has many forms. Pain in Algeria has come from

nd the bread that you would not share

And the babies

bdel Kader rode with his green and white flag

And the sky is full of gold and azure fabric

The martyrs died for you

What they may not steal and what

ittle is known in the western world about the savage

Children burned by Napalm, landmines surrounding every

Reach into my jacket

y hand lives there alone

A dime has stood between me and thirst before

for this is our destiny

Flowers in the middle of Algiers

halky blue and broken white

they didn't know because it had been so long

Why don't we build libraries there and help them?

We can bring a tiger or an elephant to Algiers

Algerians gave me hope that I was still alive

All the things life never was

ave become the markers of my life

Dance and get tired

see you from above the city

The sun is shining

he spring has returned

Nor forks and spoons that match

15 miles to hardeeville, south

5 miles to hardeeville, south carolina

grits and fatback and syrup on the side

Dancing Lying Down Not Moving

I am in exile in my own heart

am not a part of where I live

Dahmane El Harrachi said all the birds must return

hold my hands in the shape of a cup

I have become a fountain

hen you return to Algeria after your

I am here no longer wondering

When you realize

hat your heart doesn't have a home

Sometimes a woman needs to throw herself from the car

want to be a book of pretty pages

Dancing with Jugurtha

hings we never did I do

I love you no matter if you grace my door

A Dead Womans Dress

hold out my hand

I lose my balance, and fall in a heap

Let's be outlaws, you and I

et's break every rule

Let's be outlaws,you and I

couldnt believe how lovely the church is

A girl in hijab was whispering to her lover