Abdulla Saif

“Waking up breaks my heart.
Getting dressed breaks my arms.
Joining the crowd breaks my legs.
Letting someone in...does me in.”
― Casey Renee Kiser, Darkness Plays Favorites

“we met one strange summer

in a regular tangle of sticky webs

you had the air of angels sweet but I--

drowned with the damned spirits

in lava oceans fearing your--

foreign static frequency

and grey-green eyes

(I swear they are even if you--

think otherwise): storms

calm ones, calmer than my--

raging coals, empty and dead

you speak of souls like you believe

always an optimist in pessimistic

skin of ivory and titanium mesh...”
― Moonshine Noire

“Although it was only six o'clock, the night was already dark. The fog, made thicker by its proximity to the Seine, blurred every detail with its ragged veils, punctured at various distances by the reddish glow of lanterns and bars of light escaping from illuminated windows. The road was soaked with rain and glittered under the street-lamps, like a lake reflecting strings of lights. A bitter wind, heavy with icy particles, whipped at my face, its howling forming the high notes of a symphony whose bass was played by swollen waves crashing into the piers of the bridges below. The evening lacked none of winter's rough poetry.”
― Théophile Gautier, Hashish, wine, opium