Path Tomorrow

Path Tomorrow

by Husam (Sam) Salman

And through

The billowing night air

I Pause

At the window sill.

Just feet away

The rolling traffic

Of the neighboring freeway

Remains a current

Of motion.

A constant

Of feeding people

To cities

Like blood in veins,

Allowing,

And lending them

To do their task

To serve their purpose

In their proper designation.

What a wistful woe

Passes my heart

As it grows ever more heavy

And weary

With congested frustration.

Closing my eyes I hear 

Engines humming

Rustling leaves 

And a siren.

Where will my road take me?

Where do I want to go?

What is my designation

If I so choose it

Or it

So chooses me?

To Lie is Fine

To Lie is Fine

by Husam (Sam) Salman

I went into the book,
I settled on posts of life.
I tried to turn my head but couldn't,
So I read and wrote…and drown.

Once I heard a holler, I looked again
I wrote back and twice my logic cried!
If my friend hadn't been so cold
I might still have him with.

But he was nowhere to be found!

He withdrew – detached and became so very cold!

I took to the streets of the book and asked for thoughts
Opinions flew – and was slaughtered by the sheep.
I thought about how I became fodder
And thought I would stop caring – altogether.

I was the one alone now, cold! Alone…
I stood crying and lost!
If you know me, you would have met me half way
Acquainted, by proxy alone – I've never been to your house.

But you felt you knew me well enough to reply! Such replies!

So this is living…hmm,
I will live on, I guess.
I could've care for you too – publicly

…But will no longer…

This life I was born to, has been private

Though you read my postings,
Though you may see me --
Don’t tell me the truth,
Because I may tell you the same.

Lie is fine! Who cares – right?

Sweet Chrity

Sweet Charity

A POEM BY: HUSAM (SAM) SALMAN

Can you buy me a burrito?

I have become a burden,

An imposition

A ward on the address of my friends and patron's pockets

Watch-fobs pulled out to avoid eye contact 

And the desperate glare of

Mercy and pity,

Both of which are shrill.

I've fallen to my knees and prayed

I've already seen God - we chat daily

I've already seen myself out of body - (eww your ass!)

I've transformed myself coming through the other side 

Of "that" crucible so many times they owe me a plack. 

AND YET I STILL SUFFER!!

Though not my path

Hard are the eyes to turn blindly

At rewarded sloth and glutton's excess  

Yet I find myself shallowly envying those fuckers,

Like the sad fool Perez H.

Hating that which he emulates most

What should I choose to hate

Or disregard so that I too

May be rewarded for nothing?

Wait...no...that's not my path...thankfully...but just the same...GROW UP!!

This Rough Trade

This Rough Trade

by Husam (Sam) Salman

He's lucky beyond some words, generous are the hands that
Feed, greed, need, plead, heed, lead, bleed 
He's popular, a private dancer, he'll do it for money
Sells his body, see how this pretty man is kept
How his bills payed, where he got that 
Bracelet, necklace, phone and car

This is rough trade? How dainty they've become, 
Though the scars similar - New ones added over the years 
Like the reminder of times passage
Rides in cages

Childhood always left a great deal to be desired
Everything remains twisted, though not
No boarders, guidelines...like falling endlessly
Not knowing what was "safe" or "good"
Navigated your own path to live by

Where "love" was abandoned when you were
And all other relations were never allowed in any further 
To earn your love
For drinks, for drugs, for tonight - 
Poor substitutes for role models 

He gets off knowing he's getting them off
Inner guilt smothered by child's rant
Oh gurl, he's going to have you no matter what you want

Every night (and some days) he proves his self worth 
Solidifies his choices with every shot

Manly gear in tow for the nights long haul
Hey faggot, you forgot something in the stall last night
...and you can't ever get that back... 

All he wanted was money, but that wasn't really the sport 
Or ever enough

Lust for sale...come and get yours here.

Afternoon Drive

Afternoon Drive

by Husam (Sam) Salman

Just so you know, I’m sick of being your cliché

Obviously he’s just another exotic young ‘baby’ with a pretty face.
It’s most obvious at the bitching hour of any busy bear bar.
Silver spoon (and fork) fed, jerked, abrasive, like a sac made of burlap
Driving myself silly, clinging onto those that don’t treasure me

Don’t pay proper mind to the ones that want to cling on

~Psst ~ That’s why I’m single. L

Welcome to my smell of cigarettes and whiskey

This scent makes me break into hidden perverse and hideous smiles.
The one thing I desire most is to

taste the goring attack of sexual tagger lips…

Please throw that piece up on my face; again and again.
The only thing I want is to see no more sores, no stud gardens,
no more gods, no spectacles, no elaborates. Simply put – Simple!

Just so you know I’m sick of lust being the only gear you drive in.

Tempt me with rampant ravels and a wicked tongue writhing in my ear,
Scare me with your cunning arms and sly moves, pinned down,
or kills my patience holding me down gripped from behind.
Woof woof – better than all get out!
Belting comic relief from the top of my lungs,
with the occasional grunt as I died and lived on that summit.

Life doesn't have to be spent as a flower on the wall,
perched, other’s eyes yield troubling cage, vulnerable – underbelly

 exposed, sheepish,
that sinking feeling that won’t let you go and talk freely,
an introvert is born…and another one bites the dust.

Don’t let it defeat you.
You are no fucking flower! NOW GET OUT THERE!
Rise up, the dust from the bins linger but a daily dusting

 will keep things in clear view,
half thawed, living for the moment(s).

That's why Friday, when it hears me spray on my final touches,
with my poker face, roles up like a confident asshole,
and peels out like to race away afraid of this realness ready to vet,
and ushers in the moon to both apologize and permit
the night to enter.

It guides me, destined to my designations and determinants,

into several plush labs of living,
into churches where the wigs get tossed out with the trash

– Black Arts and Freak Show,
into theaters that smell like pits and crotch,
and certain streets cracked exposing cartoon like pits of hell.

There are purple people, hideously needing a bath
I now scorn where they linger in streets like paseos, downtown,
 and malls that have no names in pictorial symbols, Koreatown.

I am your mirror, your re-animator, you’re resurrected

You’re welcome
It’s never the same when you fight it, me or everyone,
there are safety nets everywhere, but equally as many pitfalls, and community.

I amble along with quiet and content, with my junk, my ass,
my calm, dismissing everything,
I walk by, going through space and time
bars and clubs,
and homes with flowers still blooming in winter:
roses, irises and paper white from which the soft
scent, will tomorrow, remind me of this morning.

I Learned To Flourish Past the Anger

I Learned To Flourish Past the Anger

by Husam (Sam) Salman

I learned to flourish past the anger with peace and steady calm,
to stare into the stars and see the face of God,
and the same face is the crossing of a butterfly before my path
to ease my dizzy spinning.
When the Swallows nest near Magic Mountain
and the orange poppies spring up from across recently barren hills
I like to dish about fun things in painless ways
about ‘society’ – the over ripening fruit decaying from within, Jerry Springer.
I move back, I move forward. I move back, I move forward …Pido
jumps up and kisses my nose, shakes his whole body
and the pedestrians all gawk and go on about his perfection
at the Kings Head in Santa Monica.
Only the occasional honk on the passing car at the corner
sporadically cut into my already hung over head.
If you’re trying to ring me on my iPhone
it may be on vibrate.