Ant

Ant

 By: Husam (Sam) Salman

 

It was like the moment of desperation had passed

Hope fleeted with the trash and the laundry that

Welled from springs of filth and remnants of yesterday

Where no one cared anymore, hoarded in ‘heaven’.

There, in the mid-century modern where time remains

Eternal, he sat there, idly churning and tilling at

The weed lodged in the pipe.

It may have been the weed, or the moment

But all I could fix my eyes upon was the ant on

The floor.  How did he get here? The –why? was

Apparent. We sat there in the apartment Smoking weed

As I watched the ant crawl aimlessly on the floor.

Swing on Summer Winds

Swing on Summer Winds

By: Husam (Sam) Salman

There, in the path traveled of steps

In strident lost, on the third balcony of the last row

Of townhouses, Todd Ranch – Ventura 1984

Tales of Telegraph road and ocean breezes swallowing

Gulps of eucalyptus air and minerals under

A swollen summer sun, here, in this room I shared

With my brother, comrades forever made, through space battles,

Lego’s and cars, where we were the dreamers - and we dreamt BIG!!

There, in forts of solitude we created in the marshy barranka’s edge

Of childhood venture, where the thinking birds lead us to

The depths and back again, ideas of rafts to travel down to

The sea, where the crocodiles roamed…or so we thought.

How far away we were from everyone in our minds

 My brother, in idolater leadership I worshiped,

There was no man worth following around, my

Dad in absence made plenty, so heroes came in the

Form of commercials and TV Hosts and brothers

Who made the mundane, absurd – thank you Jon!

There was family to spare, almost on call

As though we were in some third world

Or in case we forgot we came from one

Dad would yell into the phone when the

Call rang from overseas, even deafened

We heard the conversation from rooms

Down hallways vast.

In turn, it was either us or them –

When we would visit, we would sleep

On living room floors with family close

And family would be the thing I would

Wake to in weekends of warriors

And champions show

There are some impressions

That tell the tale of a man more than

Any scar, they are the ones he leaves on you

In summers lost now to fading thought

Where dreamers once roamed the unknown

With fervor and quest, here sit scratching heads

To remember the name of the crazy kid next door.

Camper’s Memories

Camper’s Memories

By: Husam (Sam) Salman

We hiked the path that led to nowhere

But back to camp and a roundabout defeat

Thru sun quenched summers and blistering heat

We have heard the snarl of a bear around camp,

Thanks dad for throwing away the honeydew in the

Locked trash…oh, and thanks for bringing honeydew

…to a camping trip!

We were forced to recite our weeks to our

Parents’ eager ears of hopes yearning to be heard

Only to splinter the ears with disappointment and disinterest

We wanted to cuss up a storm at our reality

Of tight quarters and no friends to talk us out of our

Newly found homicidal thoughts.

There in the morning of Barton Flats we rose

At the crack of dawn, though I didn’t understand why

We climbed down the mountain to the trout hatchery

…it was like fishing for fish in a barrel…but it was concrete.

The sport seemed lost to us, even in our dinner table

Delights of bellies full of fish and laughs from the

Tale of the day and arrest we were about to surrender to

Once our heads hits pillows light.

There, in summers past, we told our

Lives, like exposed brick or shaman

Unable to hide the truth. We were unafraid then

What eager eyes reached on those days,

For the unknown and never ending.

I grasp my pole now, for memory

And recollection, nostalgia in hands

These memories bring. Here, alone

In my garage, I want for a trip to recite

The laughter we profess those days.