NOFEL - POEMS

Nofel is an Arabo-Anglophone Canadian poet. His poetry has appeared in Snapdragon Journal, the Packingtown Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Bywords.ca, and Montreal Writes. [email protected]

I Look out the Window at the Snowfall ​

and I remember you. I know it never snowed when we were 
together, and, no, the white snow does not remind me of your 
white skin, but I still cannot forget when, on Anderson Hill, 
I sobbed on your chest, for a good hour or longer, in front of 
your remorseful tears, enkindled by your racism, even though 
I now know a three-month romance cannot erase your forty 
years of white ignorance, even though I now know you were not
necessarily a racist. I look back now as the bus 
moves through Gatineau and crosses to the Ottawa side, and 
as you fly from Victoria accompanied by a man 
with whom you have fallen out of love—I realize racism
will becloud my relationships with men, white or not, and please 
do not say sorry, partly because I hate that word, partly 
because I am not angry at you. Do you still remember 
the poetry I read you? Are you still in love with me? I 
do mean it when I tell you that you are my Qur'anic angel
perching, there, at McNeil beach, your head not on my shoulder; alone
you reminisce about our kisses in the morning, my love
for coffee, your love for coffee shops, and our juvenile sex. 
I still die at the movement of your beautiful lips when you 
indulge in deep thinking, as though you are printing a kiss on
a beloved's face. I find it odd that no man before me 
had been enamoured of your ethereal hand gestures or
effeminate voice. Your love and benevolence I treasure 
through my insomniac nights. I am almost certain I do
not want to date you, and, yes, I think I am in love with you.

​

To a Former Friend ​

An ugly smile; 
                       a silent whirlpool.
That’s Montreal 
                        without you. 

Grey fountains with no water, 
                       not a drop or two;
black statues with no meaning, 
                       not even the dejected child statue.  
That’s Montreal 
                         without you. 

Void it is,
                       Leonard Cohen’s singing;
bleak they are, 
                       the streets besmirched with snow. 
That’s Montreal 
                        without you. 

Shattered ice on a river; 
                      an apathetic memory. 
I love Montreal 
                      without you. 

1975, 1997, 2018
​

What would our children look like?
So beautiful—my long eyelashes, 
his green eyes, my brown 
                                           and his white skin.

I giggle and I lick his chest hair
                                           and nipple. His beard 
wasn’t against my chest, nor was I reading him poetry. 

We might’ve been in Anderson Hill, 
Gonzales Point, on the streets of Vancouver, his bed, 
a park where we kissed and sucked each other off,
under sunlight or moonlight. 
                                          I don’t remember. 

I didn’t know “faggot” can be an endearment name 
until it parted his lips like honey. His utterances 
                                         euphonic and gay 
like a Qur’anic recitation
fluttering a nightingale’s melody. 

I close my eyes 
                                           and I travel to the faces 
of other men, who wondered 
what our children would look like,

                                            and because I know  
I detest repetitive conversations and silence,

                                            and because I know  
only in their absence can I flee my inner dialogue,

I stare into his eyes, my lips against his, 
and murmur, “Your eyes are a master piece.
A drip painting by a passionate God--
a green circle with hazel splashes of anger.” 


​

​Gatineau

Leaves sleeping on the grassy ground
    a man sits on a wet brown bench 
and smokes alone 
    face down, one hand on his knee
acrid smoke--
     memories of a queer Brown man  

two brown angels on my shoulders 
     disinterested in protecting me 
an overcast, foggy sky
    a dewy earth
memories falling off my shoulders
   a bored, lost God

​

​Untold

The woman perches on a bench in front of a church,
big and desolate with an old, orange façade, 
like a book of Italian poetry translated into English. 

The street is empty, 
the woman sits there, waiting for nothing,
a man is going somewhere to encounter a male lover, 
and the rain is quiet like her melancholy. 

The woman perches under darkness, looking 
into nothing. The reticent moon is there 
or not there. Her face is brown, brown but dirty,
and untraceable.

​