Mona Kareem A moment of silenceto honor the soul of Mr. Juan Miró. A moment of silencefor the bandit who loots music. We love this old manwhose words clamber up our arms–who does not quit his babble. The angels of my eyesperform their final prayer. The wooden Trojan horsecommits suicidein the inkwell of my blood. Now my blood pressure risesin the span of seven poems. Now I turn down the music. We have a manuscript leaning overthe balcony of stars. We have poets wreathing the poem’s waistwith tin. The temperature:a million degrees beyond light. We will be buried in memory’s corpse,reconfiguring the cosmos. The world tremblesin the lands of our wrecking. Where has Mona Kareem gone,among the swarm of friends? Where has she run off to,after she had shaped the cosmosexactly the way she wanted? Could she be in the non-place,or will she scatter with the poem? Perhaps she has gone looking for Mona Kareem! The Golden Days A poem was worth a thousand novels. Shoulder to shoulder,we chronicled the moment. Before globalization, the poet …