Ramzi Albert Rihani is a Lebanese American writer. His poems have appeared in several publications in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Romania, India, and China, including ArLiJo, Linnet’s Wings Magazine, Impspired, Valiant Scribe Literary Journal, Indelible Literature and Arts Journal,  Flora Fiction Literary Magazine, Lothlorien Literary Journal, Goats Milk Magazine, Poetic Sun, Last Leaves Magazine, Cacti Fur Journal, Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, Poetry Potion, The Piker Press, Active Muse, Ephemeral Elegies, and The Silent Journey Anthology. He is a published music critic. He wrote and published a travel book, The Other Color – a Trip Around the World in Six Months (FMA Press, 1984,) and has lived in the Washington, DC, area most of his life.

Delivery

The pain and pleasure of delivering a poem
Carry more than nine months of pregnancy
They pass in one hour or two years, 
Announcing a new cycle of hesitancy.

Words drip and create an embryo
In a womb of a winding road 
With obstacles and prairies 
They grow like trees in a forest
To form a picture that may be dark but honest.
They stagger in our heads searching for a home
As if they’ve been traveling for days, unknown
Sometimes they dance to the music 
And other times, they observe a passing crowd 
Give them water for their roots can be 
As powerful as the strongest typhoon 
Yet as tender as the sweetest emotion.

Finally, they reach home and land on its pages
They are ready to leave their cages.
Between the ink that has dried
And the wetness of their desires
They sit waiting for their liberator
Wondering how they will transform 
To become alive.

All is Fair in Love and War

Under strenuous conditions, they act recklessly
As if they are given a license to kill
A smell of incense, a cool breeze
Make them ponder at the guru’s knees
 
They get up and cover their heads with masks
Trying to hide their identities and justify their deeds
A moment of courage, love, and war
Makes them numb at the bottom of their core
 
Whether in love at full speed
Or at war with complete determination
They dare to tread untested grounds
Risking it all with out-of-bounds
 
They’re about to kiss the dust
But the time has come for them to rise
Like the phoenix from the ashes
They emerge with dignity and poise in dashes
 
Now that the story is unveiled
Don’t ask why when in love
Don’t ask why when at war
Cause all is fair in love and war