Our Own Little Places

We have to spend our whole life getting up

each morning and see the many suns

rising courageous from the horizon.

A simple life- who knows when to retire

at night time and hug long-time companions

called pillows and dreaming dreams.

 

There are episodes here, which send ripples

into our seemingly monotonous existence

everyday. And we have to wage battles

with boredom and her sisters- called mediocrity

and irrelevance. But not all were lost.

Somebody needs to learn how to befriend them.

 

Some may think that something was lacking,

but perhaps in the company of silence we find

orbs of thoughts in the usual grind of days

like the fowls of the air having simple cares.

Season after season. Day after day. Aged

but content to the simple things that matter.

 

The small country talks over the weather

and life in the farm begins with asking folks

how the young are doing these days at school.

The familiar warmth of seeing old friends at a gathering.

The joy of witnessing someone else’s milestones.

 

The farewells and well wishes when someone

is leaving our own little places to discover

the bigness of things. There goes a little prayer

and a hope that nothing is wrong when one decides

to stay and carry on doing their tasks each day.

 

We might spend our whole life thinking it’s good after all, 

though it has never been easy and there are rough times.

 

But it will never stop us believing that peace within

is the only dwelling place, our enduring shelter

when the day comes that we will never be able

to witness the sun and it has forgotten to rise.

 

In the darkness, we hope our soul in its own little spaces

can see the moon and stars light up the evening sky.

While the wind whispers- all is well, we’ll be calm as the sea.

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His Past Smells

His past smells of a ditch

drying up its putrid stink

as stale as the street air.

It belongs to a smoggy neighborhood.

In the memory of tattered rags

flapping like flags on the clothesline.

As if dreams can be scavenged

out of the hilly mounds

of garbage, dumping its gifts

of someone else’s trash turning

into someone else’s fortune.

 

No one cared about armpits

getting wet and sour for hours,

as long as the bad odors

can promise him little money

to buy fish sauce for rice.

Sniffing heaven on earth-

little angel never complaining

about life, about the linger-

of those occasional whiffs

from the broken sewer.

Nor the rising sting of steam

emanating from his broken skin

pierced by the cruel sun.

 

Nor inhaling the dry cough of cars

and buses farted poison.

The way he exhaled yesterday

walking on a pavement slow,

feeling the throbbing locomotion

churn on his empty stomach.

A street urchin squeezing the crowd

like a fly hopping on a hope

above the grease and grime

that smeared a childhood.

 

He won’t cover the past

with today’s perfume

nor sanitize its images

in suds of detergent.

He’s not ashamed

of the scent of his past-

the smell of poverty

that swarmed his innocence

and have walked

the muddy line across

the nook and cranny

of his every bones.

He survived them all.

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Renegade Days

We were among those hundred innocent feet

wheeling through the clouds of dusts.  So close

that someone shouted to stop the angry phalanx

from advancing the gates. We were young bloods then.

Brave as a collective force ululating vignettes

about homeless families, starving peasants,

weak indigents, landless tribes,

friends of disappeared and the exiled.

 

We stand like a hundred innocent moths

circling fearlessly around the flame. Ready

to extinguish our fates  for one day of glory.

The cups ready to be filled with the bitter

after-taste of seeking the truth on the matter

of state.  Of politics. Of international affairs.

We stomp them shamelessly beneath our sandals.

We ripped them off from our tattered jeans.

We print them on the plainness of black shirts.

That justice of the land is not blind and should prevail.

 

We debated doctrines. We fight about logic.

We push our pens. We clasp our fists.

We join the caravan. We live our days

marching  vigorous  in the streets chanting

the aged texts  on mass struggles by the red book.

Burning  effigies.  Donning the placards.

We abhor dictatorship. We hated imperialism.

Like waterbombs spouting heavily against our faces.

Like the many teargases  hurled against our defences.

 

We bled when the police beat us out of the line.

Isolated  when we are thrown into prison cells.

Humiliated when subjected into torture chambers.

Discriminated when hunted down in the mountains.

We rise and made each part of our bodies as weapons.

Our  mouths  without strained voices.

Our  eyes  without biases.

Our  ears without prejudice.

Our fists without cowardice.

Our hearts without fear.

 

This is our revolution against the world order.

And the phoenix will rise again and again

among the many moths that have died.

Resurrected and will never be silenced.

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By The Trail

Forever seems a word unspoken

upon seeing the herd of caribou

silently crossing an ancient pathway

under the pearly moon.

 

The soft glistening flutter of misty light

on the river finding its way to the sea.

Reflecting the stars painted on the sky

like little eyes- all knowing

since the beginning of time.

 

It made me cry.

 

Something within me springs

divine and humbly I begin

to wonder-

 

My smallness

in the scheme of things

pre-occupied with thoughts

of needing only to survive.

 

Creatures of this earth on the move

tracking down the maps of our lives.

Encircling this cycle waiting

for the sun to rise in the morning.

 

Travelling through journeys

winding as these trails

like the herd of caribou

silently passing by the route

 

with one life to live.

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Nightfall

Please

don’t make promises

you wouldn’t keep.

As I am trying to feel

 

the traces of the past

deep in the crevices

of my wounded heart.

You never know how

 

words linger

in the precipice of hope

I am searching

the many mornings

 

rising to find, and wait

for the sunlight dying

down by the door.

Hoping still.

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Moonquake

Your alabaster beauty

fills these empty halls.

I am watching you.

As my hand memorizes

each curves and contours

of your sculptured life.

I chiseled. I breathed

a ghost of someone

who will never  be able-

to reciprocate nor return

the passion unfolding

in cold stone, white-

washed in lunar glory.

 

Hush now, Venus, hush

in your half-baked shell.

Please  lay by the fire light.

Under the moon’s silhouette

and the night full of stars,

feel my night’s embrace.

Letting your nakedness

guiding the master’s touch.

The ocean tides mounting

under my skin, surging.

Setting ablaze a part

of me. Hidden, unrequited-

this undying desire.

Rise now, Venus, rise.

I want you.

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Sundown Over Umm Ghuwailina

Half of the world rising up

on the east welcoming sun,

watching the day unfolds.

Hoping for grace, a fresh start.

 

While, there is a nacreous pearl,

a shell of the western sky peering.

Through the ridges and ridges

of sand-covered castles in the city.

 

Orange gloom in the showers

of the sandstorm. Like an hourglass,

little diamonds in the seave.

Time slips down in a quicksand.

 

Then soon, the veil of the night,

sequined by stars melted wax

over Umm Ghuwailina.  Arabia

bends its knees reciting prayers.

 

The mind wanders away counting days

and counting nights, a farewell

meeting halfway at mid-air-

homecoming touch down years.

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