The Confession

If you came here

to read my poems to rhyme,

you’ll be disappointed.

 

I do not offer a life

nor its manicured rhyme

but a disjointed rhythms

of words. Of thoughts

messed around misaligned

tensions of surviving

to live and exist.

 

I am not ashamed- to speak

the painful answers to questions

yet some are eager to clarify

the vagueness of the person-

and his art of illusion.  I do not

 

offer a solution to a malady

but I am willing to bare

the broken bones.

There is no guilt

 

for a man who stand

for what he is

and would offer no

facelift to his present

circumstance.

 

If you came here

to read my poems to rhyme,

you’ll be disappointed.

I will not offer a story

fit for a fairytale.

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For The Ones We Left Behind

Think about the pen and the fingerprints

romancing in the glistening dust against the sunlight.

The faded photographs with watermarks

of remembrances salvaged from the past.

Brittle to touch and slowly turning to ashes.

 

Think about the bookmarks of dried rose petals

and the faint smell imprinted to the pages,

rescued from the years of forgetting the ones

that mattered most. And the dreams that never

meant to be owned like the earth where I stand.

 

If the promise of coming back becomes a distant memory-

counting each sunrises and every new moons. Let hope

travel its feet while I sit beside by the window waiting.

For innocence will turn my graying hairs to white

and youth will leave me like the wilted leaves of autumn.

 

The season changes and they say time heals every wound.

But the scars of our love-thorned lives remains relived

in our book of days. I wish the summer winds will carry

the ashes until forgetting. I wish sleep will banish the things

which I failed to tell you when you left me. I moved on.

 

I have written letters with the pen until it dried out of ink

I have recorded our memories for fear that it will be lost too.

And my waning mind gave birth to words I have bookmarked

with fresh flowers that blooms from the same earth I will lay

with my dreams. I am not afraid anymore of the longest night

 

until tomorrow.

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Shop Girl

The dress fit well

and the gods must have been happy

to mold a gypsum to form,

speechless and never tires of standing up

to impress. Look here, the mannequin is alive.

All would envy, their eyes on the centerpiece,

dreaming of petite silhouette. Her face caked

in make-up and lashes thick with mascara.

And lips enticing like vagina. Perfect attraction

who would not dish out bills from the pocket

envisioning…

 

beauty.

 

She must have been stoned

from entertaining the feet-seeking

fortune swept the marbled floor

day in  and day out of vanity.

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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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Vacuum

This man’s bohemian

and the weird symphonies-

the whining of fan blades;

the sharp screams of children

vibrating on the window pane;

and the crackling sound of

my bones tired of standing up,

shuffling back and forth

turning to see the bed

tempting me to lay down,

get lazy and do nothing.

 

And the sight of garbage can

nudging me about the litter

which keeps on piling up

and the sink flowing over

of soiled dishes. The hour

and the minute hand,

my body clock’s monotony

winding around the disc.

I wait and wait

when the light changes

from blue to augur yellow.

My head’s been heavy

and sleep won’t come.

 

It feels strange. Someone

speaks in a muffled voice

and you float being chased

around in dreams. Awake,

its bitter after-taste linger,

through the drab grey day.

The eerie whisper of shadows

on the white-washed wall

bouncing like myriad echoes

slower than the speed of sound.

And I can see vague visions-

on this mind’s glass screen

etching tattoos bleeds

the insomniac in me.

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Laundry For The Firstborn

My child, grow as you would hope to be.

 

I am here, washing the dirty linen

and the soiled clothes thinking of you.

Who can tell? That the world in the future,

its circumstances be better. But I pray

that you may have the strength to face

each day with courage and dignity-

of choosing what is true and honest.

Defending what is right over wrong,

uncompromising to the virtues that I

am going to teach you. Please listen.

 

I am not the best and I am not perfect.

 

And I dream for you my child, a life anew.

Realizing the chance to fulfill the purposes

destined for you. Keeping steer of the pitfalls

I have done. Make a difference of your own.

Striving the very best that you can.

Standing up for what you believe in.

Though you may fall, there will always be

a chance to pick yourself up, to stand again.

 

Never quit. Never fear. God be with you.

 

And I hope you learn from my mistakes.

The misjudgment I did when I was

once a child like you. Growing up too.

Through my adulthood, deciding to love

another being and brought you along

amidst the pain, the hurt and the turmoil.

May it be- your life like these soap suds

clearing away the dirty traces of my past,

vanishing all the fears that I had before.

 

Starting the days wearing clean clothes.

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Grandfather’s Clock

The clock strikes the twelfth hour.

As the familiar sound of wind chimes signals

another year of moving on,  slow and steady.

Remembering the images of the man

within the constant, shifting revolutions

of sunrise and sundown in this woman’s life.

 

Witnessing how lifelong travels have ended,

forging across countless dinnertime of growing old.

Around the fireplace, rekindling romance.

Recalling the stories of the fishermen,

of sailors down the Mediterranean.

Of cowboys in the Wild West

and the wildlife in Africa.

Of the mystical journeys

from the sands of Arabia

to the sands of Samarkand.

 

Those intimate exchanges of lofty dreams

and grand ambitions traveling marvelous

distances of north going down south.

The eastern spring and the wintry west.

Witnessing how she listened. And almost

forgot the difference, whether it is

the story of this man’s life in the stories.

Or simple make-believe.

 

Witnessing how she wobbled achingly

at her feet standing up and lighting a candle,

whispering a prayer. Memories became

mighty flexing arms reaching out for the years.

Discovering the man who makes her laugh

and who makes her cry the silent tears.

Witnessing a love that will never grow old.

Those quiet devotion as ageless and tireless,

pacing along with the hands of time.

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