What Is Deeper Than the Hole in My Heart?
Death walked into the euphoria of our home / gripped you with its sturdy hands & dragged you / to the shore / of transition / Father, the day you died / that night / rain hammered our rooftop / then, darkness came & spread its hazy countenance / I gazed at the tar sky / even the wind understood my anguish / tell me / what is deeper than the hole in my heart: this hole deeper than the abyss / My heart shatters / each time I remember you / wrapped in white / & the ground receiving your cold body with warm arms / Father / I stood there perplexed / like a child lost in the middle of a forest / wondering, now, what direction to take. You left me at a tender age / in this life / filled with cruel minds / my body, an egg / too fragile to receive grief / because grief is a hammer that shatters the world & spill its yolk to the ground / grief is an ice / too cold for my heart to take / My heart, a relic of bitter sweet memories / I can recall what you said to me / a toddler grows into strength by falling / and rising / when I’m gone / don’t succumb to the embrace of grief / peel it off like one peels a banana / “where are you going to, father?” I asked / a smiled curved on your lips / “to America” / I never knew you were trying to tell me / that death was already banging on your door.
JUNE 24TH, was the day death snatched you from me / then, the memory of your words flooded into my mind like a river.
Vain
a boy stole a piece of snack from a shop / one blazing hot afternoon, in a place where many eyes / see and pretend / the boy / forgot that the street is teethed with mobs / waiting to devour / a prey with fists / they pounced on him like a pack of jackals / clawed his body; battered his bones; bathed his body with petrol as a rite to fire / they did not take his tongue, they took what was left of life from language / his mouth opening into hollow words / what is hunger if not a living betrayal? / the boy / a lonely son of a malignant street / his body set ablaze / the fire lull him fiercely to sleep.
you’re one of the mobs / you speak the brutal language of murder / on your way home / death finds you in the body of a truck / & smeared your blood on the road / see, isn’t life an equilibrium justice? Vain in pursuit-every man running towards his own end.
The Land Is a Synonym for Grief
& The land’s heart is a garden of lost beauty / its walls are tattooed with scars / it used to be a gallery of beauteous memories. The land / a gun with malignant bullets / that fires turbulence / in the face of air.
The land sprinkles grief on many / like plants drowning in water. The belly of the land is engulfed with ruthless predators that annihilate dreams. Isn’t the land a saboteur?
When there’s mayhem in the land / it becomes a bloodbath / peace becomes scarce in the air / every night / I look through the window / to see how many stars are left in the sky / in life / every person has a star / it’s very hard to hide my tears / my eyes / red like blood / the land’s bane stifles our lungs / the wind carries the wailing of innocent souls. In the land / the blood of the innocent wet the ground / where everyone pace with fear / loss eats the ecstasy of many homes / somewhere, a wife is waiting for a miracle / to bring back her husband / whose body already housed worms.
I always say a prayer / that the wounded hearts in the land / heal like a bird leaping out of an injury / but / will praying their hearts heal / obliterate the chronicles of death in the land? The land / a garden of trauma / a kitchen for cooking burning dreams / a synonym for grief.
