The Poetry Marathon

I came here to muse.
A lady in a pink regalia
and ash hat _
colours that wouldn’t hide her
from the eyes of a roaring lion
or herders leads us to where
was Sambisa, with forensic lense.
After so many photographs
we agreed to archive,
she asked if I remember here,
if I remember we once upon a time
lost humanity, if I remember
this bridge wasn’t walkable.
She asked if I remember that a country
almost sink in the belly of this bush.

The dog I was understudying to learn the art
of a calm sea obeying the Messiah’s voice
loses its teeth in a bone fight.
Patience was it that rot the flesh
off the bone into the night of a greedy dog.
I tell you truly, faith is what keeps me watching
the scene of this world changing
into obscene scenes,
not as I remoted but as it was written.
Once, I spat on my palm, spoke in tongue
like a man learning to defraud God
but the spittle didn’t display the world I crave for.
God knows it is not a sin to change
a channel from a violent scene into a school
of children singing nursery rhymes.
I was a leper in Jesus’ parable pleading
to resurrect in this poem.
And here I am loosing my fingers again,
flipping the scriptures for the portrait
of the Nirvana the prophecy spoke of.

Gift of Motherhood and Songs

I think I was going to wait so long for paradise,
to hold my mother like me at childhood would,
to my doll. But you came as an angel, not fallen.
It was as if mother resurrected into your body,
to teach me how to stay afloat on this sea,
if the ship capsizes by the hands of angry ice,
jealous waves and dark forces beyond us.
God gave me you; he knew there are many
who would push me into the jaws of grief.
The sea seeks to grip a fish to its heart:
how do I tell God I do not want to be robed
of warmth? My childhood lost his mother
and its scars are there still, on my body,
for certain wounds do not disappear quickly;
they fall in love with our flesh, again and again,
and make love to it in the dark, like the grief
hunting you. But there’s another gift: songs
to be sung aloud in seasons of sorrow.

Permission Denied

‘It’s better I just die,’ Brigitte Poirson

Because I do not see a trace of you
in your utterances, mother, I forgive you.
Perhaps, your demon has found a way
to mimic your voice, to agonize us –
a way of holding our bodies hostage,
as if we are thieves, as if we are slaves.
I won’t carry your words to the world
if that’s what your grief wants from me;
I won’t sow panic on your lovers’ mind.
A dirge is not to be replayed after a rebirth:
you’re not free to utter any word about exit.
There’s enough dreadful words in your heart,
leave us to battle death for you and live
in the cubicle of quietude, singing songs
of hope, of healing, and of resurrection.

Before Dawn

Your worries, a mansion too high
for me to glide over without wings.
I would have stolen you and slay
whatever stays our way to wedge us
for loneliness to stitch its venom
into us again. How can you be
alone in these walls where fears
come in the regalia of night and
nightmares are too impatient to
wait for darkness to swallow light.
A feather of a holy bird won’t do
the magic; at least, there’s a sign
of light in the outskirts of a cave,
a home for the bruised, longing
for the promised light, like crystals.
I do not fear if these walls have ears
like the one in the tales grandpa
told me. Poke your ears into the flesh
of these walls, and hear the deluge
of songs like the rain in Noah’s day.
Echo it aloud; you must return into
your body before the next dawn.

Wishes from a Distant Son

Mother, grief has stolen your angels –
cherubs and seraphs meant to sing
your strength and victories aloud.
See why you are innocent of your
identity. I cannot say you’re brittle
for grief to grind into dust, too light
to air into an atmosphere where
demons with protruding teeth call
your name, like a demanding child,
shameless and soulless to have pity
upon his mother, a way of lending
to the Lord. Aloud: woe to your grief.
Cursed be the distance sundering us.
I mean to say I want solitude to mean
a name of your neighbour, looking
after you in my absence till we live
in a chamber of joyful songs, sung
to a bird in full flight in darkness.
Mother, I want to see you singing aloud.

Light for you and for the World

Because it is probably very dark out right now
for you, as it’s been for the world in the hands
of a callous virus, I’ve chosen to walk the lonely
path with you. Songs for you, mother. And for
the world too, to lighten our walkways to a place,
where the palms of God are a haven of songs.
Picture the seraphs singing beautiful songs
of hope. Hum them, songs. And sing them aloud.
I opted to be a poetry marathoner rather than a mourner,
composing songs for you to carry in your mouth –
full blown flowered roses for you, mother.
Light for the world, for me, for us, too afraid
to sleep at night: a monster lurks behind our doors.
I am awake, running poetic marathon for a day,
no sleep to gift you songs in the form of poems,
to lighten your grief or burn them into flakes.

A Burden too Heavy for a Human is Grief

The only way to nail your demon to Golgotha
without resurrecting is to have a friend close,
to bear your burden with you. No complaints.
No fears. I felt grief is too heavy for you alone.
And I sacrificed my body for you; whichever way,
I’m with you because what we fight is no human.
No bodies. No spirit. Just a haunting look
in the dark. This way, I understand what it means
to be a fragment of something bigger than the world.
Do not say I’m too young to be here in spirit.
There’s a way spirits hold themselves together.
Hold hands with me. Close your eyes and hum a song.
Or Rest on me. Listen to what the angels are singing,
a song which you’ve never heard before.
‘Don’t you know how precious you are to us?
Stay alive with us. There are so many years unfought. ‘

Perhaps Father Should Have Taught me Songs Heal

Grief and solitude are brothers of destruction –
my dictionary says they can be used interchangeably.
My father was teaching me to be a hard man,
how not to smile. He believed smiles make one too soft,
like a wet earth for sorrows to creep in, burrowing holes
for more woes to find ranches. In one of his lessons,
he said I needed to learn to bottle grief in my body,
that men don’t cry. This means killing the water bags in my eyes.
But the day the news of mother’s journey beyond
reached him, he broke into constellations of dirges.
He screamed as if mother once lived in his voice,
and singing aloud would resurrect her. I realized there,
he was seeking healing though in the arms of requiem.

A Nostalgic Walk Down Memory Lane

It doesn’t take a long time
for new things to age.
Some songs are like that.
But I’m not the kind that
discards songs, because
I do not believe in the death
of what gives life at a point,
even at the birth of new ones.
As a boy, I loved to be sent
on errands at night, because
I’d be permitted to go along
with compound cassette tape,
giving light to torch my way
through darkness and lonely paths.
But I wouldn’t put on the light
to save enough battery
to jam my grief with old reggaes.
I’d jump and jump and jump
so much that sometimes,
I don’t feel like going back home.