On the News.
Art by Fons Heijnsbroek on Unsplash.
You knew something was wrong
when your father appeared on the news
with one leg and a half, a doctor
standing by his bed, the governor
by the other side, officials
trailing in this order like a funeral
procession. When did your father
become so important
that they needed cameras to decorate
his pain? Why did he decide to sell
the other half of his left leg? You saw
a rope with a pin entering his hand, a pint
of blood hanging at the other end, tied
to the bed frame. You saw his face.
Something was wrong with it. His eyes
were closed. If he was this important,
wasn’t he the one supposed to be doing
the talking? But the governor held the mic
and called it a cowardly ambush —
a bandit attack on innocent railway
workers. He said the brave police
had controlled the situation
and restored peace to the area.
Your mother’s eyes were decorated
with tears. You stood still, shaking
like a cock beaten by rain. It was just
past seven. Soon, your mother would
come home and tell you
your father had to extend his stay
at work. But now that you have seen
the truth — you blamed your father
for being brave,
for fighting back,
for not coming home
with both legs.
Art from The New York Public Library on Unsplash.
I Deserve a Soft Life.
My notes app asks me to compose
my beautiful poetry & press play button
to listen to it. What is sweet to the eardrums
in the sound of thunder? Who longs
to hear the voice of oxygen moving?
Which organ of my body holds beauty
in bewilderment? My body, liquid
as the hands of the sky, c r umb le s.
My flesh is harder than the face of my palms,
yet my skin is tender. The song
of my sorrow is a rugged sound. How will
these soft eardrums hold ruggedness and not
b-r-e-a-k? I don’t believe in this life.
This life is an uppercase of gloom.
One can receive life in the morning
& emit it in the evening —
why i refuse to mention God in this poem.
If he had made me whole, I would be dangerous
to death. If he had rubbed blemish
off my body, I would be whole like breeze.
But the app trembles at the mention
of death. The app yells when
I type gloom. It freezes when I place
my stained fingers on its face. Sometimes,
I wish to feel the softness an app
feels. I wish to stay in a place
where sorrow cannot touch me; where tears
can reach my face but not
my spirit. I wish God would place me
above and put sorrow under my feet.
sorrow.
Art from The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash.
Kemanji.
It is night in Kemanji, everyone
is dead
except the bandits
who killed them. I walk
through
the street
and the houses are gone, only
bodies
remain.
The innocent man’s head
has wandered
off. His wife
was slaughtered too. Their four
children
answered the gun’s
call and hurried
out of the world.
I will not lie,
the air here
is foul. The voices of the dead
fill the wind,
mourning
each other. Kemanji bleeds
and no one dresses
its wounds.
