journey through

Yes I will I shall start a fire, yes I will. I shall start a fire so huge that rabbits and squirrels will run out their burrows. I will scorch the established grass and pluck down the ripening fruits of hatred.   I shall start a fire so huge that its crackle shall be heard from miles away, and its heat shall singe the hair on the brows of imperialists my fire shall be so huge that even their thunderous rains cannot put it out. I shall stoke it, I shall add logs of wood. It shall burn through the thick ice of racism and injustice. I shall seek the grasshoppers, the snakes and the flies, and drop them deep in the heart of red, yellow and purple. I shall weed out the Bidens and the marigold and watch while their smoke rises up in the skies. I shall choose not between the old fruits and the young. I shall burn them all. I shall pluck out the foundations lain by the fathers, foundations of pungent decay and falsehood and hurl them into the inferno. I shan’t stop till the crawling...

Slavery isn’t what happened when they took away our ancestors and sold them off to the plantations of shame. It is what they let themselves be when they were dragged away from their homes, the way they refused to live and chose to die. The end, they knew would come someday, sooner or later. Some decided to choose the easier path, to live longer and they were buried in the cheap cemeteries, right where stray mutts were dumped, forlorn, rejected and forgotten. Some chose to go down, but not without a fight. They chose not to fear the hail of bullets or the acidic saliva from those who wielded the whip. Their names till today are written in bright colors, for though they never saw the next day, they lit a torch that guided their children all the way to the future. The blood they shed irrigated the parched earth and from there rose new seeds of freedom and liberty. Time comes when one has to take a new approach to everything. Why use old methods to solve new problems? Pain has made yo...

Open scars in the place of open arms, thou art suffocating me. Let go of the rope and reduce the weight of the guillotine. I would blame you for everything but who should we kid? I am the one who let go first, and found you drowning when I came back to save you. I was the first to throw the stone and the harsh words. I would say I am broken but you are shattered. I would say I am bruised but you sure are disintegrating. I am a prisoner, but who is my jailer, guilt or jealousy? If I had said yes when I should, would we have drifted away like an unanchored raft in open waters? If only you had told me that all I had to do was ask, then maybe I wouldn’t have waited till my feelings were stale. I would have held on longer, if you never called me your friend. I would have been there every day if you never said I was like a big brother to you. I am trying to write you this but my lonely tears just don’t seem to understand. I would have fought for you, but I, your friend would have been l...

You dreamer Dreamer, what are you doing in bed yet the sun is already up in the sky? Are you still having your dreams, of conquering the world and owning the heavens? Are you still rolling in your fantasies of owning all the fields and ruling over the birds in the air? Wake up and look at yourself. Yawn, you with the mouth like a new wound and a tongue tender like the young loins of a diseased calf. Look at your arms, thinner than the oars of a fatigued fishing dhow. Tell me, dreamer, you with a faith thinner than unleavened bread, how do you expect to carry the world when you can’t even bear your own weight? You are like that cat that runs away from large mice, which will always be mocked by squirrels. Why don’t you teeth first before you crave meat? Why don’t you learn first before you teach? You cannot win me over, dreamer, for who runs alongside a man being chased by angry bees and goes home without a sting? You are quicksand, a disaster waiting to happen. You are like wee...

Poetry of the last The torches, the big sticks with round heads shall come, And darkness before their glare shall part, Oh how loud their whispers will be, How dark their humour shall sound, The owners of the truth, The tiny bride I eloped with, She that many loved but just as a friend, Never once willing enough to betroth her Where hast thou been? You are later than I expected, Why the chains and the clubs, Oh, I forgot, I am an outlaw, The one who married against the family, And fought the values they held so dear, Kindred corruption, magnified greed and insatiable appetite for public land, But where, to hide should I? When they knock down the front door to make claim? The world is too big for me, And the corners too sharp for solace, Where to run should I?                               ...