The Nation of Poets

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Mamma Africa

Mamma Africa each time the sun hits on my toes, that is when my spirit swings around the scent of your sweet mangoes

Mamma Africa when my forage turned gray headed and tribes pledged to behead, the articulation of my feelings felt like a tambourine shake in underground ears

Every part of me felt undressed as my heritage became a monumental piece ones guarded

Mamma Africa I remember how the wind swayed with my hair revealing my bead bones underneath

I envisioned today the turquoise stones layered beside the sea and far beyond

I saw the paintings of the tropical rain forest draining down in to the dust and then into the river

I visualized the tears of the young ones were raindrops that felt upon them and would soon be dreaded

Where is the time when we stood up and proudly presented the line of our descent

Why do we find ourselves in a crumbling oasis and our voice undetected

Mamma Africa where are the lions that roared though our ears and drew the line of our pride territory

Where are the pantheras,the survivors of our kingdom?

Ohh Africa where we the ones that evolved the world?

Was it not our senses that formed waves?

Our thoughts that captured the future

Mamma Africa you have been thrown

Your territory missgrown

Mamma Africa there you stand

Penned down in bottomland

Mamma Africa the Nile river still upholds it strength

The thirsty lips of the Sahara Dessert still upholds it prisoners

Mamma Africa Mount Kilimanjaro stands proudly on it highest peak and declares our diversity

The Pharaohs still uphold it title, the historians of our nations

Mamma Africa, the horn of Africa stands proudly on its heels and will someday stand on the frontline for the world to see us shine

Sareda Hussein

The Wrong Tribe

My mother only nursed me twice

and after that, it was a goodbye

on her way to muqdisho shop

few men with weapons asked her to stop

they wanted to know which tribe she was from

when she told them, they said you can go now

the men looked at each other with an evil smile

and my poor mom, felt helpless and cried

she said dont kill me, I got a new born child.

but they said, sorry but your tribe must die

they killed her by shotting her on the chest 3times

I lost my mother, because she was from the "wrong" tribe.

Najax Cabdulahi Sarsarey

Dear father

I don’t know how to seek you out from inside me

the child that I am lost you

to foreign blood

where pulsating veins

and assembled parts

ignite beneath nomadic skin

genetics is where we really bonded

I never felt you close enough to touch

or embraced your scent for memories

of innocence you once neglected

I never once could salvage your existence

From deep-rooted scars

Filled with the absence of you

Or call you forth

With my incessant invocations

that often left me broken

and vacant

In all the years I have known life

I never really knew who I am

Or who you are

And still I search

through the aching love

of men who come from no fathers

Suad Halane

My Orphans

I want to hold them

Console them

Protect them

Free them

But who's them?

Them represents the orphans of the world

The forgotten innocent souls

The collateral damage to each war

The invisible human beings

The lost youth

The supposed leaders and innovators of tomorrow

But I only hope they make it to sunset

I want to hold them

Cherish them

Revive them

These are victims of the harsh weather and engulfing waters

Diseases and selfish leaders

Arrogance of every organisation and corruptions

But all I want to do is

Hold them

Hold every dying orphan

Boy or Girl

From Bosnia to Somalia

In my bended scarred arms

I want to wrap them

In the warmth of my treacherous arms

And make the sun jealous

I want to hold them tight

So I can drown them in my tears

And smother them with my love

To a sweet, painless death

I want my ignorant bloody lips to kiss their shallow cheeks

Something like a dark tunnel

Marked by streaks of salty residue

To make my pressure rise

And wake my sleeping heart

I want to give away every drop of blood from my free body

To save a hopeless life

To make a baby's heart pump and hear its holy cry

I would give away my big brown eyes

To an elderly blind man

So he can see

The corruption and deadly casualties

But I only pray

For them, the orphans of the world

To live another day.

Mabsud A

Better Days

Take me back to yesterday

When man would mean what he

would say

Back to when the country was

green and lush

And everyone wasn't in such a

rush

Back to when man didn't live in

fear

And we hadn't destroyed the

atmosphere

Today the car is an expensive

way to travel

Back then all you needed was a

horse and saddle

To a time if you did wrong

You were right if you were

strong

Where you didn't need pills to

help you sleep

Back then they really did count

sheep

When only grown-ups went to a pub and

drank whiskey and beer

And no one said sorry you

cannot smoke in here

And if you got into too much trouble

and couldn't get home

Your trusty horse knew where to

roam

And if you didn't know what to

cook

You could go outside and kill a

chook

And the kids treat was bread and

honey

Today, all they want is more

money

Where the kids could go outside

and climb a tree

The only injury was a scum knee

Where fashion wasn't every girls

only passion

Or you had to match you dress

and shoes

Back then you didn't have to

choose

You only needed the dress you

was wearing at the time

The other one was hanging on

the line

And the women would knit and

sew

Faster as the family grew

Where all your details wasn't on

a computer screen

From what you have done, to

where you have been

And there wasn;t the Internet to

have a look

All your knowledge came from a

book

You didn't have that darn credit

card, or carry id

You only had to declare, "Yes this

is me"

There was no need for a mobile

phone

You would tell her everything

when you got home

You didn't boast about your one

night stand

You stood up and was a man

Because if you got a woman into

strife

Back then you knew you had

found a wife

And they didn't get themselves

sun burnt

That's something we still haven't

learnt

They had the sense to find the

shade

Usually under the veranda's they

had made

When you could write on paper

how you heart really felt

That's when man's feelings were

above his belt

Sure we have found a cure for

many diseases

But back then we had faith in

God's blessings

Man has come a long way

But please take me back to yesterday..

Nomad WithDeen

Dear Home

Home....

Dear country,

Dear Somalia,

the mother of the family I see and feel you

I see the tears on your cheeks as you look at your starving children

I see the scorched earth of you surface

I see your bared bones barely holding its body together yet caring for its people

I hear your sopping in the middle of night

because you have barely eaten yet have to provide for our people.

Though seasons of rains failed you home dear sweet home there is a sign of hope

There is a sign of life

In me and in all those of us who left you many years ago

I saw it in the eyes of the three five and six year old girls at Brian Coyle* holding the sign that read “Car wash to help Somali famine victims”

the eight nine and ten year old boys washing stranger's car under the scorching sun for a Somalia they never been to or seen

the elders walking miles knocking door to door to collect donations will never forget you

Somalia my heart my homeland and my hooyo we will never forget you

I see the pain I see the heart breaking hunger and I feel your hurting

but.....

Home dear sweet home we will never forget you

Your prosperity was mine your poorness and problems are ours

Tho’ I departed

Though I left you for far away lands

though I am not physically walking on your soil

Though we are not crying on you for all this burden we caused on you

Though many of us are not home with you dear home

We will never forget you.

We are home our heart is with you

Our Thoughts and prayers are on you every time we pray duhr assar maqrib isha and subh and will never forget you

It is you where we pray for it is you where we desperately miss

It is only you home where we are trying to go back

go back to start a new beginning

Where we take responsibility of our actions.

Where we care and look after one another regardless of any qabiil

Regardless of anything that would divide us

dear home we will unite for the sake of you

for the sake of our country and for the sake of our people

For the time being dear home we are with you and

will never forget you..

*Brian Coyle Community center at Cedar Riverside neighborhood, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Abdillahi Kahin

Impetuous Voyage

Life. Taken on an impetuous voyage.

Outward, homeward until you reach the stage

It feels uphill all the way

Frankly at times I bless the day

Troubles pushed to the side

All of a sudden you see it with a different light

Foxy were her eyes while telling lies

“Woe is me! I was taken by surprise.”

Pity, the city lights shining so bright

If you only did not lose your height

Lost to view like a few

Look at him, youth is overdue

Tick-tock let him stick to rock

Time in his prime left him in shock.

Life. Taken on an impetuous voyage.

Born in Brooklyn parents didn’t turn the page

Compiled a collection, a different lifestyle

“I didn’t lose my way, waiting for a while.”

Ashtray counting the breathless times

Bottles begin to sway, hitting rock-bottom she whines

I heard them say “This was not meant to be

My eyes were wide open but unable to see.”

Working out a strategy for remedy

While holding on to life dwelling in felony

Listen my dear there must be a way

You didn’t want me to witness neither to stay

What do you want me to do

All I can do is to be there for you.

Life. Taken on an impetuous voyage.

Take me further east, Gaza held in cage

Allied forces suppress a smile, solidarity is all the rage

Hurting. It is not due to minimum wage

What would we do if we were born in prison

We argue, you agree that you have no reason

Humanity is only human when it benefits

Their soul attached to their goal when it always hits

The poor and weak, day in day out in the middle of the week

At Friday prayers, a little freedom is all they seek

Why is he bleeding, all he wanted is to feed

His family. Terrorism invented by your greed

Outward, homeward until you reach the stage

Life. Taken on an impetuous voyage.

Pen 'N' Paper

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Imagery Suicide

Whole!

I am whole!

I was whole before this hole exposed

The missing extension that you once bought to my soul

I have not leaked,

I have not lost or broken pieces of me

It’s the remains of the outside conservatory,

The cracks in the foundations surrounding me,

The shattered remains of what I had of you

That repeatedly stabs the outside of me!

And you must be cleared!

How your thickness in the air chokes me!

Oh!

How naive of me to assume that fire would be your best demise…

When out of these ashes and smoke it is your ghost lasting

Even in your death I am despised!

But you must be cleared!

So upon my knees I scrub you clean

Fingers bloody raw!

My red streams revive you still

And betray the wounds they flee from

Our last dance…

One last dance!

another battle won!

How inane of me to track the score

When you’ve already won the war!

So with this blackened cloth I smother you still!

You must be cleared!

The final picture…

A pretty picture!

Lilies lining the lines of you

Blankets of neat rolls of green

Burying you some feet deep…

What a picture!

Me whole! You gone!

That’s the image I needed to be

Now that you’re cleared!

And I’ll ignore the presence of your absence!

And whitewash the shadows of your walls

And pull a smile and muster up laughter

Until I am extended enough to

Clear me too!

By Eva

Patience

my friend

why are you sitting at the fence

patience, at an end ?

she was your virtue, personified

her quintessence of beauty

hope creaked at the joints that night

once learnt, never forgotten her duty

his quintessence of terror

wounded vanity

feeling inferior

driven to the point of insanity

signs of bitterness in his expression

she feels lost in her own, unable to read his mind

be lost in self-reflection

got lost to the utmost, unable to find

patience

to my own regrets

I am at her wit’s end

slander the usual suspect

she is, the last, vulnerable

get hold of. . . and bear in. . .

don’t weigh upon her. . .

a beautiful mind, grieving

when the sky is overcast, lying low and lower

by a stroke of fate you embraced grave doubts

lavish care and attention on your anger

pointing finger, blaming society for an emotional drought

demanding change vigorously from the people next door

you talk big, admit you gaped in astonishment

you fell passionately in love with what you’re living for

you flare up, ‘this nightmare should come to an end’

‘it must have been in nineteen-nighty one’ , all he said

they call you

‘sample with no commercial value’

Patience.

Pen 'N' Paper

Streams of tears flood the african terrain, flowing currents aided by generations of pain, the storms brew within the brain, questions layered by emotions, feelings of turmoil and frustration burning a hole in one’s soul, humanity fuels the fire with lighting oil, hunger grips the masses, over indulges and waste as food sits on shelves until the consume by date passes, illness separates a suckling child from the mother, children passing away from simple curable pathogens, only care is for the spreadsheets and profit margins, an oblivious world unconscious to its humble origins, I question whether we even breathe air or do we inhale deceit, you light a fire to gain warmth but you never sit in the midst of the heat, so why do we value vanity, or better yet why do we swallow the no longer concealed deceit, genocide doesn’t have to be uttered for one to recognise, or is reality on the screen as real at the stars that flaunt before your eyes, a gullible fool is one who wishes to be a victim, this earth has no place for the naive, when you handle the elements water or earth you roll up your sleeve, decipher your surroundings before you proceed to perceive.

For those that have been enjoying the holidays, just bare in mind that for some of the inhabitants of this planet, there is no such thing as a happy new year, they only know another year of overwhelming hardship.

Hamza Egal

My Mother

we all had a Mother, Yes we did

and some still have her, lucky indeed?

she knows her rights, she knows her sit,

a mothers love, oh isn't that sweet?

she taught me fatiha, she told me my deeds

OH how I love to kiss her feet

Looking at her is like a everlasting dream

a mothers love is the most seen,

she loves her children, healthy or Ill

she dont throw you out when you're broke and 18teen.

the smile she shows you, is real and clean

she is a good person, she is never mean.

pray for her, even though she knows her diin

may allah show them all siraad-Mustaqin.

A mother for me is what I described

I would love her, even if i never met her once or twice

you are my mom, in my heart you are inscribed

why dont I tell her this, am I showing pride?

or maybe I just cant look at her and tell her the rhymes

would I cry? or do i think action speaks louder then rhymes?

I know I owe her everything in life

she took care of me when I needed her as my guide

she will never need any body, except allah) I will be by her side.

I need her more now, then I needed her as a child

cause my love for her grows more for every eye sight.

Najax Cabdulahi Sarsarey