As untamed fire ignites
a world separated by
pronouns,
broken world brakin'n
streets crack'd foot crak'd in
mak'n a dwellin' there…

This poem is dedicated to all Ethiopians who lost loved ones during the ‘red terror’ revolutionary days of the Derg regime. Ambassador Teferra Shiawl-Kidanekal, in his book ‘The New Dawn’ depicts that era in vivid language; and he reflects on how ‘the December 1974 incident shocked the whole world and Ethiopians were helplessly subdued as radicals [as] the Derg fully asserted their authority through the barrel of the gun.’ It was a time in history, sadly not extensively documented, in which thousands perished, leaving a hole in the hearts of many families who could never heal them back to whole.

Cries are not gender-biased; all beings experience sorrow and grief. Nevertheless, this piece speaks to the muted sounds of grief faced by women in all corners of the world; the thundered cries, however mighty, are stifled by the vilest of all. As a black woman there is an absence that is felt, it has always been there, an absence that speaks to black mothers, the divine woman that gets shattered – fragmented and scattered – by darkness and the in-conscience. If only we see the light beyond what veils us and catch a glimpse of love in its essence.

I have started to keep your letters close to my bedside, even closer than they were before. They are now stuffed in the pillow case, safe enough to ensure that the words will not escape my dream. Lucid dreams of you and I, the closest I have gotten to kissing and holding you.

This poem speaks to and responds to historical, psychological, cultural and social forces that shape the identity and culture of the people of African descent. It pays homage to the black Jazz music legends, who during the back-to-Africa movement and the Harlem Renaissance period fostered a body of music through an identification with Africa, albeit through a construct of Africa and an imagination which fell short and resorted to mimicry of their white counterparts. More often than not, the African identity is objectified to a form of concept that expressed more of African primitiveness. Similarly, this identity tension, at times, echoing some of the body of music that emerged out of that time, plays out in everyday relationships between the black diaspora and Africans – a body of soundless and sound-full subjectivities.

But if only we would deconstruct this discourse through the music of poetry. This piece sings to that deconstruction.

Our hope of changing the world has to transcend conventional methods, writes Amira Ali, if we want to create a world for our children in which they are able to live, to grow and ‘become their best possible selves’. This will not happen, muses Ali, ‘unless, we are transformed, re-developed and renewed’. The alternative is to turn ‘our backs on atrocities and malaise, contributing to the cataclysms of the world and succumb to the spiritual hollowness of our lives.’

Naked tracings worn thin of he
who walked miles in thousands of
shoes filled with sorrow,
shoe marks worn away
where he encamped
and where he alighted
on earth that tells the years passed
since the months of peace
gone, to months of what is now,
shoes that speak of dreams in the
West of when paradise was near;

to meet his lover of a far, he
left during the long nights that
desires to go where
the soul withdraws to its home,
to fly forgotten as a dream,
to cover the past with space
he sails on a small boat
in a sea so immense
that transports
dreams after dreams.

Night putting its shadow aside
for soles of the feet to cross
the river to Zion,
the boat awaits to take its guest
to a place of dreams of love, inside
left all; deserting a conduit and heaps
to travel with 7 oceans and
hundreds of millions of stars
swinging; to walk with a million suns
that light up the day
of whole rivers of light,

to swim, in seas of love waves
that shields pain,
to make blankets of dark sand;
sandcastles that shield,
to receive quiet nights
and mornings
that call songs of birds
that sings for souls of dreams,
and he, infix’t
to be one with dreams he becomes
one with everything around,
laughing only to the sky.

Unbending on dreams
he, dwells amid the stocks
of ruins of stone-walls
heading where the imagination
broke in, his entire sky
taken up by
a journey full of unawareness,
continuing; alighted by the affection
of Zion,
he remains a prisoner of his dream
captive to a world beyond knowing.

In the wide-of-eyes
on an open terrain he journeyed
for the love of Zion,
strung out along the route
chased, shadows of hope closing in
crying to his fears,
speaking with the deaf;
the unexpressed rocks,
befriending sands
that speaks of time.

Time that brings out his eclipse
of a spirit of unsullied lucid dreams
of mysteries of Zion,
in silence to join its silent secret place,
he sifts through the current of air
swamped by rains of a night traveler
flowing dark and under, he
enwrapped in every kind of cloud
passing the night
to join the cleared morning
of pearls of the great sky,
to witness nights of dark and under.

Unbroken, he continued
to brake past bonds
to make new ones
on the eastern slopes
to join with Zion,
and even in far holding on
to not brake the bonds of desire
he, pushed by the north winds
to what is the southern tip
of the north Afrik to that
of the northern terrain
of the Bilad as Sudan,

crossing to trade life for what
seemed not death
beyond flutes
of Sudanese tunes,
escaped eternal rest to bathe
in the Nile
to wash blood with sparks of gold,
black dust of the body
walked a mile in cracked
earth to find the feet reluctantly
stuck in cracks of xylophonic tunes of life.

A spirit of unsullied lucid dreams,
mysteries of Zion he meets,
one moment his life a stone
the next
a meet'ng of the land of his lovers;
to be embraced by ashes, cold winds
and blackened hearts of stones
of Zion,
oh closeness to life, hardness of life
to what is now
that grief’d him through journeys,

to at last, to have met his land of lovers
but to be met with phantoms
that creep around
that sting and bring droplets;
each drop for the lost dreams
of Zion;
deceived dreams that makes the heart
brew trouble and anguish,
the departure of paradise
the loss of a longed lover,

his Zion,
aching his heart of a dream
once promised and now lost,
of a friend she may have been
but even she could not keep
her promise to him,
for a well-meant word
could not be taken by she,
a friend he once called;

his heart weeps with no end
for the one he knows
and only loves,
others of a life to come;
more to come
to meet and to attest and
to have to turn their backs, and he,
the aloneness of the deluded soul
broken'n
fades into the distance
kept in the shadows of Zion.

In the calm water of love-nights
the storm of life sends out cries
carri'd by leaves of death
falling one by one,
as distanc'd nearness cries
disturb the silent candle burning
he, a sultan to spheres of love
arm'd with ecstatic flutes
sang poetry of love in the sky
heard only
by the Goddess moon
he, who opens a thousand gates
of love
subdu'd by unimaginable Venus
takes leave of the world he loves
fleeing from heart'less
horde of fears
of atoms and grasshoppers
that brush fire
in the mid-hours of bloodletting
ascending crimson nights,
he, abjures
to play the game of the world
deafen'd by hearts of passion
instead, his soul crawls out
to sev'n thousand years
of fields of nights
of thousand moonlights
to join in dance
with depart'd stars
to find its morning
love in times of war.

Lion of hearts
turned to
desert's
dust
blown'n
to wilderness
you
soul of sev'n
part'd years

con-se-quen'tial
supa-politico
text of
world-ly
men's heart
burn'st
you

crack'd dreams
suns and stars
scatter'd
into flight
you
left origin
erstwhile

made you
swallow d'tongue
lockt your lips
once
river-lips
made
voice-less

you, now
turn to
phantoms
of false night
to love
your lips
phantasm-iz'd

bury'n
d'lion's heart
that d'scended
from a place
of saints and sages
you
bend'n anew, to
d'cultured will

dom-in-nance
veild d'lamp
that shun'
on darkenss
ef-face'n
you

folly pillag'd
you
unequal halves
deceiv'd you
foolish thrust
of two world's
hollow'd
your hol

abode
in d'destined hour
tower of darkness
morph'd
you
identity
expropriat'd
you

perch'd behind
colors, blows of red
you, buri'd
what bled
hid'n from
d'night and dayz
masquerad'd
dust of soul
you
now
lust on
d'modernize dayz
daze'd

you
lost what is of "I"
dispossess'd
of "I" by him
to become
another him
to be at all
in relation
to whom?
...to him?

lost, not here nor there
you get closer
to what's there
you, now
shamed to speak
ours, mine, your
mother tongue
you
fall over names

you
stride profess'n
prophet-like
enunciat'n
d'Lord's wisdom
you
perfect'd d'accent
venerating
d'colonized tongue.
You, not here nor there
leaves of life keep falling
again, and again, and again, and again...

She is her, like-in-her
poetic rituals
mystical diamond
that speaks
multi-fold'd miracles
on earth,
she
wearing moonstone for slippers
gleams
like meteoric splendor,
affectionate for stars
blossoms early
in seasons of
darkness,

Enough-in-herself
graced with all inside
she
always river-like,
harbors black water
emerging from
hollow mountains
varied terrains
swelling to gush
divine truth
into seas
infinitely vast
in breadth and depth,

She makes, petals of jasmine
fall open
she-as-in-her
roses that leave shadows on ground
bless gardens scented
Afrika, born of night musk
our garden queen
paradise to us
thousands over,
she
open to us, as-in-blossomed flower
silently residing in us,
as-in the secret word
of Divine's love,

She,
firstborn as-in-known-in legends
royally sits
above honored
Kings and Queens,
throne
bent across high heavens
she, a sight of elegance unseen,
birth-er
of many-colored rainbow
gifted butterflies
float on diverse seas,
she
ancestor of seasons
goddess of wealth
brings all around
belonging to all, but yours only.

Gifted bee of the heart
that resides deep
inside
she-is-her
who makes me
feel safe
to be a rose,
she-is-her
who lies abed with me
enraptured in her embrace
she
helps me rise to live
destiny's fiery life-giver
heartbeat of bodily soul to me,

Aye Afrika, yene fikeregna.

(to be continued)

She belongs to
the corner
streets
whose whispers
never reveal
the secrets of
the owner,

streets
guard the shadow
of time
she
maiden-less
leaves her son
to the streets.

A time
so deformed,
words prostitute
themselves,
mothers
prostitute
a child's soul,

Thee Word is
silent
as necessity
bends
down
prostituting
itself.

Feminine divine
Losing her
eclipse
still night
suggesting, copulating
a pilgrim
of the night,

twisting her afro curls
accentuated
seductive moves
chases
nightly enchantment,
soul killer
empty delight.

Body traded
for the price
of kissing
her life,
reined in
the capricious horses
of passion

she lays
destiny down to
feel the slivers of pain
in dreams and when awake,
hidden pain
eyes reveal
what words conceal.

Pitiless life
making her stay
in a wild desert
smelling
black dust of body
desolated by floods
of mortal life

she heaps abet
in the abyss
of the night
living no more
survivor
of fate
alone.