1. The Day the Town Celebrated

Forthcoming in the book “My Body Lives Like a Threat” by FlowerSong Press
In response to honour-based killings
A stone thrown in a silent lake breaks its skin. Pain travels like ripples.
An outward fractal of grief continuously growing with every passing moment.

A single shot piercing through their bodies.
Piecing them with hate stringing the town.

Truth gaping through the open wound.
Lone gunfire shredding the sky into a million screams.

Only in this version love was not ostracised---
But burned and hanged in the Town square.

Hanged like pieces of meat for the devouring eyes circling them.
A prized possession for the cast that rules with an iron fist.

A mother runs half-naked through the empty street. Wailing.
Anger fracturing the thatched roofs.

Pain scratches like a pellicle dissolving in acid.
Its stench carried for generations.

Like folklore passed on from one babbling tongue to another.
How the little town gazed gaping mouths like a blind cave

The time when love was not ostracised. Cast and Creed were thrown aside
when that small town gathered to celebrate the honour killing.

2. The Burden We Are Passing On

Love arises out of acceptance
in a land made of broken bones
which rattles and hums a
lullaby in the soft light of the moon

Dig deep in the dirt with your dirty ankles
you can find the souls buried
under your sidewalks
Standing knee-deep in the river of blood
leaving footprint everywhere you go
such is the legacy we are leaving behind

There is an absence of the melody
the wind reeking of the hunger
lone tune of the pied piper is ruling the day
trying to proselytise the truth

We are losing our kids to this damn sea, I say
Not a light or sparkle in those ashen eyes
robbed of the dreams as the sparrows
losing shadows to the evening sun

The darkness plays in its bounty
and hunger prevails. This town
left as a grieving metaphor for the catacombs
no longer hold the life in its broken lap

Fingers bloodied with the blood
of the sacrificed newborns
the ones you have masticated the life from
the boney shoulder carrying the burden
of generations to come.

Published in the National Beat Poetry Foundation Anthology, 2020