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Wheer 'asta bean saw long and mea liggin' 'ere aloan?
Noorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor's abean an' agoan;
Says that I moant 'a naw moor aale; but I beant a fool;
*** ma my aale, fur I beant a-gawin' to break my rule.

Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what 's nawways true;
Naw soort o' koind o' use to saay the things that a do.
I 've 'ed my point o' aale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere.
An' I 've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year.

Parson 's a bean loikewoise, an' a sittin' ere o' my bed.
"The amoighty 's a taakin o' you to 'isen, my friend," a said,
An' a towd ma my sins, an' s toithe were due, an' I gied it in hond;
I done moy duty boy 'um, as I 'a done boy the lond.

Larn'd a ma' bea. I reckons I 'annot sa mooch to larn.
But a cast oop, thot a did, 'bout Bessy Marris's barne.
Thaw a knaws I hallus voated wi' Squoire an' choorch an' staate,
An' i' the woost o' toimes I wur niver agin the raate.

An' I hallus coom'd to 's choorch afoor moy Sally wur dead,
An' 'eard 'um a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock ower me 'ead,
An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but a thowt a 'ad summut to saay.
An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said, an' I coom'd awaay.

Bessy Marris's barne! tha knaws she laaid it to mea.
'Siver, I kep 'um, I kep 'um, my lass, tha mun understond;
I done moy duty boy 'um, as I 'a done boy the lond.

But Parson a cooms an' a goas, an' a says it easy an' freea:
"The amoighty 's taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend," says 'ea.
I weant saay men be loiars, thaw summun said it in 'aaste;
But 'e reads wonn sarmin a weeak, an' I 'a stubb'd Thurnaby waaste.

D' ya moind the waaste, my lass? naw, naw, tha was not born then;
Theer wur a boggle in it, I often 'eard 'um mysen;
Moast loike a butter-bump, fur I 'eard 'um about an' about,
But I stubb'd 'um oop wi' the lot, an' raaved an' rembled 'um out.

Keaper's it wur; fo' they fun 'um theer a-laaid of is' faace
Down i' the woild 'enemies afoor I coom'd to the plaace.
Noaks or Thimbleby--toaner 'ed shot 'um as dead as a naail.
Noaks wur 'ang'd for it opp at 'soize--but *** ma my aale.
Dubbut loook at the waaaste; theer warn't not feead for a cow;
Nowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' loook at it now--
Warn't worth nowt a haacre, an' now theer 's lots o' feead,
Fourscoor yows upon it, an' some on it down i' seead.

Nobbut a bit on it 's left, an' I mean'd to 'a stubb'd it at fall,
Done it ta-year I mean'd, an' runn'd plow thruff it an' all,
If godamoighty an' parson 'ud nobbut let ma aloan,--
Mea, wi haate hoonderd haacre o' Squoire's, an' lond o' my oan.

Do godamoighty knaw what a's doing a-taakin' o' mea?
I beant wonn as saws 'ere a bean an yonder a pea;
An' Squoire 'ull be sa mad an' all--a' dear, a' dear!
And I 'a managed for Squoire coom Michaelmas thutty year.

A mowt 'a taaen owd Joanes, as 'ant not a 'aapoth o' sense,
Or a mowt a' taaen young Robins--a niver mended a fence:
But godamoighty a moost taake mea an' taake ma now,
Wi' aaf the cows to cauve an' Thurnaby hoalms to plow!

Loook 'ow quoloty smoiles when they seeas ma a passin' boy,
Says to thessen, naw doubt, "What a man a bea sewer-loy!"
Fur they knaws what I bean to Squoire sin' fust a coom'd to the 'All;
I done moy duty by Squoire an' I done moy duty boy hall.

Squoire 's i' Lunnon, an' summun I reckons 'ull 'a to wroite,
For whoa 's to howd the lond ater mea that muddles ma quoit;
Sartin-sewer I bea, thot a weant niver give it to Joanes,
Naw, nor a moant to Robins--a niver rembles the stoans.

But summun 'ull come ater mea mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steam
Huzzin' an' maazin' the blessed fealds wi' the Divil's oan team.
Sin' I mun doy I mun doy, thaw loife they says is sweet,
But sin' I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to see it.

What atta stannin' theer fur, an' doesn bring me the aale?
Doctor 's a 'toattler, lass, an a's hallus i' the owd taale;
I weant break rules fur Doctor, a knaws naw moor nor a floy;
*** ma my aale, I tell tha, an' if I mun doy I mun doy.
Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaay?
Proputty, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'em saay.
Proputty, proputty, proputty--Sam, thou's an *** for thy paains:
Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs, nor in all thy braains.

Woa--theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam; yon 's parson's 'ouse--
Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eather a man or a mouse?
Time to think on it then; for thou'll be twenty to weeak.
Proputty, proputty--woa then, woa--let ma 'ear mysen speak.

Me an' thy ******, Sammy, 'as been a'talkin' o' thee;
Thou's bean talkin' to ******, an' she bean a tellin' it me.
Thou'll not marry for munny--thou's sweet upo' parson's lass--
Noa--thou 'll marry for luvv--an' we boath of us thinks tha an ***.

Seea'd her todaay goa by--Saaint's-daay--they was ringing the bells.
She's a beauty, thou thinks--an' soa is scoors o' gells,
Them as 'as munny an' all--wot's a beauty?--the flower as blaws.
But proputty, proputty sticks, an' proputty, proputty graws.

Do'ant be stunt; taake time. I knaws what maakes tha sa mad.
Warn't I craazed fur the lasses mysen when I wur a lad?
But I knaw'd a Quaaker feller as often 'as towd ma this:
"Doant thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny is!"

An' I went wheer munny war; an' thy ****** coom to 'and,
Wi' lots o' munny laaid by, an' a nicetish bit o' land.
Maaybe she warn't a beauty--I niver giv it a thowt--
But warn't she as good to cuddle an' kiss as a lass as 'ant nowt?

Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weant 'a nowt when 'e 's dead,
Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle her bread.
Why? for 'e 's nobbut a curate, an' weant niver get hissen clear,
An' 'e maade the bed as 'e ligs on afoor 'e coom'd to the shere.

An' thin 'e coom'd to the parish wi' lots o' Varsity debt,
Stook to his taail thy did, an' 'e 'ant got shut on 'em yet.
An' 'e ligs on 'is back i' the grip, wi' noan to lend 'im a shuvv,
Woorse nor a far-welter'd yowe: fur, Sammy, 'e married for luvv.

Luvv? what's luvv? thou can luvv thy lass an' 'er munny too,
Maakin' 'em goa togither, as they've good right to do.
Couldn I luvv thy ****** by cause 'o 'er munny laaid by?
Naay--fur I luvv'd 'er a vast sight moor fur it: reason why.

Ay, an' thy ****** says thou wants to marry the lass,
Cooms of a gentleman burn: an' we boath on us thinks tha an ***.
Woa then, proputty, wiltha?--an *** as near as mays nowt--
Woa then, wiltha? dangtha!--the bees is as fell as owt.

Break me a bit o' the esh for his 'ead, lad, out o' the fence!
Gentleman burn! what's gentleman burn? is it shillins an' pence?
Proputty, proputty's ivrything 'ere, an', Sammy, I'm blest
If it isn't the saame oop yonder, fur them as 'as it 's the best.

Tis'n them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' steals,
Them as 'as coats to their backs an' taakes their regular meals,
Noa, but it 's them as niver knaws wheer a meal's to be 'ad.
Taake my word for it Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad.

Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a bean a laazy lot,
Fur work mun 'a gone to the gittin' whiniver munny was got.
Feyther 'ad ammost nowt; leastways 'is munny was 'id.
But 'e tued an' moil'd issen dead, an' 'e died a good un, 'e did.

Loook thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck cooms out by the 'ill!
Feyther run oop to the farm, an' I runs oop to the mill;
An' I 'll run oop to the brig, an' that thou 'll live to see;
And if thou marries a good un I 'll leave the land to thee.

Thim's my noations, Sammy, wheerby I means to stick;
But if thou marries a bad un, I 'll leave the land to ****.--
Coom oop, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'im saay--
Proputty, proputty, proputty--canter an' canter awaay.
calion Jun 2014
I don't know if I am the writer
or the character.

I don't know who has control.

Am I the mun?
The writer?
The one who makes decisions?

Or am I the muse?
The character?
The puppet?

If I am the muse,
what mun would **** up
a character this bad?
vincent j kelly Feb 2016
I BE MISSING YA BOB MARLEY

I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya songs roll'en round in me head
ya see I've learned to feel the rain and not just to get wet
and waiting in line is a waste of time cause tomorrow ya could be dead
yea- I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya words roll'en round in me head

trouble I not be want'en (mun)/ just some peace and harmony
to live and love the life I want / and (to) be happy to be me
I hear ya words every night and day they be taken me far away
to islands still uncharted (mun) or to a place called yesterday


I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya songs roll'en round in me head
ya see I've learned to feel the rain and not just to get wet
and waiting in line is a waste of time cause tomorrow ya could be dead
yea- I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya words roll'en round in me head

I hear the tides roll into shore / feel the sun upon my face
while I listen to ya music mun / and my dreams fall into place
people feel deh will get hurt / so don't allow themselves to feel
might as well be blind my friend / cause the sun you'll never see
  
I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya songs roll'en round in me head
ya see I've learned to feel the rain and not just to get wet
and waiting in line is a waste of time cause tomorrow ya could be dead
yea- I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya words roll'en round in me head

the paper say you be famous man / what more could one man wish
ya laughed and smiled and then replied / I don't need no more than this (diss)  
leave everything be as it be / don't disturb old mother earth
you be leaven here someday (my friend)  / with no more than at birth

I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya songs roll'en round in me head
ya see I've learned to feel the rain and not just to get wet
and waiting in line is a waste of time cause tomorrow ya could be dead
yea- I be miss'en ya voice Bob Marley ya words roll'en round in me head

so live each day now the best you can / you never know when it will end
don't pain your days and nights away / in a world of where or when
just drink some *** and sing a song / cause tomorrows round the bend
talk with those ya do not know / for some day they may be friends
                      
                               by vjkelly...(c)2016 from the song of the same name
                                                            ­        by vjkelly
a fella who is in a band mentioned to me he always wanted to write a song about Bob Marley...said I'll write the word you put it to music and sing it.
I'll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown
Who worked in a circus that came through town.
His shoes were too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, "Go back to bed!"
And every time he made a leap,
Everybody fell asleep.
And every time he ate his tie,
Everyone began to cry.
And Cloony could not make any money
Simply because he was not funny.
One day he said, "I'll tell this town
How it feels to be an unfunny clown."
And he told them all why he looked so sad,
And he told them all why he felt so bad.
He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,
He told of Darkness in his soul,
And after he finished his tale of woe,
Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,
They laughed until they shook the trees
With "Hah-Hah-Hahs" and "Hee-Hee-Hees."
They laughed with howls and yowls and shrieks,
They laughed all day, they laughed all week,
They laughed until they had a fit,
They laughed until their jackets split.
The laughter spread for miles around
To every city, every town,
Over mountains, 'cross the sea,
From Saint Tropez to Mun San Nee.
And soon the whole world rang with laughter,
Lasting till forever after,
While Cloony stood in the circus tent,
With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.
And he said,"THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT -
I'M FUNNY JUST BY ACCIDENT."
And while the world laughed outside.
Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Strange Currents
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O Khusrow, the river of love
creates strange currents:
the one who would surface invariably drowns,
while the one who surrenders, survives.

There are a number of translations of this poem, and they all involve some degree of interpretation. I can't claim that my interpretation is "correct" and sometimes poets are intentionally ambiguous. I based my translation on this explanation by Madhu Singh: “Ubhra-Floats: He who floats actually sinks (is lost) & and he who drowns actually reaches the other side (gets salvation).” In other words, one must stop struggling and surrender to the river of love. And this makes more sense to me than some of the other translations do.

###

Becoming One
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I have become you, as you have become me;
I am your body, you my Essence.
Now no one can ever say
that you are someone else,
or that I am anything less than your Presence!

###

I Am a Pagan
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I am a pagan disciple of love: I need no creeds.
My every vein has become taut, like a tuned wire.
I do not need the Brahman's girdle.
Leave my bedside, ignorant physician!
The only cure for love is the sight of the patient's beloved:
there is no other medicine he needs!
If our boat lacks a pilot, let there be none:
we have god in our midst: we do not fear the sea!
The people say Khusrow worships idols:
True! True! But he does not need other people's approval;
he does not need the world's.

*****-e-ishqam musalmani mara darkaar neest
Har rag-e mun taar gashta hajat-e zunnaar neest;
Az sar-e baaleen-e mun bar khez ay naadaan tabeeb
Dard mand-e ishq ra daroo bajuz deedaar neest;
Nakhuda dar kashti-e maagar nabashad go mubaash
Makhuda daareem mara nakhuda darkaar neest;
Khalq mi goyad ki Khusrau but parasti mi kunad
Aarey aarey mi kunam ba khalq mara kaar neest.

###

Amir Khusrow’s elegy for his mother
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Wherever you shook the dust from your feet
is my relic of paradise!

###

Paradise
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

If there is an earthly paradise,
It is here! It is here! It is here!

Amir Khusrow (or Khusro) was born in 1253 A.D. in Patiyala, India, His paternal ancestors belonged to the nomadic tribe of Hazaras. Khusrow called himself an Indian Turk (Turk-e-Hind). He was a Sufi mystic, musician, poet, composer and scholar who wrote in Persian (Farsi) and Hindavi (Hindi-Urdu). Khusrow has been called the “Voice of India” and the “Father of Urdu literature.” He introduced the ghazal to India and made significant contributions to its development. He also wrote in other musical and verse forms, including qawwali, masnavi, qata, rubai, do-baiti and tarkib-band.? Keywords/Tags: Amir Khusrow, Khusro, India, Urdu, Hindi, Farsi, Sufi, ghazal, love
Hira malik Nov 2018
Ehsaas kay dareechay main
Baynaam sa aik shahar basta hai
Har roz wahan log uth-tay hain
Qaroobar kay hangaamon main
Koe mun dho kar nikalta hai
Koe bay- awaz surr pay sarr dhunta hai
har roz wahan aik kahani hai
Jo tmhain mjhay sunani hai
Har saa-at wahan aik tamasha hai
Jo rukta aur shaur machata hai
Raat ki taareeki main
Jab sab thak kar laut aatay hain
Apnay **** ki thakawat ko
Wo  khawaboon kay ka-andhay utartay hain
Aur yunhi so jatay hain.....
Ehsaas kay dareechay main
Jo aik bay- naam sa shahar basta hai
Uss basti ki sab hastion main
Chupa bacha din bhar hansta hai
Aur shab dhalay, sarhanay  mun day kar rota rahta hai.....
Julia Leung Jun 2010
When they ask me, what is your nationality?
I falter; should I say Chinese? Or should I say American?
Because I am, well, both.

My white, black, and hispanic friends ask me for my name
And I respond, Julia, confused because they already know it.
But they shake their heads and laugh, their big eyes glittering,
And their pale skin blushing.

We mean your Chinese name, they say.
And I blush, too.
I mutter, Mun Jee.

Because I am ashamed that the name
Sounds as foreign on my tongue as it does on my friends'
When they repeat it over and over again.

Jook sing is the term that my mother
And my grandmother
And my relatives from China
Use for my brothers, my cousins, and I.

It means lack of filial piety.
It means challenging traditions and values.
It means we are illiterate in the tongues of our ancestors.
It means American-Born.

ABC aren't only letters of the alphabet,
because it is an acronym too:
American Born Chinese.
Because disconnect so easily defines my relationship with my Chinese heritage.
aj heatherly May 2013
Sitting in my room,
Boxing up my life,
Sorting photos and tickets,
Newspapers,
Trinkets,
Tokens of all sorts of yesterdays.

Do you remember when we turned a GA at MUN
Into that silly sci-fi universe,
And do you remember those stupid montages,
I showed in class so proudly,
And that trip to San Francisco,
When we probably passed each other's cars.

What about before those days,
When I was still in to planes and history and other's lives,
Curious if I could ever live one as fully.
Those 2 summers I spent on little league,
When I learned no matter how hard you try,
Sometimes you don't get better.

Do you remember the dream you told me about,
When we were left alone and all we need was us.
What about when I had my first kiss,
Or that time the beach lit up like a nightlight.
Then there was that night when we starred up at that sky,
All those nights with our backs on that cold stone.

Then there were those drives,
Those movie nights,
Those dance parties,
Those birthdays.
Those conversations,
That always carried us through the twilight.

So many sunsets,
From my roof and the hill
The milkshakes after midnight,
The board games, and cards,
The trees and the trails,
The ocean's cool waters.

For a long time I thought it was beyond help,
Trying to hold on to all those things,
I surprised myself today,
See, when you throw out a picture, a poster, a page,
You'll never have to say goodbye,
Oh, what a beautiful mind indeed.
Moving from my childhood home in a few weeks. Inspired by the contents of a keepsake bin. Enjoy =)
Hira malik Sep 2019
Muhabbat chaiay, lazim hai kay
Saans aay aur jay
Jahan muhabbat chalay, hawa ki manind
Kay buhat tapash hai
Aur dil ki zameen mun kholay haanp rahi hai
Aur nazar kaheen poshida hai
Dil aur bahar
Har taraf
Ikk hi hawa hai
Loo ki manind
Larazti, sansanati ***
Jaisay haddion ko murjha day
Aur thara day saans ki simt ko!!

Kaheen bhe nhn, kuch bhe nhn
Jahan jaon, jahan tharon
Wahan kuch bhe nhn, kabhi bhe nhn.
Ehsaas kahan hai? Yay dil tou ab ikk pinjra hai
Jahan ka makeen bolay tou maut, saans bhe maut, harkat bhe kafan, lafz bhe khatam!

Kuch hai, in dinon, kay shaam ka ilhaam
Meray dil kay darwazon pay
Khafeef ahat say bhe
Maut paida karta hai
Aur iska paida hona
Meray wajood main
Ikk Ah ban kar raqs karta hai.
Kuch hai
Kuch tou hai
Iss shaam main , aaj kal!

Rung-o- boo ki nami, uss ehsaas ka sarood
Kaheen ab samandar paar sakoot ki chadar orhay baitha hai
Aur idhar mera wajood
Bass akhri saans ikk umeed ki aas pay laita thahar sa gya hai...
brandon nagley May 2016
i.

Michar, Oer'***-
Lavokri, proment;

ii.

Pravickle gla shoviet
Shoviet crunce du;
zeftar mun acopolli,
vas dae ba-la shu.

iii.

Marantash sodetti
Grasvantas, blinta
Yeshatari klevo's.


©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl jane sardua Nagley ( àgapi mou) dedicated






You must read bottom while reading poem for words meanings.
Thanks Brandon. And to all my readers thank you dearly for your support! I thank all of you for your support and kindness and love. Your fellow poet
Brandon Cory Nagley.....
All the words in the poem I made up, as I always make up words ... we are Poets, we can write and create anything we want! For writing is the souls art and our souls words. Poetry is our soul speaking....

Michar- means ( undefiled)
Oer'***- brabeum ( meaning reward or prize) of God.
Lavokri- anointed cherub,
Proment- strung by the lights.
Pravickle gla shoviet- hour by night.
Shoviet crunce du- night by the minute.
zeftar mun acopolli- sweethearts in flight
vas dae ba-la shu- queen and king of cosmic moves.
Marantash sodetti- lids opened widely.
grasvantas- no shackle's.
Blinta yeshatari  To burden our unearthly freedoms.

Title are words I made up.
Thanks for reading....
“Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room.   Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America—not on the battlefields of Vietnam.”                              Marshall McLuhan

You understand where I'm coming from,
Reader Rabbit, you twisted ****? Maybe not;
While you and your boy/girlfriend, later your wife/husband,
Were ******* backpacks around Europe,
I was of a less fortunate, less frivolous cohort,
Like the poor, who always miss the fun stuff.
So I stayed home and waited, dreading time,
Treading water in Queens,
Doing the graveyard shift at the Wonder Bread Bakery in Jamaica,
(No, not that Jamaica, mun.)
Building bodies 12 ways, and sweating out the inevitable,
Praying to my lesser god not to hear from my local draft board.
And who was I to disturb the universe?
“It ain’t me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son;
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, lawd naw.”
(Send  "Fortunate Son" Ringtone to your Cell)  
I was just another cynical working-class hero,
Unlike you, numb nuts, and the rest of your silver surfer friends.
I knew I’d wind up without my teddy bear,
Convinced I’d end up sans security blanket,
With no ****-vacant musical chair,
To plop my sorry non-exempt, 1A **** cheeks
Down into when the music stopped,
When the music’s over, turn out the light--Jim Morrison,
Lizard King--turn out the light.
My horse, my horse . . . no wait . . . **** the horse . . .
My kingdom, my kingdom for a 2-S college deferment!
What kingdom?  
What was it Jesus said?
Not of this earth, anyway.
Colonial Indochina: rich man's war, poor man's fight;
It was such an efficient way to rid trash from poor neighborhoods.

Needless to say, I’ve been having a little trouble adjusting ever since,
Since I got back from that Kafkaesque Disneyland Jungle Cruise,
My personal Cold War thriller,
My Tecumseh Sherman “War is All Hell” war,
My war: 45 years ago next week.
These things take time:
So says the recorded message on the VA’s PTSD Hotline.
45 years ago I packed up my duffle,
Packed for what I thought was going to be my last time in uniform,
Grabbed my Army discharge papers, and
Limp-dicked out the side door of,
The Veterans Hospital in St. Albans, County of Queens.
I’d like to say I never looked back. But I’d be lying.

(cue PSA: VA Reaches Out to Veterans:
The Department of Veterans Affairs will begin,
Contacting nearly 570,000 recent combat veterans May 1,
To ensure they know about VA's medical services and other benefits.)

Today and every day is 11-11, Veterans Day—
What gets me now is that all my time since The Nam,
Is on average two lifetimes,
For all those sent home, bagged and tagged.
Is it survivor’s guilt? I doubt it.

You may not understand this, but I miss that freaky jungle.
I felt safe there.
How quickly I learned to expect the unexpected,
And that meant to expect the worse,
Finding my comfort zone the more uncomfortable, the worse it got.
I miss the wet weight of the air,
The cloying heat and humidity.
Humidity: a plain and simple meteorological miracle,
When you have plenty of time to really think about it,
Which I did: 365 days and a wake-up.
You know that whole gorgeous hydrologic cycle thing?
I miss the rain, the sound of falling rain.
I miss the other sounds, every buzz and click,
All the arcane and dismal things that go screech in the night.
And that relentless insect hum,
The jungle vibrating and intense,
The colors vibrating too, especially that electric green,
A green so vivid, every leaf and vine,
"The world's richest repository of terrestrial biodiversity,” I read in some nature magazine,
Lying naked in bed while my therapist ****** me off the other day.
All those freaky creatures great and small,
Every miraculous living thing that’s really alive and thriving.
And this is why--I think,
Getting obnoxiously philosophical for the moment,
This explains why it got to be so easy to waste what was alive and thriving over there, including and especially our selves.

Death never seemed that permanent, that final over there.
And besides, you couldn’t **** anything for that long,
The critters all looking their wet and slimy same.  
Two minutes in The **** and you were
Killing every ******* gnat and bug,
Every leech and snake, anything &
Anyone that just looked at you sideways.

And the flora? Did I mention the flora?
Soupy Sales: (Smack! Bam!)  “I told you not to mention that.”
The flora:  the plants grew back and they grew back quick.
You chop a path on recon and the next day it’s not there anymore,
So you chop the whole way back to the L-Z.  
Chop, chop, Hop Sing!
You were one smart ****, Hop Sing,
Safe and sound in Lake Tahoe, Nevada-side,
Cooking up Ponderosa pork bellies for,
The Cartwright Clan: Ben, Adam, Hoss & Little Joe.
Meanwhile, I’m not earning any frequent flyer miles,
Aboard a chartered TWA, coffee-tea-or-me,
Royal **** airplane to Saigon,
A place called ** Chi Minh City today.
I remember looking around at the faces on that airplane,
As we landed at Tan Son Nhut,
Those forlorn godforsaken faces,
Black and Chicano and poor white trash boys.
Scared shitless, of course,
But we really were jolly green giants over there,
American conquistadors, Cortez and the Boys,
Seeking gold and glory and, of course,
*******, (www.urbandictionary.com):
That sweet wet hole we all crave,
Can't go for too long without,
Center of our life's desire,
What gives women the upper hand in almost every situation,
Except when you pay in South Vietnamese piastres,
Your basic exchange rate $3.00 *******.

Yes, we were American conquistadors,
But traveling light this trip,
Our black-robed Jesuit fathers having missed the flight.
That’s right, for us no Ad majorem Dei gloriam this time,
Our mission so simple and so clear:
SEARCH & DESTROY.
But mostly, Destroy.

And pretty soon you worked your way up the evolutionary ladder,
From bugs, to fish, to frogs and snakes,
Small varmints and reptiles, birds and rodents;
And by the time you taxonomy out to the runway,
You’re pretty much whacking anything that moves,
Anything you feel like, pretty much any time,
All the time, sometimes just to pass the time,
Just to break up the ******* monotony of it all.
So making the anti-personnel leap got sort of easy:
They all looked the same, didn’t they?
They all wore the same pajamas,
And it was never conducive to grunt longevity,
To nitpick the civilians from the soldiers,
Never a good idea to waste time distinguishing friend from foe.

Good Morning, Vietnam:
We really were nerve-gassed-Adrian Cronauers over there,
G-2 Army oxymoronic intelligence stiffs,
Having a little difficulty finding the enemy,
Having one hell of a time finding a Vietnamese man named "Charlie."
They're all named Nguyen, or Tran, or Thanh or Trong or Bao or Phuc . . .
Oh, ****, I get it now.
I grok the how and why,
Of all the names we’ve used for centuries to dehumanize the enemy:
***** and Nips, Chinks and Slopes,
Huns and Krauts, Redskins and Ivans,
Redcoats and Rebs, Zulus and Mau Maus, *****, Ragheads and Sand ******* . . .
To dehumanize is to be dehumanized.
Nominal dehumanization; linguistic trickery.
It made it easy . . .
Well, easier . . .
To **** you.

What was it Pope Innocent III’s legate advised?
“**** Them All.  Let God sort ‘em out.”

Is it smell of burning flesh that makes me so digress?

Yes, I miss that freaky jungle, my friend.
I miss knowing what to expect and what was to be expected.
And most of all I miss that absolute confidence,
My self-liberating soporific certainty,
That I did not give a **** whether I lived or died,
And no one else did either.
I miss the peaceful place to go,
Coping with fear by letting go,
By writing off my life,
My future "in-country,"
My 12-month tour of duty,
My 365 T.S. Eliot Ash Wednesdays,
Learning to care and not to care,
Cultivating indifference as to,
Whether or not I ever made it Wee, Wee, Wee,
All the way home again.
The answers were right there,
Always there, all the time,
In nursery rhymes, and counting songs,
In psalms and arias, and every blues and rock lyric,
Right there, so right ******* there,
In Kris Kristofferson/Janice Joplin parlance of the times:
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

And life for me since then--
ONE BIG, FAT-TITTED INCOMPREHENSIBILITY!

What was that Walter Sobjak in The Big Lebowski said?

“This is not 'Nam.
This is bowling.
There are rules.”
c rogan Jun 2020
It was nearing the end of the rainy season. Steady downpours muted all other sounds of the village, the time when everyone slept soundly through the night. The rain had not stopped for weeks, until today. Khadisa woke up before sunrise again, to the smell of cool fresh air, no humid chaleur. She remembered the dream, a girl standing behind a waterfall. She said she could hear her voice, but not make out the words. And the water turned into doves, their flapping wings like beating drums. She started dancing to their music, and blood trickled down her arms and legs in the moonlight.
She uncocooned herself from the medley of blankets, warm tangled sheets still playing hushed reruns of her dreams like seashells reciting ocean lullabies long after the tide. She untucked the mosquito net from under her mattress and silently pulled on her sandals and coat as to not wake her roommate. Mariama was still asleep. Khadisa looked over her shoulder to see her friend nestled into the warm pool of the missing body under covers from where she laid, burrowing unconsciously into her ghost. The amber light of the hallway spilled into the dark room like cream rendering black coffee lucid as the sunrise still hours away. She preferred nights like these, when her husband was away.

“Come back and sleep?” inquired a small voice from a pillowy soft, dream-like haze.
“I’ll be back. En bimbi, Mariama.”

Mariama’s birthmark was just visible from under the covers on her petite frame, an angel on her shoulder flying towards the heavens, to her curly bronze sun-kissed hair and constellation freckles. A memento mori of Icarus before the fall. She was not her blood, but she treated Mariama as a sister, a missing half of herself that had been long forgotten.

XXXXX

I wake as if underwater, neon light and sound blurry like I’m underneath a murky lake. My head throbs. Long tendrils of seaweed bodies sway in foggy currents of flashing, turning, strident beams of light. I’m ascending, body buoyant without weight, as I try to move my numb limbs. What did I take? I look at my hands, the smears of fluorescent orange paint and powder. I just wanted to be free, to fly. Feel the wind, soaring down the mountain path on the back of Mariama’s moto. I stretch my arms out, close my eyes and become the air itself: drifting, unattached.
XXXXX

Guided by light of the full moon and Venus rising, Khadi eased the door shut behind her into the latch with a gentle gratifying “click”. I’m never in the same or different places, but I am good company regardless. I depart as air, a constellation rising. She paused and listened to the morning. Epiphanic night colors divulged to her the secrets of sleep-singing crickets, dream-dancing of cassava leaves, crystal-painting of morning grass. She recited the symphonic canticle with her footfalls on the uneven gravel path to the well, the delicate sway of cotton as she walked in the occasional whistling paths of mosquitos. Soaked in tepid moonlight overflowing from the frame of the mountain Chien Qui Fume, she turned off the path into a grove of trees towards the river, and felt like she was disappearing back into the dark.

xxxxx

“another nuit blanche, huh… or should I say matin? The two must be the same at this point for you now. Just a perpetual, non-stop existence.” Mariam added skeptically, eying Khadi over a steaming cup of ginger tea. The wood from the fire crackled, as if in agreement.

“At least you have hot water for breakfast. Anyway, I am used to waking before sunup to prepare food for the family before the hospital shift.” Khadisah added, “I’ll be fine, habibti. No worries.”

“I know your dreams are getting bad again. Hunde kala e saa’i mun. Everything in its own time. Take care of yourself first, for once.”

She struck a match without reply, lit the candles, and poured herself a second cup of tea. Mango flowers unfolded outside the kitchen window, drinking in the early morning warmth with dusty yellow hands opening to heaven. She held the matchstick and watched the flame approach her fingers, remembering the countless needles she has sterilized to perform surgeries even the male doctors were too uneasy to attempt.

“So, what grand prophecies did I miss in the stars this morning?” Mariama put on her glasses and slid them up over the bridge of her nose with her index finger.

“The usual 3am omens, no bad spirits.”

Mari hummed a little hymn to herself and half-smiled as her green eyes flicked downward to her open book and wordlessly melted away any tension as if she were the effortless break of dawn dissipating a mere cloud of morning fog.

Xxxxx

A songbird starts singing a clear soaring cadence. And I am falling back below inundated shallows. I feel her soft blonde hair on my face, her colors warm and sunny. My name over and over and over. She’s shaking me, but I can’t speak. Her voice is perfect, it is all I hear anymore. Mariama with ivory skin, pastel hair. A ghost? No, a child. No more muted ringing in my ears. I melt into her as everything goes black.
My father was kind, unlike most from where we’re from. The kind do not live long enough. Walking in tall grass before a storm, the wind would whip at us in riotous orchestral gusts; I spread my wings and let the weight of air lift me away into the music. I closed my eyes, face upturned to the swelling rainclouds with pregnant bellies. “My Khadisah’s a little bird! Keep spreading your wings, and you’ll fly across the sea to America one day,” he said in French, the language for educated men.
xxxxx

Prep is the hardest stage for projects. Mariama starts in the cold shop, mapping out the light and colors, the size and shape she’ll be sculpting with. When it comes to the glory holes, something else takes over. She was a fote, of mixed blood. From a family who supported her education, her liberty. She thought of Khadisah’s upbringing, pushed the thought from her head as she focused on the heat of the furnace, the twist on the yoke, and the heavy grounding of the pipe. The sound of the port outside the open studio window grounded her, Conakry’s canoes readying their nets, bobbing in the sunrise stained glassy waters. Khadisah is sea glass, she thought. She heals others as she cannot heal herself, a polished stone ever-changing, and strong to the core. Shaped by something bigger, without choice. Although, the fact that there is no true place for us is shattering. But we’ve learned to live with jagged edges, smoothed them in buckets of the rains we’ve carried for miles on miles. Words can be shrapnel, written of the body, in perpetual ancient gestures. Looking down at the glass on her worktable, thin frames of women curved in dance like limbs of a tree in a whirlwind. ****** hieroglyphics speak of the writhing societal inconsistencies, the murky waters from which we fill our cups. The scars in their hearts built by the privileged, defiling bodies and souls without consent.

They are the ones who do the slaughtering.

xxxxx

“I have always loved mythology,” remarked Mari after perusing a chapter or two of her novel. It was a miracle alone that she knew how to read. “Shame that we lost so many of our stories, women.” Khadi had lost track of time, meditating on her morning rituals. She glanced at the positioning of the rising sun on the burning horizon through gaps of light through red kaleidoscopic trees.
“Next time bring me with you,” Mariama suggested, tapping her temple and pointing to me. “To your walking dreams, I mean. Wherever the night spirits guide you when all other men are sleeping, and the world is entirely ours for the taking.”

Khadisah’s gaze fixed fiercely on her friend’s once more, and the whole room erupted with the veracity of fracturing, interconnected, rampant red color. I try to keep my visions to myself, thinking about what used to become of them.

Glass is an extension; it exists in a constant state of change when molten. People change every second, in a constant half-light of who they are and who they will become. Like the lake between dreaming and reality, or a painting in constant interpretation. A word without formal translation, a feeling. Making stained glass, revelations of shape-cut fragments are painted with glass powder and fired in Mariama’s homemade kiln, fusing mirages of paint to the surface. Soldering joints with lead for stability, there is something meditative of puzzling together their memories. When glassblowing, she breathes life into her art, a revitalized self of otherwise secluded rights. Unveiling colored lenses of filtered light, she distills her life, betrays time. Creating is second to nothing, as concrete as petrified lightning in sand, and the fern-shaped kisses of lightning flowers on skin of raging energy.

xxxxx

It was dead winter, dead night. No shoes, no coat. I stopped answering Mariama’s calls. Too many glass cuts and bruises, empty nights. Walking up the snow-covered sidewalk to the chapel, Khadisah felt like she was buried in the new seamless blankets of fallen snow, fallen angels. Sometimes she forgot who she was. Because she cannot save everyone. A wandering ghost, an oracle without omens. Streetlight glowed through polychromatic windows, complex renderings of tall white figures preaching of salvation. Vivid crowns of gold, marbled robes, and flecked wings outstretching and draped by flickering light on the walls. It all reflected on her skin, histories of stories in light. Candles softened the hallway with the smell of incense and old books. Khadisah sighed and exited, reentered the snowy dreamscape outside, and looked up at the universe. The absence of light was beautiful, empty, and full at the same time. The window from a miniscule existence, what oddly calms and keeps us up at night. It was quiet, no wind, no moon. She laid down, a kite without a string. She started making snow angles and let herself cry about them. All of them. The pain when her husband visited, her daughter’s inevitable path like hers. The imprint of her body congealed to glass by the time the sun rose again, and she spoke colors to the stars. The seasons changed; the stars realigned. And more snow fell into her ghost.

“so, who’s gonna take you home, huh?”

I wake underneath Japanese maple, red leaves outlined in dark umber flaming against the clear blue sky. After a deep breath and regaining my surroundings, I evaluate where I am. The underdeveloped path from the reservation meanders back to site. I don’t remember what time or day it is, but I stand and jump across a trickling iron-red stream, I land on the other side a bit older, a bit wiser. Outlined in sweet grass and sage, I gather the herbs. Mint, sumac, elderberry, and yarrow. Sunlight guides me, and I thank the earth. Wah-doh, I say to the four Winds. Peace.
The mint leaves burn, and their ashes float towards heaven.
-----

Like tuning into the radio station from deep in the forest, she heard fuzzy, fragmented sounds. She felt light against her closed eyelids, but only saw a shoreline. She knew it was a dream. The trees aren’t right – the leaves were replaced by flowers, lending their neon petals to the dense sunset air. Standing in tall sweet grass, but there’s no gravity. She looked up, and saw the Japanese maple, the embers of leaves. And saw a reflection laying in the sun looking down—or up?—at herself. She wanted to fight the setting sun, become pristine like them. But she couldn’t hold her breath under the waters for too long. Spilling from the vase of an inviolate soul, sewing the stars like her scars. When the day is burned, we vanish in moonlight.

_

Working in the hospital, the color red. Panic attacks disassociate Khadisah from reality. She can still see, but can’t move, and only watches the violence as she crumbles under the skin. There were more angel marks, more places, less friendly. Stitches from infancy to womanhood, pedophilic ****** rights. A mother at 13, she cried for days and... feels the words rush back like water flooding all around her, rising around her body. This isn’t flying, this is drowning. So this is permanence, imprisonment from identity. A body collaged up and down, cut and fragmented on city and rural streets like vines salvaging mutilated walls and shattered windows. Being so stuck she was free. She saw a lost childhood in Mariama’s glass, and she was light as a feather in her father’s arms again.

The men say the seizures are from the Diable, but it was worse than that.

Even glaciers sculpt land and cut mountains over time with oceans of frozen glass. But earth was flooding once again.

And there was no blood on her hands.
Julia Anniina Feb 2016
puhukaa, puhukaa, puhukaa
ja mitä enemmän puhutaan,
sitä enemmän tunnen itseni täysin keskinkertaiseksi
muistittehan istua selkä suorana?
jos välttelette muiden katsetta,
teitä saatetaan pitää epäilyttävänä*
sanot mun nimen pehmeästi ja kahdella uulla
hymyillen viekkaasti,
sitä hymyä, joka antaa ymmärtää,
että yllytettäessä tekisit mitä vain, kenelle vain
tarvitsisi vain pyytää, niin ottaisit lähelle
ahtautuisit viereeni sille pienelle siivulle parveketta jonne sade ei yllä
naureskellen alakuloisena sille,
että syksy vyöryy ylitse, vaikka kuinka tahtoisi estää

hyvää syntymäpäivää
Julia Anniina Jul 2016
Pouta oli lientynyt harmaaksi liejuksi ojanpohjille ja taivas ryöpytti vettä kaksi harmaata viikkoa putkeen
Ripustin matot kuivumaan parvekkeelle tuolien selkänojille mutta mun pesukone taisi olla jotenkin rikki kun ne kastelivat lattian likomäräksi yön aikana
Vähän niin kuin skidinä kun halusin täyttää koko pesuhuoneen vedellä ja ihmettelin kun vanhemmat ei antaneet
Eikä nuo olleet mitään takaumia siitä kun mut pistettiin soittamaan hätänumeroon kun ne halusivat työnnellä toisiaan portaista alas
Musta olisi vaan ollut tosi kätevää jos meillä olisi aina ollut uimahalli käytettävissä
Julia Anniina May 2016
Jaetaan tupakanjämät, kuoharipullon pohjat, huonoimmat vitsit ja rivoimmat salaisuudet
Ja kun ilma viilenee puistossa ja illassa on samanlaista huvittavaa surumielisyyttä kuin Kelan loppuun lauletussa kappaleessa
Karataan kikatellen vessaan pussailemaan
Tarraat tiukasti kiinni ja käsket pitämään pienempää ääntä
niin vakavana etten kykene lopettamaan nauramista
vaikka vatsaa ja poskia kivistää
Joku heittää leksaa viereisessä kopissa
tulee jälkeenpäin muina naisina peilin eteen oikomaan takkuja hiuksistaan
Nyt jos koskaan on aika tehdä hölmöjä päätöksiä

Valitettavan harva asia on oikeasti kiinni musta tai susta
meistä puhumattakaan
Ihmiset osaavat olla niin hellyttävän itsekeskeisiä omine murheineen ja kipuineen
Eikä sellaiselta putkinäöltä ehdi edes ajattelemaan muita
Mutta ehkäpä jotkin tarinat on kerrottava
juuri tässä nimenomaisessa puistossa
kun äänesi on humalasta hutera
sukkahoususi polvista rikki ja iho vetää kananlihalle
Eikä kukaan halua olla ensimmäinen joka lähtee kotiin
Tämä on täsmälleen sellainen tarina
(saat satasen jos tulet nukkumaan mun sohvalle)
Safana Aug 2023
Ba a dole.

Ku bar mu mu wataya
Ko ma samu mu rike waya
Daga nan ma hau hanya
Hanyar gyara maraya
Afirica mun farka fa
Safana Apr 2021
In Allah ya yarda
za mu yi aure...
Mu zauna tare...
Dukka hakkokin ki
ni zani kare...
Mu yo rayuwa
bamu ware...
Dukka dangi na
naki ne babu bare...
Zamu zauna a tare...
Zani so ki haifa mini
jinjiraye yan farare...

Rayuwa tana kamshi
idan an zauna da mai
turare...
Ko a kauye zaka ga yara
da safe, sun dauko karare...
Mata kuwa, a gona tare...
suna daukar kirare...
Ga iskar damuna tana
kadawa har da fure farare...
Korama mai sanyin yashi
ruwa ya ketare...
Ga mu cikin lambu
ni da ke mun tattare...
Dukka kayan lambu a
gaban mu, mun ciccire...

Haka ne...

In Allah ya yarda
Za mu yi Aure...

In Allah ya yarda
Za mu yi Aure...

In Allah ya yarda
Za mu yi Aure...
Hadrian Veska Dec 2017
Fallen in and twisted
distant eras and future space
Collide and break apart
Infinite ends and beginnings
Fold in on each other
Creating a grand kaleidoscope
A final flash of all things
The last display of an artful creation
Before the darkness returns
From the distant gulfs
In which it has waited
Since before the birth of the stars
Gorba Apr 2020
Hon brukar ha på sig en mössa
Som gömmer en del av långa håret
En gyllene kaskad som inte blöter
Men är ***, lugnande, och skiner
Mössan skämmer aldrig bort ansiktet
Huset till hennes fina ögon, gul, grå, och blå
En blandning som måste bedömas som perfekt
Så tydlig som en plus en är lika med två

Det känns alltid bra att resa söderut
Att flygga utifrån språngbrädan
Och att ta **** tack vare vinden
Som blåser periodiskt när hon andas ut

Jag landar då på hennes mun
Som hyser den hemliga bron
Som väntar på att jag närmar mig för att hälsa på,
Inte varje gång, men det blir alltid en härlig överraskning då

Jag brukar stanna kvar där en stund
Vaggad av vågorna bildas av hennes läppars kurvor
Och inser att man kan väl resa utan att flytta på sig
Jag står här orörlig och kysser henne
Det räcker för att skapa nya banor
Som leder till ett ställe som kallas extas
Ett ställe som kan enbart finnas
När vi är tillsammans,
När det finns inget avstånd mellan oss
När vi är i mitten av en sensuell dans
Det är klart att jag vill ta ingen paus
Men hellre fortsätta tills natten gradvis raderas av solen
Tills det är dags att börja om resan igen.
Safana Jan 2023
Na fada muku gaskiya
kowa sai ya dau aniya
Don gyara hayaniya
sai mu dandana jar miya
babu sauran magiya
ko mu dandana farar fiya
amma banda fariya
tun da mun kife rariya

waye zaya zagaya
ya riko mana ragaya
sai dai kai kai daya
Tinubun mu guda daya
wanda **** zai waiwaya
yan baya su sha miya
babu mai tako kaya
ko ya dauko duniya

Wai a kasar mu gaba daya
wa ne ne mai aniya
ta jan ragama daya
to ku amsa gaba daya
Tinubun mu **** daya

wa ne ne mai juriya
ta rike nijeriya
Tinubun mu **** **** daya

wa ne ne a tsakiya
wanda kowa na bibiya
Na ce Tinubu ne guda daya

wa ye zai yafiya
yafiyar yan mamaya
Tinubu ne **** daya
Babu bambancin kabila, a matsayina na Bahaushe, yafi na zabi Bayerabe domin yana da abubuwa da yawa da zai kawo wa kasar ta mu Najeriya. Hangen sa yana da fadi, kuma manufarsa tana da ƙarfi.
Safana Jan 2
Tirka-tirka ana tara tara.
Hujjojin duka an tattara.
Lauyoyi sun debi wara.
A can kotu kuwa an fara.
Tattara hujjoji a fili karara.
A cikin kotun koli ba'a bara.
In baka da hujja sai ka tara.
Wani lokaci ko wata shekara.
Wata zai kama, mu dau kara
Don tsula biri ya shirya zara.
Buri nasa yayi ta kona kara
Tsula tuni a kai nasa ya sha gora

Wata ya doso
Lokacin tsayawar sa ya taso
Jama'a ku zo mu siyo soso
Mu wanke dattin kwanso
Wata kila tsula zai je gidan kaso
Kuma za'a daure **** a kwankwaso
Zai yi ta tsalle ko baya so
Don ya sha wankan soso

Wai ina yake ne, kantoma
Mun sani baka da makoma
In  ka tafi ba badda kama
Duk abin da ka shuka zai girma
Zaka girba tabbas ba tantama
A gidan kaso ko a magarkama.

An fara duba wata.
Ga samaniya ta haskaka
Masoyan korra sun rausaya
Murna ta su ta wuce zolaya
To ina masoya ja?
Sun hauhawa.
Farashi nasu ya raurawa,
ya fadi kasa tamkar wawa.
Tun sun ga wata a samaniya,
jinjiri me yaye hayaniya,
Sun tunzura su yi hayaniya.

Shugaban jam'iyya yace
Kowa ya fito da idaniya
Ya kura su sama yayi dubiya
Jariri na wata zai bayyana
A daren yau ko gobe da jibi.
Natt Jan 2018
You know that feeling?
When you’re sitting there,
On your bed in the middle of the night,
Thinking about all your worries.
Well, that’s what I’m feeling right now.
I’m thinking if I should go to England or not?
I’m thinking what will I do in MUN?
I’m thinking about a person.
I’m thinking about school and my midyears.

All these thoughts that are colliding in my head,
All these worries that keep emerging.
Wanting to get rid of them.

It’s that moment in the middle of the night,
When you start to think what’s really going on in your life.

It’s that moment in the middle of the night,
That you start to think,
You start to think about,
Your day,
Your crush,
Your problems,
And all of the simplest and smallest things.

What should You do is the question
Take these worries,
All these worries,
Write them down
Then throw them away
Hoping that one day they will go away.
Safana Nov 2023
(ALHAJI (DR.) AMINU ADO BAYERO)
Kakkaki
Bidigar Sarki

Jama'ar birni ku fito...
Makasau Dan Bakan Dabo Ya fito.

Makasau Sarkin Kano Ya fito
Dan Bakan Dabo, Sarki ya fito
Aminu Ado, sai da kayi ya fito
Saki a kano mai tumbe ya fito

Jikan Dabo me ado dan bakan Dabo
Makasau sarkin kano mai adon Dabo
Me kyautar nera da anini da da kwabo
A tarihi nasa an duba kaf babu tabo
Ya mike ya tafi al'uma suna ta Odabo

Tgwayen sarkin Bichi da kano
Fata nasa kowa ya ci a kwano
Talawansa su mori dandano
Na mulki nasa a ***** da Kano
Tare da **** a kyakkyawan kwano

Jikan Bayero sam baka da raini
A cikin dami da sanyi ko ko a rani
Jama'a na kaunar ka fanni fanni
Saboda kautar nera da anini
Da jin kai ga talakawan ka a birni

Kirkin ka ya zagawa birni da kauye
Ta ko ina alherin ka ya mamaye
Gwani, Idan kayi alheri baka waiwaye
Saboda a cikin alheri kake a zagaye
Hm! makiyan ka kullum za su karairaye

Mai hakuri dan mai hakuri, Makasau
Ka jure hawan Sallah har zuwa fanisau
Akan ingarman dikin ka kamar kosau
Wanda babu irin sa ko an je misau

Muhammadu Aminu dan Ado Bayero
Garnakaki namiji a kyuatar ka ba zero
Tsabar ilimin ka turawan sun baka biro
Cacnselo a calaba ka wuce a ce Pro
Sharrin makiyan k ba ya zuwa ko sun huro

dan Bakan Dabo jikan dabo me jalla
In ka fito, kwalliyar ka kowa sai ya kalla
ana rububin alaka da kai sai an kulla
Amma su wancanan ka sai anyi talla
Kai! a kano kai kadai ne sarki zalla

Kai ka yi kama da Bakan Dabo Ado
Mai martaba marigayi sarkin ado
Tabbas wannan haka yake kayo gado
Tun da ka dare karagar mulkin ka na gado
hakika makiyan ka ko sun bi sai sun gudo

Ina me ja ya zo ga me tsinkawa
Wani ya taba ja mun kai **** takalmawa
sai da yayi tattaki ya bi ta wudilawa
Ya rtsa gonaki yabi ketaren farawa
gashi ta maimaita carki ya tafi ba dwowa

Makasau ginshiki ne ga kano da kanawa
makasau dirka ne ga kano ba karyewa
Makasau Uba ne ga kano ba sauyawa
Makasau ka gaji bakan dabo babu adawa
Makasau ne sarki daya a kani anyi yabawa
Safana Apr 12
Mun yi ado kowa ya kallah.
Mun dau hanyar filin sallah.
Muna tasbihi dallah dallah.
Muna cewa karba mana Ya Allah.
Muna cewa amsa mana Ya Allah.
Muna cewa yafe mana Ya Allah.
Muna cewa datar da mu Ya Allah.
A ranar idin karamar sallah
Eid-al-fitr
Safana Oct 2023
Ina kwanan ku yan uwa
nazo gare ku ku ban ruwa
In sha in baiwa yar uwa
lallai na gaza jurewa
rayuwa ta koma yin rawa
kowa ya gaza sai hauhawa
kuma ba'a neman fatawa
sai dai romo na ruwan kawa
in baka da **** sai adawa
in kana dashi sai yin rowa
manya, yara kowa wawa
dan siyasa wai shine giwa
talaka kuwa ai sai dai tsawa
To ku bamu mu ci ko yar dawa
mu zuba mata ko da yar kanwa
mu dafa mu ci mun kore yunwa
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2021
perhaps i drink because my life isn't:
what other people's lives are...
perhaps i just can't stand the deflating
monotony of being sober
when the night comes...
when the night comes i want to be:
either drinking... or *******...
i don't dream... i sleep... i get the odd
spell of a dream but it's all very much
jigsaw puzzle... shrapnel...
hardly the stuff of architectural proportions
associated with: inception...

interlude: that feeling you get
when... watching Bewitched... again...
for some strange reason:
life on Mars? Elizabeth Montgomery...
Stepford Wife?
beside the canned laughter...
that 1950s narrator in the first few episodes...
this is the 1960s... sitcom...
not soap opera...
while in the background...
the Beat Poets were running wild...
mind you... you can't get a better:
pluck-my-eyes-out beauty than
Beverly Adams... even pushing 80...
she's...
                          how impossible to...

maybe that's why watching the Office
is so impossible... no canned laughter...
a curious little number...
a bit like: "canned applause" on a classical music
record... oh... wait... that rendition
was recorded with a live audience...

so while Bewitched was being broadcast:
all hell broke loose...
it's nauseating... this mythological take
on classical gender roles:
the centre will not hold...
a sympathetic poodle of a woman
that brings about an overpowering of
the status of mother... what is she:
i don't think i want to recognise this creature:
i don't...

perhaps i drink because...
clouds are enough entertainment for me:
the last movie i watched was
the Fisher King... and i only watched it
in about... four sittings...

but i'm not writing about that...
take any product that was manufactured in
the UK... the label sometimes reads
several languages...
the usual suspects... Spanish... German...
Italian... Port-of-Geese...
  (i'm not thrilled about the proper spelling)...
French... most certainly...
Greek...

but take a product made in France...
e.g. the 1883 maison routin...
sirop / syrop saveur
pain d'épices
  (gingerbread)...

  port-to-*******-goose: portuguese:
not guise... port-of-*******-geese!

but what's scribbled on the back of the label?
what languages are important for the French...
the Anglo-Saxon west...
which promptly draws a barrier come
Germany... and their fetish for all things Italian:
but not Greek... certainly not Turkish:
even though the Turks nibbled
at all that's Balkan... i **** Turkish prostitutes...
i should know when i tell them
why i have a clipped wing of a scar
that makes up my right shoulder-blade...
no aesthetic armour of a tattoo to cover it...
she asked: i'm just happy to have all my limbs...
Chernobyl... child of 1986...
that great river of radioactivity did make its
way into Poland:
all the pregnant women were prescribed
drinking Iodine...
all the trees turned autumnal at the height
of spring...
in streaks...

the label of this gingerbread syrup?
French... English... SV... SV... that's Svenska...
no? Swedish?
      Pepparkaka-Smak Sirap...
              rörsocker... se flaska
   (flaszka... a slang term for a bottle of *****)...

then something in Dutch...
   siroop smaak gemberkoek...
        rietsuikier.... natuurlijk kruidnagelaroma...

eh? am i seeing this clearly?
PL - SYROP o SMAKU PIERNIKOWYM..
kurwa: niet?!
                cukier trzcinowy...
      naturalny aromat goździkowy...

clove-"ish": girofle, nejlika, kruidnagel, goździkowy
cinnamon: cannelle, kanelsmak, kaneel-aroma...

the Spanish zunge comes... the Spanish tongue...
after the ****** tongue...
on a ******* label of a gingerbread syrup...
well... MA-DE IN FRAN-CE
then Italian... then Danish... then German...
last: Greek...

i have Francophobia... not fear of the language
itself... but... a fear of speaking it without
a French accent...
i read the same list of ingredients
on the bottle...
i feel most comfortable reading
the list in... beside English / ******...
Italian... and Danish...
i clutter up my Deutsche and Svenska...
Greek is palpable: but it's in Greek...
it's not in Latin... so it might as well be in
Cyrillic...

i feel comfortable in Italian and in Danish...
i could speak those two tongues with:
persuasion...
i could integrate myself into the world
of these people...
however much i might try:
i'd overdo undertaking Deutsche and i'd be
boxing a ghost limb should the Fwench awwive...

speak some Italian: the Scots still trill their aR...
sing-along... less so mit: Svenska...
hardly any Panzermensch in me... although...
anywhere West of the Mongolian horde...
it's not like Bagdad library didn't suffer
like the library of Alexandria...

cheap holidays: cheaper *******:
piglet pink and tattooed...
like i might want the mother of my children
to be: greyish and scuttling...
irritated by the first signs of:
mortal folding... creases of the skin...
what once was read as a linear projection
becomes a wriggling work-out
of a hyped-up worm squiggle...

i was confronted by a girl who i lost my virginity
to... she was drunk i was drunk...
i had three heads on the wall...
of my sorry-***-worth-of-a-abode...
Napoleon... Plato... Marquis de Sade...
she only noticed Napoleon...
she was French... a 3rd year psychology major:
by now i would be a #metoo culprit...
Grenoble my fancy...

           but the resurrected Duchy of Warsaw...
all is bad with Napoleon...
perhaps i should have been
born a Croat...
i must be boring the best of my readership
by now... or... i'm not:
since not many would want to go blind
with these words...
oh i can imagine the latter circumstance:
i'm not cagey & rhyming a shaking-of-the-pear...

how is one to compete for an audience...
when one is competing with...
dead people...
i can imagine competition of
the mortal avarice... between footballers...
between gladiators...
but... when you're staged against...
someone who's dead: the readily: available:
tested audience...
language: immobilised by the scrutiny of...
generically: tested... Homer... Horace...
Dante... Shake-a-Pear..
it's not like the "competition" is unfair
because of ***... nor the rewards...
they're... *******... DEAD...

i best preface myself with: i'm dead too...
Bukowski... Jack Spicer...
                Tzara... Tuwim... Brautigan... Berrigan...
Blake... O'Hara... Belli... Pound...
dead... dead dead dead... dead...
Purdy... it's not a fair "competition":
it's also called: necromancy... loosely...
i'm reading the works of the dead:
reviving them: resurrecting them...
comforting myself with a suffocation
of laying my head on a pillow filled with ash...

it's beside: the argument: it's not fair...
he's a man and she's a woman...
name me one famous female football player!
come to think of it... i can't think of one...
tennis... though?
it's more fun... female tennis... equal pay
implies: they really should play
a 3-set victor...

by writing this little nibble of a scribble...
thank god i looked into Horace...
he just divulges into scribble...
into digression... somehow teasing a maxim...
Horace contra Cicero...
i will not be caged by rhyme!
to hell with rhyme...
look at me... Bukowski was lucky...
he ended up driving a BMW...
i just want enough to pass-by...
somewhat unnoticed...

Canidiae dentis, altum Saganae caliendrum
excidere atque herbas atque incantata lacertis
vincula *** magno risuque iocoque videres...

the thief Voranus...

will there be enough words... just how / as Sagan tortures
the shadows of the dead...
they wish not to speak:
   like witches... they occupy the earth
a wolf's beard with the teeth of a slithering
polka-dotted lizard...

ah!   ha!
arrogance with a tease of agony!
tow the dead: i'll punch myself in the head:
knock knock: toughened wood...
here, now... a most presented...
          could you ever believe it:
sequence of events?

so many people live their cushioned lives...
it makes sense to live so little of my own...
that i live mine:
in the noon highlight of horror...
such mundane exfoliating....
mundanity... Monday-Deity...
mun-dein-itty-ein-i-lost-"witty"...

   culprit: to hell with the whole load
of y'o'u!
Jay earnest Apr 2020
Gerb in a gush goop lop lop
Sklop in a shock a mun julk

***** dewie
Lovx an huny ackvol

O say now
Pewb pewb
**** it good and hard
Uylm see
Stand in filligree lop
loshK
Two note steeve , none for me

— The End —