I sat down thinking about a pen,
so I took out my pen
to write about the pen.

Before I started to write,
I repeatedly struck my temple,
and each strike let out a snare
of thoughts playing truth or dare-while the pen warmed up to play.

I wrote about how the pen
took my refugee pain
and gave it a pen
on a paper that was once plain.

With my pen,
I also wrote
about how the pen bled
while dropping bars
to free my incarcerated melodious bars
for those seeking freedom and peace in bars.

29th June 2025

A naturalised immigrant,
a subject and a leader,
acquires a strange but familiar territory
at the utterance
of “I do.”

Season after season,
familiarity bribes patriotism
while betrayal sneaks past barbed loyalty,
recruiting every whisper, every soft touch,
that swore allegiance
and vowed nothing
but infatuate
with goosebumps and urge.

The world is now here,
my child,
to extend
its split-scaled arms—
to embrace you
into a hypnotised discipleship
of mass hysteria
against that child in you.

That child in you
hurls Lego bricks
at the world,
after the world
has pinched your ego,
but expects no winces
from you.

You see,
it is a world
that baptises with one hand,
and strangles with the other.

I’m sorry
for bringing
you here.

We saw the preacher,  
we heard him too,  
when—with a hanky—  
his puffy palm  
dabbed our sweat  
off his temple.

He exclaimed:  
“Woe unto those  
who don’t give  
to the Lord,  
for the kingdom of God  
is not theirs!”

The sermon—  
like snorted crack—  
zombified us,  
the aspiring saints,  
into rummaging  
our exhausted mines,  
as we reached  
for remnant alms  
with palms  
drier than his.

Two diurnal natives of summer
meet beneath a sapphire dome tent-
to sing,
to dance.

His whirling robes
lift him in spirals
around her luminous petal dress, while she sways and rustles
to the rhythm of his buzzing.

His gentle pecks-massaging her green nape,
her sweet spot-
summon her nectary flow;
he gulps,
drunk on the offering.

Gently,
winter unfurls summer's azure tent blowing a dark mist across her petals. As she fades in the haze,
he hovers
through the fog
for distant warmer hues.

The sun dabs the morning's blue canvas
with its golden bristles of dawn, stroking warm tones
and announcing an old new beginning on the horizon.

The morning breeze nudges playful clouds,
sending each gliding on the canvas, where the sun's gentle taps anoint them with warmth.

Beneath, the foliage waves,
marveling at the unfolding canvas, their limbs reaching out
                     to bask
                     in the sun's eternal, quiet
                     masterpiece.