Ġrieħi miftuħin,
Xejn ma jrid jingħalaq.
Suppost, il-ġnus maqgħuda,
Iżda lkoll qegħdin mifruxin,
Donnu, xejn ma jrid jiċċaqlaq.

Feriti ifferoċjati bil-melħ,
Kruċjati, bla ebda sens ta’ ferħ.
U l-imħabba għal proxxmu -
Dik x’sar minnha?
Issa sibna x-xoqqa f’moxta;
Ħlifna, bit-tarf ta’ din il-pinna,
Naslu għal verità, naraw x’insarrfu minnha.

Allura, x’inhi din il-verità?
Qiegħed nassumi li hekk qegħdin tistaqsu.
M’hemmx dibattitu, ir-realtà turik,
Kollox f’ħinu, kollox f’waqtu.
Ir-risposta tiegħi hija din;
Tlifna kull sens ta’ valur,
Tlifna kull sens ta’ twemmin.

M’għadniex nemmu fil-valur tal-ħajja ta’ kullħadd.
M’għadniex nemmnu li kull azzjoni għanda impatt.
Nemmu li aħna progressivi, u Ewropej;
Jekk vera nemmnu hekk,
Lesti nħallsu għall-eċċessi u d-dejn?
Mhux dejn fiskali, iżda dejn immortali,
Id-dejn tad-demm li xxerred,
Dejn is-sudditti, dejn l-iskjavi.

In fatti, is-superjorità materjali ġejja minn hekk;
Mill-gwerer tas-slaten, u l-gideb ta’ dawn tal-ġlekk.
Daħħalna xafra disa’ pulzieri ‘il ġewwa,
Biex imbagħad ħriġniha sitta ‘il barra;
Ta’ parsi għandna l-ugwaljanza,
Għax issa jsawtuk xorta, iżda b’aktar ħlewwa.

Qabel, kellna l-ktajjen u l-forza brutali.
Issa, għandna l-kuntratti, u l-kodiċi penali,
Bil-banek jirrenjaw,
Bil-gvernijiet korporazzjonijiet statali.
Mhux ha nitlobkom temmnuni -
Nitlobkom biss teżaminaw il-fatti.
M’għandix spag x’jiġbduli;
Il-kuxjenza nadifa,
U m’għandix gideb x’ngħatti.

_______

’Open wounds’

Open wounds;
They aren’t closing.
Nations should be united,
But we are far apart,
Seems like nothing wants to budge.

Wounds, seasoned with salt,
Crucibles, with no sense of joy.
And, about that love for one’s fellow man -
What happened to that?
Now, we’ve found the perfect moment;
We’ve sworn, with the tip of this pen,
(that) We’ll get to the truth,
See what we can make of it.

So; what is the truth?
I am assuming that’s what you’re asking.
There’s no debate, reality shows you,
In due time and place, in the right moment.
My answer is this -
We’ve lost all our sense of valour,
We’ve lost all our sense of belief.

We no longer believe in the value of everyone’s life.
We no longer believe every action impacts others.
We believe that we are progressive, and European;
If we do believe that,
Are we ready to pay back our excesses and debts?
This is not fiscal debt, but rather an immortal one,
The debt of the blood that has been shed,
The debt of subjects and slaves.

In fact, material superiority stems from this;
From the wars of lords and the lies of the suits.
We’ve pushed a blade nine inches inward,
And pushed it six inches outward;
Pretending we have equality,
Just because now, they’ll still beat you, but more sweetly, more subtly.

Before, we had chains and brute force.
Now, we have contracts, and the penal code,
With banks reigning supreme,
With governments who are now state corporations.
I am not asking you to believe me -
I am asking you to examine the facts.
I have no strings, none that can be pulled;
My conscience is clean,
And I have no lies to cover up.

REAL NAME ALTERED TO SAFEGUARD IDENTITY*

I know what you’re going through.
Aged nineteen, I wanted to die, too.
I can offer no consolation;
The world is messed up,
A fact that needs no arbitration.

All I can tell you is that you are not alone.
Listen to my words, ‘cause they’re about to hit home.
You need do nothing but be, just breathe;
Let love into your heart, again.
The mightiest tree starts from the humblest seed;
Let love take root, build its little den.

It is always darkest before dawn.
Life feels like you’re facing a firing squad,
And they’ve all got their rifles drawn.
Ten barrels of steel, pointed right at you;
You’ve been running for so long.
Eventually, they finally catch you.

Darling, killing yourself doesn’t solve your problems.
You won’t be around to care, but others will,
And seeing you go will turn them into stone golems.
As such, you just pass on your grief to your people.
They’ll find no relief, like they’re sitting on steeples.

Maybe, you hate the people who love you, or they’re **** at it,
So it’s more harm than good being done to you.
Very few of us have managed to figure this **** out.
In fact, many of us are straight-up *******.

That doesn’t mean life can’t be beautiful.
That doesn’t mean love can’t be bountiful.
Everyone’s too scared, though;
Trust is a taut rope,
And there’s very little hope.
I know that love and beauty can be scarce;
I know discourse is sometimes trifling, sometimes terse.

But darling, you mustn’t ever give up.
You are not crazy, nor are you insane.
The world is run by people who actually are heartlessly insane,
And they’ve built a cage to **** with your brain.
But please, don’t give up.

I hope this gets to you in time;
I wish I could say it’ll all be okay,
That everything will be fine.
But, it won’t be.
We are doomed to a lifetime of fighting back,
Either that, or just getting attacked.
I will not stand to suffer any longer,
Not without retaliating in defense, in kind.
Take my hand, for together we are stronger.
It’s time to halt the daily grind.

I’ve experienced the fear of violence;
If fate holds us with a string,
Mine feels strained, like a violin’s.
I’ve felt the terror of speechless silence;
The pressure that life brings,
Like it’s 4:00am, and you’re still doing that assignment.
It shook me, but it didn’t break me.

I’ve read and studied about oppression;
There’s enough material to fill several skyscrapers,
Enough to slump anyone into a depression.
I’ve delved into accounts of sheer horror,
Enough to make your soul ache,
Stories of humans treated like fodder.
It’s heartbreaking; but, it didn’t break me.

Running rampant, unaccountable and irresponsible;
Stunning examples of corruption.
Criminals in command, hiding behind uniformed men,
Trapped in a den of thieves hiding behind constables.
You try every day; but, you won’t break me.

I’ve faced scrutiny and bigotry;
I call for mutiny, **** pleasantry.
I’ve seen hatred, and I’ve felt it;
If hate is a poisoned dagger,
It seeped through the hilt as I held it.
I’ve glared angrily at my own reflection;
I’ve put my brain through trauma,
And my soul died a bit from all the dejection.
I’ve come close, but I am not broken.

Every day is laborious;
It has to be in this world,
One that’s far from meritorious.
It would be so in a free world as well,
Except for the fact that your labour wouldn’t feel like hell,
Mostly because you will toil for a fair life for all,
And the future would be glorious.
It’s going to be the fight of our lives.
But it will not break me.

Greet every person you meet;
Embrace warmly, enjoy the heat.
Savour their company, taste their flavour;
You’ll know if it’s golden or rotten,
If you’re holding a gold mine,
Or a poison ill-begotten.

Maybe, not at first;
It’s hard to tell, sometimes,
For some are like chameleons.
Blending in when they have to,
When their plan is to trap you.
Prepare to be encapsulated,
To have your energy castrated.

Eventually, though, things change;
We are able to tell, most times.
Even if we must go against the grain,
Feel the pain of the Milesians.
Your gut instinct will tell you,
Let you know you should change the tune,
Hell, maybe even change the venue.

It is an act of aggression to abuse someone’s affection.
There should be no digression here,
I shall not allow any concession, not in this lifetime, nor the next,
I will make sure of that, I need nor context nor pretext.
If you do feel abused, rejected and refused,
Then taken back to be re-used,
You might have a leech attached to you;
You might have to bleed to feed someone who’s attacked you.

If you feel like something’s wrong,
Stop, and reflect; what’s going on?
Inspect the nature of the relationship,
Critically analyse your companionship.

You must trust your fellow man;
But, in these times, you must also verify.
Make sure your mind’s gun doesn’t rust;
In these times, people hide behind their alibis.

What could have been;
What should have been done.
What could have been seen;
What should have been shunned.

I speak to you, my rejected friends.
Take the messages failure sends.
I speak for you, for I feel the sting, too.
Maybe I should take my own advice,
Instead of spilling my guts out to you.
But, failures linger, don’t they?
They stick around like glue,
Make you not want to see the next day.

I grieve with you, my fellow renounced outcasts.
Life sometimes crumbles like houses beneath blasts.
I grieve for my own woeful misadventures,
For all of life’s haunting spectres,
The ghosts of what could have been,
The paradise that won’t let us in.

This one is for us;
All those who failed to get into the Harvards and the Yales,
All of those who wish they’d gotten better grades,
But got burnt out, instead.
All of those who haven’t made it in sports,
But whose dreams were cut short.
All of those who wished to become actors,
But found no supporters nor benefactors.
All of those who wished to chase music,
Those who have talent but couldn’t use it.

All of those who died at sea,
Stranded on a boat, trying to be free.
All of those whose heart was broken,
Whose wounds are always open.
All of those whose ideas were trashed,
Only to then be copied and rehashed.

All of those whose minds were broken,
Who danced with demons and evil unspoken.
All of those who never met their parents,
To whom life was never readily apparent.
All of those who reached for the stars,
But found their arms were too short.

This one is for us.
Stay strong, for these nights can be long.
Sing your song.
PS:
**** whoever said ‘the sky’s the limit’.
Let’s go for ‘above and beyond.’

My pen feels dead in the water;
It’s got nobody to speak to,
Nobody reads during global slaughter.
I feel like we’re in a temple of evil,
To be sacrificed at an altar.

I don’t want to compete with anyone.
The fragility of the ego -
I find it far too cumbersome.
I don’t want to secure a home loan;
There’s a whole world out there,
Just waiting to be known!
I’ve got beautiful things to be shown,
Skills to hone, places where I want to go;
I wish to soar to the heights where the hawks have flown.

So, I write, and I think, and I dream;
I believe in my ideas, in the thoughts I conceive.
I try to bring my thoughts together,
To create links like a river’s streams.
I do not wish to have to adhere to schedules,
To meet deadlines on the factory floor;
I do not wish to be enslaved to generate revenues.

Freedom is the spontaneity of life,
To walk hand-in-hand with your inner demons,
Like a loving husband and doting wife.
It’s letting passion inflict its distinct fervour,
Letting emotions overload your servers.

I do not wish to be wealthy;
Because of this rat-race,
Our tomorrow looks sickly and unhealthy.
We’re all out here, chasing the next banknote,
Running away from the debt squeezing our throats.
We simply are, there shouldn’t be much more to it.
Everything else is superfluous,
So might as well just lose it.

As soon as you glanced at me askance,
My heart jittered, it stood no chance.
If it were up to my heart,
It would already be on my sleeve;
Although it's been tort apart,
Somehow, it still believes.

Questions swirl about in my mind’s pool;
The waters are sometimes hot, sometimes cool.
The answers always feel just out of reach,
Like life’s got plenty more lessons to teach.

Questions like: ‘Who in the hell am I?’
‘What happens after I die?’
‘Are we ever going to see world peace?
Or will we be lucky if we make it past July?’

No matter how hard I try to think,
It all feels like there’s no how or why,
Like it’s all a case of swim, or sink.
Random, chaotic determinations of fate;
What we make of it is where we can be great.
We have a say in whether our destiny meets us on time,
Or we decide to show up late.

There is no time to waste; I can hardly wait.
I have a curiosity which I can’t sate;
Unsettled and on edge is how I’d describe my mental state.
I don’t really know who I am, anymore;
I’m experiencing emotions I don’t want to explore.

I do know that I live and breathe;
I also know that I grieve and bleed,
That I have this inner drive to succeed.
I know that I care about human freedom;
I know that I’m plagued by more than a few demons.

Got skeletons in my closet,
A baggage trail that goes for miles;
Got no cash to make a deposit,
Yet I’ll never fail to make you smile,
To make you read my words like they were scripture,
Like sacred inheritance from ancient times.

I know I must be here for a reason;
My existence is just, no act of treason,
No malfeasance, no monsoon that’s out of season.
I am a node on the network, a rogue in a fugue state;
I shall oppose the nation state’s wetwork,
And I will make it disintegrate.
Either that, or I shall die trying;
For who am I,
If not a soul that’s done with crying?

I don’t destroy people.
If I did,
It would be evil.
Broken, shattered pieces.
Little would be left;
Like Latin America,
After they met measles.

I could sling these words for a living;
I want to be merciful, forgiving,
But I’m failing, constant sinning.
I try to keep the poison away from my tongue,
But I am surrounded by it,
Another Hamlet, about to become undone.

I want to be evil, sometimes;
A thunderstorm.
A harbinger of troubled times,
A bringer of ominous signs.
Amid these blurred lines,
Among these endlessly steep climbs,
I feel death’s clock as it chimes.

Amid bouts of disappointment and rancour,
Of venomous, virulent anger,
Life feels like an unresolved cliffhanger.
I want to be evil, sometimes;
But I’m not.
My train of thought leads me to think life should be lived,
Not bought.
Evil buys you pleasures,
Pleasures I’ve sought before.
There’s nothing to them,
Let them be gone.

Don’t give me reasons to lay this nuke at your doorstep.
Don’t **** with my inflamed, ******* cerebral cortex.
My mind is now the ocean,
And you are in its vortex.

A wide-eyed kid, aged nineteen;
Bottled rage, a kind unseen.
Then, a sudden light beam burst forth;
Like it was a song of ice and fire,
And the Mad Queen met the ******* of the North.

I was killing myself with drugs and *****;
I still am. But, back then,
I was permanently binging.
I had nothing to lose;
I was a soul running loose,
With no clues about all these blues.
Short-fused and self-abused,
And extremely ******* confused.

But then, she showed up;
I hesitantly slowed down.
I was a mine about to blow up,
Whilst she upturned my frown.
At least, that’s what happened, for a while;
It wasn’t long before vitriol and bile.

We were living wild, all functional survival.
Sharing shelter with a woman who was vile;
A mother twisted and snarled up with hate,
A completely ****** up fate complementing a ****** up life.

Somehow, amid the *****, unwashed dishes,
The stench of alcoholism and all the hitches,
The sting of a mother ignoring a daughter’s wishes,
This was when we were the happiest together.
We had nobody, nothing, except for each other.

Bonding over an enemy in common;
Us against the world, baby.
I felt like an angel had been summoned;
I thought I’d won the golden ticket,
Until I realised the paper was laced with a tracer of poison,
And we were getting sickened.

But, during that first year, we were alright;
Hell was around us, but not inside us.
Walking through fire, but not set alight.
We held on; for each other, we went soft,
Like I was Indiana Jones, and you were Lara Croft.

We struggled, we survived, although we never thrived.
We lost everyone around us; remember how I cried?
Our friends, gone with the wind,
They dropped us, or we dropped them,
Like a benefit one rescinds.

We clawed our way out of that black hole,
Said goodbye to the drunk skunk on the couch,
A merry day to get away from that blackened soul.
We had no plans, no real goals;
We were just running away,
And starting anew on our own.

Filled with hope, so open to the world;
So naïve, believing we’d be able to cope.
We’d give it a whirl, we said, holding one another’s hand.
We were lost, like wayward, wind-strewn grains of sand.
But, somehow, we slept fondly in each other’s arms,
Disarmed wholly by each other’s charms.
I loved you, and never wished you any harm.
I gave you all I had and all I knew;
I wish it was enough to get us through.

“Maybe, if you slipped and fell here...”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
I walked on, one foot, then the other;
I killed the voice, left it smothered.

“You can get back up as much as you want.
I will come back, with a readied assault.”
“Get out of my head, you ******* psychopath.”
I left the spot I liked, off the beaten path.

As I walked, the dialogue quietened;
Guard down, senses still alert and heightened.
This calm scene is too serene,
And that’s got me frightened.
Permanently damaged, like a collapsed cliff side.
Crumbling down, dead on the inside.

“Aha, I’ve got you now, you weakling of a specimen.
I am your lord now, and misery’s your regimen.”
“I. SAID. I. WON’T. HEAR. IT.”
**** me, this is it, I can’t bear it;
I’m trying to run but my legs are giving out,
I’m trying to scream and shout but there’s no air,
Lungs are burning, blood’s getting sapped,
Can’t do anything, I’m completely trapped.

The only one who’s always there;
The voice from the void speaks viciously,
It whispers that I’m beyond repair.
Oh mother, where have I gone so wrong?
Oh father, why couldn’t I be strong?
Oh brother, why’d we never talk?
Like I was cheese, and he was chalk.

“Nobody will ever read this.
You can put your pen away.”
“Maybe they won’t read it;
But I’ll be ****** if I don’t write it.”
When you find this poem,
Or read it, or hear it from me,
Know that I died a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist,
Know that I died wanting to be free.

I clung to my past,
Glimpsed awkwardly towards the future.
I looked at the present,
Stitched together by sutures.
I can see why a few of us are scared;
Many more than a few.
Hoping to weather the apocalypse,
And watch it with a view.

“I’m done. Last straw, that’s it.
I don’t even want to wake up tomorrow.
You ******* ruined me.”
“No. I just point out the sorrow.
Nobody gives a **** about you;
Stop waiting for something to come through.
It won’t”.
“Not with you in charge, you sick ****.”

I ran out of kind-hearted dialogue a long time ago -
When I speak to myself,
I feel like there’s nothing good for me to find or show.
It’s just the voice from the void,
A conversation I wish I could avoid.

“Take me away.
I don’t want to see another day.
I’m done. **** me.”
“No, you must do it yourself.
Grab the knife, take your life.
Do it swiftly and you’ll die quickly,
If you do it right.”

My life, my labour, my lineage;
My time - a favour, a privilege.
My very existence, up for sale;
Watch, as democracy gets impaled.

Sold off, bought by the highest bidder;
Out in the cold, caught in a blizzard.
Meanwhile, loyalties are on sale,
Lives are sabotaged, set up to fail.

Born, reared and raised inhaling dust,
Told to vote, to do so’s a must.
Led to the edge by the undead,
Fueled by secrets best left unsaid.
Sworn in, cheered on, values betrayed,
Victors portrayed, losers dismayed,
Our disillusionment displayed;
We’re in deep ****, be ready to wade.

There’s no lust, no zest for life;
There’s no trust, when there is strife.
I see strife aplenty enough;
I see many are acting tough.
Hardened hearts that have come apart,
Forced to live like this, playing a part.

Sold! The entire, impoverished lot;
Sold to the men of the black hand,
The string-pullers, crafting the whole plot.
The world is being auctioned off,
And you are the merchandise,
You are fuel for the enterprise.

You might not believe what I’ve just conceived;
Mark me as read, a fake ‘message received’.
You might look away, maybe take a day off;
I won’t, I can’t, I mustn’t.
There’s no time for going soft.

I demand to make my choices.
We are here to raise our voices.
These irreversible changes are locking us in cages;
These are real, life-or-death issues.
This is no show, and these lives are no Broadway stages.

Let's talk about decisions;
Let's put aside biased visions.
Let’s talk about who makes these decisions;
I’m looking at you, old white dudes in boardrooms.
Last time you took a class in ***-ed,
Gatsby and Daisy were just about this close to being bride and groom.

Let's talk about consent;
Let's use this space to vent.
Let’s talk about who has the right to judge;
I’m looking at you, anti-abortion crusaders.
Feeling threatened by strong women and their placards and posters,
Like they’ve got pistols in their uterine holsters,
Like they’re all daughters of the dark forces of Darth Vader.

Why do we insist on going to war with each other?
More importantly,
Why does our ****** education,
The root of this problem,
The rotten core of this issue -
Why does our ****** education **** so much?

Why do we talk about choice for a woman instead of the choice of men to respect a woman in the first place?

Why are we still debating?
Grown men telling women to listen,
It's absolutely infuriating!
Let's fight for rights and quit the hating.

Women are resorting to desperate measures,
Whilst men walk away with fulfilled pleasures.
I adopt this tone gravely;
Women are jeopardising their safety, daily.

Is a living woman worth less than an unborn baby?

I want to scream until I’m hoarse,
Until I can’t scream any more.
Then, when my voice box is bleeding,
When these demons are done feeding,
I’ll fall to my knees, in due course.

Clammy hands, high rate of respiration,
Fight or flight mode, in full activation.
Rough waves in the ocean of the stomach,
Enough to turn a dancer into a lummox.

The seduction of steady doses of self-destruction,
De-construction of the self, as if by court injunction.
Drink this bottled rage, distilled onto this safe, contained space;
Feel its unbridled power as it courses through your veins,
Unleash it onto those who have many ill-gotten gains.

I want to be free of this anxiety,
To do away with impropriety.
I want to stop feeling sick in my soul,
Whenever I analyse society.

Maybe, I’ve gone batshit insane;
A caged animal, crazed, in pain.
Maybe, all my cries are in vain;
But, I’ll be ****** if I die in chains.

__

Elbow-deep in *****;
Got nothing to lose.
An offer from hell;
I couldn’t refuse.

My brain’s out of happy chemicals;
A lifter with broken clavicles.
The air’s too thick, I can’t breathe;
Choked up by smoke and rage as it seethes.

The betrayal of our generation,
Born into destructive condemnation.
Born with a noose, tightly coiled round our necks,
Evil let loose, like a curse from a hex.

Stumbling into adulthood, dazed and confused.
Lesson number one -
If you’ve got a conscience, best leave it unused.
Binge-drinking, to refrain us from thinking.
A ship that’s sinking, eyes that are blinking,
Frantically keeping up with tear ducts,
But hey, at least you still feel something!
This heart has been seared, shut.

In fact, tears don’t fall down these cheeks, no more.
Crystallised pain; time to settle the score.
Time to take aim on those who came before,
Those who left us wastelands, a world forlorn.

No time to unwind, to let one’s guard down.
We must take back our homes, our streets, our towns,
It’s time to hang, draw and quarter these clowns.

Comrades, born with a guillotine over your head;
Step away from the edge towards which you’re being led,
Let us stop living like we’re the living dead.

Or, at least, let us die trying.
Like lifeless husks, slowly drying.
Our dreams, slowly fading away;
Scraping the bottom of the barrel,
Hoping to make it through the day.

_____

Brain-powered brutes; kings of intellectual pursuits,
Vastly superior, sadly divorced from our roots.
Propelled to be upheld as the peak of all life;
The human species, as sharp as a corsair’s knife.

There’s about 80 billion neurons in your noggin,
Networks, working all day until you lie in a coffin.
Brain and spine; co-ordination, perfection, divine.
Plainly sublime, an observation of gifts we’re assigned.

Whether it’s seeing a sunset in the arms of your new love,
Or hearing thunder as it claps from heavens above;
Whether it’s embracing a friend you haven’t seen for too long,
Or smelling and tasting street food, lost in a throng;
It’s all assembled in your organic computer,
Your decoder of reality, your trouble-shooter.

That’s precisely why I don’t trust the brain blindly.
Despite its marvels, we can be deceived, wildly,
In a manner that is grotesque and unsightly.
Use your senses, but administer them wisely,
Live in reflective harmony, speak forthrightly.

And, most importantly, listen to intuition,
For it’s basically like getting divine tuition.
We know of love when we feel it inside us,
When we hold one another defiantly, and say:
“You will not divide us!”
We’re awed by thunder when its loudness strikes our soul,
Hunger gets to us when we’ve felt it as a whole;
We know how much we miss one another upon going home.

We say we’ll know it when we see it –
No; we’ll know it for sure when we feel it.

Traffic, an artless moment for us all.
Static, unmoving; this is our downfall.
Manic, and frantic, in panic, anxious;
A nation that thrives on the unsanctioned.

Softly, we slip away, as the sun shines;
It’s time to make hay, ‘fore the planet dies.
Absorb the grey decay, smoke in our skies;
This ain’t a game, we don’t have several tries.

From the office, to your house, to the bar.
Fall in deep love, find a spouse, live on par;
Get a job, pay your taxes, buy a car.
Adhere to templates, forget who you are.

Don’t think about your disappearing rights.
Elected racketeering, sleepless nights,
Running on fumes, there’s one too many fights.
How we’ve fallen from those divine, sublime heights.
Angrier, sadder than we’ve ever been.
Top-tier madness, hating coloured skin.
Unforgiving badlands, dealt some bad hands;
No going to heaven, they won’t let us in.

Slowly slipping away, like time itself.
Pretending we are fine, we don’t need help.
You can almost feel your soul fragmenting.
The cries of your inner child, who died lamenting;
Stifle them.
Suffocate them.
Placate them.
This is our life; there is no happy ending.

I am incomplete.
The great desolation.
Filthy desecration.
A heart’s laceration.

I dream of war, I wish for love.
Send a sign from heavens above;
What must I do?
Must I tear off the velvet glove?
Should I just give my heart a shove?
Just push it, onto life’s dance floor,
Act like I’ll live forevermore.
What must I do?
Must I willingly close that door?
Should I not think of love, anymore?

Someone’s missing, I can feel it.
Hearts must love, I can’t conceal it.
I wonder who that someone is;
In this world of state-run showbiz,
Are there any as angry as me?
Listen, hand each other the key,
Hear and understand to be free.

I hope she’s out there, somewhere.
I hope she’s running with her feet bare,
Freely, without a ******* care.

_____________

No one ever told me it would get so lonely.
That there would be no one home, waiting to hold me.
Is there another way? Can someone please show me?
I look like I’m swimming, but I’m drowning, homie.

No one ever said that everything is a lie,
That wars should be waged without asking how or why,
That we all live in a corporate-sponsored pig-sty,
Where protesting nets you a Colombian necktie.

No one ever mentioned the predatory interests,
Nor the dimension of mandatory contingents;
Never thought I would hear of “peace-keeping” armies,
Nor of these deceitful, political parties.

What we were told as children was very different,
Like a testimony that’s too inconsistent.
I remember hearing about true liberty,
That the world aims to eliminate poverty.

We weren’t taught to understand, digest and think;
We follow the invisible hand to the brink.
We did hear that anyone who works hard, gets there;
Then why are we starving whilst working our bones bare?

No one ever prepared us for this **** right here.
No warning about how life hits like Everclear.
At least, now I know how ****** we are.
Drinks are on me; let’s **** up the bar.

Ħadna buzz.
Fawra tespandi.
Jien u int.

*     *     *
(in English)

We had fun.
Steam, growing in size.
You and me.

The bitterness of hate and disappointment.
The hollowness of state appointments,
The shallowness of reform,
Like an anti-aging ointment.

Hidden histories, systems built on blood –
Forbidden mysteries, bodies of martyrs,
Unmarked graves covered in mud.
I understand, now – fully self-aware,
To talk is not enough; to do, we must dare.

No government is better than the self-governed.
Remember; the betterment of society must happen now,
Before we ruin ourselves, to be later discovered.
Remember that the rich have always been afraid;
Remember their long-standing debt that is yet to be paid.

Retribution is within reach;
Landlords, puppets and their armed thugs,
Parasites with no contributions, akin to a leech.
Warlords and their muppets, ***** profiteers,
Genocidal crimes, no restitution, just greed.

You may have killed off most of us,
But you will never **** the black flag.
You will simply make more of us,
For surrender to your ill-will is never our plan.
For every ‘example’ you make out of us,
We’ll just keep on coming back.

We are the anarchists,
The nightmare you’ve tried to bury.
Down with rich masochists,
Let righteous fury tear apart their territory!

The pen and the paper;
Like a pensieve for my memories,
So I can ponder them later.
For the thoughtful and the pensive,
For minds fraught full of traps and defences.

I pour my heart and soul into these lines,
With no goal except to make art that’s sublime.
I fiddle with rhythm with methodical precision,
I riddle your mind and meddle with it,
Like your doctor’s prescription.

All I want is for you to listen,
To digest my thoughts, to make an acquisition.
Reject it, hate it if you must,
Denigrate it, fulfil your bloodlust!

But, I implore you, do not ignore it.
Explore my mind forevermore if you wish,
Or store it for another day if you plan on giving it a miss.
Just acknowledge this:
I don’t want to be a poet who dies in obscurity.
I want to reach out now, to taste of human unity.
I don’t want to just die for what I stand for;
I want to live, so give me an encore.

The world’s first, major corporation,
Architects of the enslavement of entire nations.
Shedding blood in the name of God;
Never has there been a greater fraud.

The Catholic church in Malta has held hegemony for more than 2,000 years.
They have nurtured moral subjugation in my country,
Even though the end of their shabby, crumbling reign nears.
Like us, there were many others;
Global sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers,
Ripped apart from each other and forced to suffer.

Who knows how many brilliant minds sizzled at a stake?
Who knows how many resilient cultures fizzled away?
Eradicated, dissolved like a stain –
The house of God, built on a sacrificial altar of pain.

Hidden hands seizing lands,
Forbidden acts, thieving bands,
Bands of God-awful sacks of ****,
The kind with souls so blackened with grit,
They wouldn’t even burn in their own version of Hell,
Mostly because Satan wouldn’t want to deal with that awful smell.

I hope you’re resting well,
Living swell in the Vatican –
We are going to burn it down,
Vengeful like an enslaved African.

The white flag has been raised.
The earth lies scorched and blazed;
Medals were pinned on chests,
Testament to the best murderers,
Killers being given glory and praise.

The war is finally over.
Go home, soldier.
Pick up the hammer and the nail,
For houses have been torn down –
Bombs have fallen like rain, explosive gales.

Now, the bridges must be rebuilt;
Lost hopes must be found,
Somewhere in the debris and guilt.
POWs must be returned safe and sound,
The world must continue to spin, at a tilt.

Bridges can be rebuilt, yes,
But imagine if we tried to not burn them down, at all.
Empty cups can be refilled,
But imagine if we never dried them out, how we’d all stand tall.

If we always choose war,
We shall never know peace.
If we always even the score,
We shall sire desperate pleas.

We sing,
But nobody truly listens.

We dance,
But nobody truly sees.

We recite,
But nobody truly understands.

We paint,
But nobody truly resonates.

We write,
But nobody really reads.

We act,
And everyone applauds,
Everyone says 'that's so true,'
And everyone moves on.

The plight of the artist.
Requiescat in pace.
Beginning of humanity - 2019.

This is all I see.
The stump of a dead tree,
Murdered, in an enraged spree.
There seems to be nothing left for you or me.

What else can I do?
I make poetry to cry to,
For when there’s nothing left inside you.
All I see are backs against walls,
Hands behind heads, as liberty falls.

I don’t have a place here.
I serve no functional role.
It’s like I don’t even have a name,
It’s like death already took its toll.

Why am I like this?
Dangerous, like a snake’s hiss,
Lost, far from any kind of bliss.
An anarchist, and an artist,
Doomed, someone who history won’t miss.

Foretold to never die old,
But rather, alone and cold,
In a rash moment, probably defiantly bold.
I’d rather be so, than be bought and sold.

The wind whistled with wistful woe.
I saw my sins written in blood, on the wall;
Spilling gin like an alcoholic flood, in an empty hall.
Tortured by demons, just going at it toe-to-toe.
My faults, my bad calls –
All the catastrophic somersaults,
And all the many falls.

Sometimes, I’ll forget to eat or sleep,
To relax and unwind, fall back to a natural beat –
All I’m here to do is bring you heat,
This series of verses that echo and repeat,
The kind that take over your soul, ergo, it concedes defeat.
I chose to neglect my needs,
I smoke my ****, go berserk with this craft,
I hone my intellect like I’m scared of being daft.
Besides myself, I have nothing left.
Inept at fitting in, not even close to adept,
Stuck in red tape like I’m buried in applications I’m filling in,
Living in this world of endless theft.

This is all I’ve got,
So I give it all I’ve got.
One chance, one shot –
Taking a soldier’s stance,
Choosing a ******’s spot.
A verbal marksman,
A thousand-yard stare –
Swinging like Tarzan,
To dream is to dare.

Thing is, pretty words and tight rhymes don’t matter,
Not when you can’t fall asleep.
‘Tis a fitting curse, writing wise lines –
No matter how clever or steep,
Nothing helps with those terrors from the deep.

The heart ache I have;
I think it finally broke me.
This rat race we made;
I think it finally choked me.
I think I’m done;
Nothing can console me.

A silence, saliently insisting on its one day of reign,
Reminding you to reflect before you act,
To think beyond what you could gain.

We look back at our ancestors,
Recalcitrant in the face of the British, the French;
We praise their heroics, remember them in feasts,
Yet still, we are divided, brawling like beasts.

Against the oppressor, we stood united;
A colonised nation, struggling for identity.
Master-less we finally became, celebrating independence;
Yet now, we have subverted to sadist deference.

Men in sharp suits and their slimy, convincing faces;
They like to think they hold all the aces,
That they can and will divide and conquer all of the planet’s open spaces.
They tell us what to think, what to feel, what to do, what to vote,
They’ll tell you when to swim or when to sink,
When to squeal and how to heal,
What is true when you don’t have a clue,
And what to quote when you want to sound profound.
They are snivelling, Rolex-wielding, aftershave-wearing ******* with an arrogant bearing,
And they have no issues with asking you about why the *******’re glaring.

So, I suppose, today there's not much choice;
There is a snarling wolf on one hand,
And an angry bear on the other.
When your choice is that bad,
Why should you even bother?

'By any means necessary', Malcolm X would say.
There seems to be no solution,
Excepting a call for armed revolution.
Anarchists and troublemakers, unite;
Time to take down the state,
Like cutting the line to a kite.

Seems wrong, feels right;
Feels like longing, seems like it’s alright.
Like it’s alright to ignore sentiment,
Despite my heart being set alight,
Intensely bright, incandescent.

Rationality, grounded in reality –
In opposition,
Spirituality, grounded in alacrity.
When these two are bound together,
We drift through life peacefully, light as a feather.
When these two oppose each other,
Then we must compose ourselves, or otherwise suffer.

There is so much our two eyes cannot see;
It’s the third one that really sets you free.
When internal conflict arises,
When infernal flames contract your irises,
Know that on the inside,
Deep in your heart, where you cannot hide,
Know that you know what’s right.

It might seem irrational,
It might feel insane;
It might be unfashionable,
It might even sound lame –
Your decision is only limited by you,
The perspective which is your frame.

Listen to your heart’s hidden chambers;
Turn its volume up, like your annoying neighbours.
Let your soul speak;
For our lives are not long,
And the future seems rather bleak.

I love how we could literally talk for hours –
Lighting a spark in each others’ hearts,
Figuratively glowing like meteor showers.
I love singing that one song with you;
You know the one,
The one we sang in the rain,
The one that always rings true.

I can’t stop myself from looking at you,
Not without this twinkle of wonder in my eyes.
Certainly not without this tingle that runs along my spine,
Not without a heartbeat so loud that it sounds like thunder.
You make me smile so much, my face hurts sometimes;
You take me high to places with better climes,
Spiritual spaces, elevation by design.

The signs are all there –
Lives running on parallel lines,
With no direction, no need to know where.
Unburdened, beautiful, loving care,
Sensations unheard of,
Dutifully calming like someone stroking your hair,
Hearts laid out to each other like we’ve got a spare.

I love how grateful we are for each other’s presence.
The word ‘hateful’ doesn’t even exist here,
It’s almost like you make me forget its essence.
Every second is a learning opportunity,
And you’ve helped me learn so many lessons already –
Maybe we should call our hang-outs ‘life sessions’.

I love how even a hug carries so much weight,
Momentous in its significance,
Enough to make my heart flutter like I’m late for a date.
I’m going to miss you so much when you leave.
Thank you for reminding me how to wear my heart on my sleeve.

I hope wherever you are,
Whatever you’ve done,
Know that I’m sorry I wasn’t the right one.
We almost killed each other,
Became hateful, when we were once lovers.

I don’t want to write this,
I don’t want you to read it;
Part of me still feels you don’t deserve it,
Yet here it is –
I’m sorry for making my issues yours,
For the forest’s worth of used tissues,
For the days of unrest, weeping on the floor.

I hope you’re happy,
Because I know you weren’t.
It was apparent and evident, I chose not to see it;
Selfish needs and the wrong words acted as intermediates,
I wasn’t really there, I shouldn’t have been.
I was recovering, and I was still weak and lean.
Silently uttering, when all I wanted was to scream.

Maybe one day we’ll forgive one another,
Until then, I think you know who this is.
I was passing by and I just wrote this,
Sorry for the bother.

* * *

This is not an attempt to rekindle a catastrophe,
This is quite simply an overdue apology.
I’m not accepting all the blame, either;
Excepting the shame I felt for letting you get into my head,
I have become stronger and wiser,
And I wish to use this wisdom to make the world brighter.

I’m in your street because I’m publishing a book,
Or at least trying to;
Not that poetry ever meant that much to you.
But, it has brought me and my thoughts here again,
To the times where our fights were not a matter of if,
But when.

I have found it very hard to love again;
After ‘You’, anxiety killed me, made me upend,
Upend everything, a bevvy of sick feelings,
Memories of every time we had each other begging and kneeling.
I’m still in the process of healing,
This is my way of doing that,
Coping and healing.
I hope you found yours.

_______________

Held back, with a knack for spectacle,
A need to be, specifically, to be beheld.
A paradoxical existence –
An oxymoronic persistence,
An urge to merge unsuppressed emotion with the notion of defensive insistence.

There ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, indeed;
I paint these scenes with fine lines in my mind’s eye’s canvas,
The thought of you floats through like the haze of cannabis,
You are the source of that which I seek, thou art the seed.

I attempt to gaze deeply, as I love to do,
Yet I cannot do so unfazed, it is a price I pay steeply,
For sadness overwhelms me, leaving me blue.
Instead, I cast myself in a lifetime of debauchery,
Each and every night hoping it’ll be the one that does one in,
That one night it’ll be too much, too out of the ordinary.

Forgive me for making promises I can’t keep –
I guess I am a grown man when I can no longer weep,
When tears have dried out a long time ago,
When pain sears memories that died like an ember’s last glow.

I want to be able to just be inactive emotionally,
To respect boundaries reflective of love that is felt platonically.
I am capable of doing that just about as much as a bull is able to tip-toe around a china shop.

Stricken-down, struggling and stranded,
Dealt a hand that was quite underhanded.
I am done with never settling down,
Always having to run –
I am standing my ground stubbornly,
I am a storm of sounds,
Discourteously curmudgeonly.

I will not accept defeat -
I feel naught except the beat,
The rhythm, the flow, the show –
The hurt dissipates as I let go.
On these two feet,
I fight the finite, finicky, fraudulent conmen of deceit.
It’ll serve you right when you get roasted by the roaring heat,
When mother death cometh with hungry babes at her ****.

Stranded or at ease, it doesn’t matter,
Landed like a breeze, serving poetry on a platter.
I’ve been feeling like my time is really up,
Like there’s the ceiling and all I can do is get numb.
That, or just ******* wander off and die;
Just like that, with no explanation as to how or why.

I can’t go on like this, I can’t blow off life’s bliss.
Thing is, if I knew I was going to die and live on somewhere else,
I can’t even think of what I’d actually miss.

Smitten by her charms,
Driven by a desire to have her in my arms.
Here I am again, with a paper and a pen -
My thoughts are devouring each other,
Like walking into a crazed lions' den.

I don't know what else to do;
I have been wrong before,
I have been left wanting more -
But, I can't deny there's something true,
Something real and deep,
Beyond trivial, the stuff of dreams.

I wake up, and I see an imprint of that gorgeous face,
That bright smile that could illuminate the darkness of space.
It's killing me, knowing that this is not happening.
I'm willing to move on, I know I have to,
Yet I am too busy reeling from this crash landing,
From realising that all I want is to hug you,
And hold on for dear life.

I am yearning for you,
But life has deemed I must not;
Our journeys must take us where we are due,
And evidently, what I want is not what I got.
I wish I could explain this urgency -
It feels like a need greater than myself,
Like the call for help in a national emergency.
My thoughts call out for respite,
Yet you override them like an insurgency.

Please, don't get me wrong;
I don't want to stifle a spirit that's so free, so strong.
Just know that should I ever set foot in your sanctuary,
I will leave offerings and heap up blessings,
I will be there, even in the bitter cold of January.

I just wish you felt this as fully and fiercely,
I wish we were just dancing with destiny,
That our lives found a way to intertwine truly and sincerely.
But,
I guess they won't.

I am so ******* done.
I am now a loaded gun,
So you’d better ******* run.
I am hateful, like a forsaken son,
I am spiteful, like the blazing sun.

An appetite for self-destruction,
Akin to handling dynamite without any instructions.
The chaotic disorder that runs amok,
The scavenging hoarder pillaging dead schmucks.
This language is those dark corners left unilluminated by love,
A savage from unknown lands coming over the ridge,
That unsated, insane impulse that turns push into shove.

Throbbing veins and demonic thoughts,
Sobbing dames and manic frauds.
Your mental kingdom, your palace of peace –
It all falls apart, piece-by-piece.
Hate is like a saboteur, sneaking in,
It robs life of its grandeur, sinking its teeth in.

Rhythm just doesn’t happen,
You feel stricken, like you’re borderline bed-ridden,
Feeling as used as a ***** napkin.
You see hate in every pair of dead eyes,
In every new set of ******* lies,
Whenever another inner child dies,
Whenever another bomb-dropping jet flies.

We have two languages, in this life –
The language of love, and the language of hate.
Which one do you want to speak?
Which realm do you seek?
Choose wisely;
Mistakes are not taken very kindly.

PART III: THE LOCKED DOOR

The straw that broke the camel’s back.
The lethal blow that made his resilience crack.
Think, analyse the commensurate reaction to his fate;
Paralysed and desperate, in his own words.

‘Asphyxiated’ seems like such a clean word;
‘He died of asphyxiation,’ that’s what the articles wrote.
What about dying of starvation? Let me elaborate on this note –
I meant, dying from being starved of hope.
I hardly think one ‘asphyxiating’ does this justice.
How about ‘a sense of debilitating hopelessness’, instead?
Or maybe ‘hopelessness that feels like all-encompassing dread?’

Because that’s what all of Gaza feels right now.
How? How the **** did we get here?
Year after year, Palestinians die and suffer.
Fear after fear, they come alive, one after the other.
‘We’re dead, already’ –
How does reading something like that not make you feel unsteady?

So, what do you do after suffering like that?
Nothing, except for lying down flat on your bed,
Crying, watching everybody around you dying.
And then, when you can’t cry anymore,
When you realise your entire country was treated like an eye sore,
When you can’t take it anymore,
That’s when you lock the ******* door.
That’s when Asma broke through that door,
To find her prodigal son dead, collapsed on the floor.