Ravishingly beautiful
On top of that
God-fearing and cool!
What do I care
Electrified and petrified
Unable to resist her pull
At a loss how
My senses to pool
Up on catching her sight,
A wind-beaten leaf,
Shaking all over
I prove a fool?

Though to lead
WHO chosen,
My moral frozen,
Perpetrators of genocide
And fratricide
From my ethnic side
I have to  support
Abusing my
Diplomatic power
In a bid
They continue to use
On Ethiopians
Political cyanide.

I have to seek
From Egypt
Heavy weapons support
Oblivious tomorrow
My likes and I
Will appear before
The international criminal court.

There are people
When you treat
Them polite
Who become rude
To all forms of
Decorum ****.

To your  relief
And delight
When you treat
Them rude
They become polite.

A girl friend

You used to relish
Proving my-fullfield wish!

A wife**

You prove furious
And adamant
Unless you control
Every which of
My act!

S/he who is coerced
To move with
A straitjacket
Above the dead
And below the living
Is whose fate.

A horse dragging
A cart
Unable
A genuine message
To impart
In fact
No better than
A doormat
Unloading words
With a servile pen
On a bread-winner journalist
Inflicts a harrowing pain.

In the political arena
Playacting one's
Ethnic group's vanguard
Head to toe  they
Indulge in corruption grand
Spawning many of
Their brand
Eager to seize
Every advantage off hand.

Though I’m
Less attractive
As I’m not a fool
I set criteria
My wife to be
Ravishingly beautiful.

Though I have
A wandering eye
Cast yours
On lothario’s why?

Though my
Achilles’ heel
Is infidelity
I demand from you
Unflagging loyalty.

Though
The breadwinner
Is I
To juggle
Two or more jobs
Try not you why?
Of course
Forget not to tackle
Domestic chores.

Though I come home
When peep stars bright
Get home when
Days cede place to night!

Though I’m spendthrift
I expect you
To prepare a dish
I relish.

Though I don’t know
My son’s grade
I’m afraid
Help him out with
Assignments you have
Before he
Goes to bed.

Though I’m
Growing grotesque
And old
Why don’t you
Exercise care
Your beauty to
Maintain or hold?

Though I’m peevish
Fix in your mind
You must not
Pay me in kind.

Though I’m
To you
Less respectful
And rude
To whatever I say
Be crude.

Though I’m dictatorial
And prefer to use
The stick
This habit of mine
Get not sick.

Though I’m
In love making weak
Contentment elsewhere
Do not try to seek.
Though I’m
Willing with you
On marital avenue
Long to walk
Shun we must
On the complication
A hard talk.

Though I’m
A grown up
Pamper me
As a newly born
Its mother
That has to worn.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.


ሕልሞችህን ወድር

ሕልሞችህን ወድር
አሊያ ሕልሞች ከገቡ መቃብር፣
ሕይወትን ምን ለየው
ከእርገብ ለመብረር
ክንፏ እነዳለ ስብር!

ሕልሞቸህን ወድር
አሊያ ያም ይሔም ሕልም ከሔደ
ሕይወትን ምን ለየው ከምድረበዳ
በበረዶ ከተቖራመደ! ////

He showed a cold shoulder
To a dove,
Who was yearning
For a genuine love,
To chase a bat,
A spoiled brat.

A bird of a broad daylight
He bartered with
A pitch dark night's rat!

After it is too late
For a second chance
Towards his transformed lover
He made advance,
Indifferent
She looked him askance!

Observing a man
Walloping his cat,
For mewing without respite,
Gripped by fright
A dog kept quite,
In a pitch-dark night
When a thief
Heading the gate past
Stole into a hut!"

Read this tale to me my aunt
When I was
On the wrong side of an infant,
To hit home" Never bury the fact !"

With a dump eye
I condoned the walloping
Of colleagues
Who asked
"Injustice and ill treatment why?"

Anon, my turn turned up
And I suffered a deadly slap!

Bubbling up
From my memories back
The meaning of the tale
I heard four decades back
Appeared to me stark
When I suffered
A similar meaningless
Power exercising attack!



My Novel 'Hope from the Debris of Hopelessness'

    Paperback
    Publisher: Noah Books (October 14, 2017)
    Language: English
    ISBN-10: 194811707X
    ISBN-13: 978-1948117074

A pitch dark night
Will be overcome
By a broad day light,
Seeds below
The earth that lie,
Soon open
A thankful eye
To the heavenly father
In the sky!
Then why? Why?
Should you and I
Allow our ambition
Wilt and die,
See our dreams fly by,
When say
A Hurdle
Block our way!
We must never admit
When a dead end
We hit,
There is no
Getting round it!
We should know
When God shuts the door
He will open the window!
Hard we have to fight
To hit a target heartfelt,
The sky is the limit
Let's go for it!

Lately,while I was
Scouring the internet
A shock I felt
Up on learning
A tragic news
A google-found friend
Of mine
On the western end of
My continent
But for a while
We experienced
A disconnect
To my grief
Had turned brief.

What a depriving blow
What a depriving blow
To poetry fans
That missed
Words of wisdom
From his mind that flow.
Life, love,
Hope and salvation packed
Musical words that praise God
In a style and manner untold.

No reader fails to wonder
In figurative speeches
He is a past master.

No doubt
As his time and energy
Were devoted to
Praising the Lord
In a paradise
A special place
He will hold.

He is survived by
His wife, two children
And his book
"The Revelation of Love"
That will babble
Generations' brook
By surprise
Traditional publishers
As it took .

I did notice
When he wrote pupils' poem
Savory, unerringly it used to
Hit home.

When I chose and asked him
To write a blurb for
"Ouroboros" my book
He did it in a manner
Supper fit for sales hook.

-->Envoy

A gifted poet has to be
In a hurry
Before a profound wisdom
And skill
Along with
His/her dead body
People burry.

Those who had been
Killing heartlessly,
Their back to the wall
Are now forced to fall!

Those who had been
Adamant to peace talk,
Vanquished, are
Beseeching for one
Seeking help round which
Revolves the Sun!

Those who had been
Burning many
A church,
As a last ditch effort                                                           ­                                                  Beneath it,
For a fort
Are on the search.

Those who had been
Unwilling people's demand
To heed
For people's  rescuing help
Are in terrible need.

Those who had been
Sowing terror
Are now subject to horror!

Immediately after I
Fetched my salary
From a Bank
When I get drunk
Getting into a bar,
From my home not far,
No longer subject
To my inhibition
I become bold
To make an
Open breast of my love
To my inaccessible dove,
For on such state
I become easily capable
My financial challenges
And physical appearance
Anxieties to dissolve.

I crunch her number
Getting no answer
"U R Z best Chick
On earth! "
I SMS her
But go not any further.
It is early in the morning
I ask myself
"What possibly could
Be her feeling! "

Also into a bar
When I make
A divine entrance
To rub shoulders
With colleagues
I stand a chance
Or above them
On the ladder of success
A bit advance.

Also when at night
When I see
Pub's dazzling light
My timidity
No longer in place
Myself assertiveness
Proceeds apace!

Also I bet
Alcohol, dunker's pet
To tension management
Has some effect.

On the morrow
It is when I get
Out of pocket
My spendthrift bent
I regret.

Aside from my health
Going downhill,
I am becoming
Incapable to foot
Electric and water bill.

Tipsy, at times
Blunt, for a fight
I begin to hunt.///

Though keeping the necessary distance
I often retreat
Miss reading my sagacious move
Signs of inferiority or defeat,
Upstarts begin going out of their way
On me damages to inflict!

Nudging me out of
My shell
They adore
Turning my life a hell!

If made to have
An axe to grind
Rubbing with nails
A social scar
Left behind,
Ethnic groups
Itching to go for
One another’s throat
Hard may not be
To find.

With the aim to gain
Cheap popularity
By using impish trick
Employing scare tactic
To hack social fabric
Phony politicians
Exhume the hatchet
Among ethnic groups
To blow
Previous petty clashes
Out of proportion
From the groups’
Time-old Chemistry
And the Chemistry’s
Good side
Deflecting attention.

“Dislodge that
Ethnic group
From its abode,
Which must fall
In our fold.
Burn others’
Houses and churches
Forget the
Fear of God
Demographic engineering
Is instrumental
In ethnic cleansing.
We must do that
With a single swoop
If it is our wont
To win in our region
A majority vote.

Wipe out
Ethnic group
Any other
Than ous
None is better.”

“Population boom,
Coupled with
Resource depletion,
Could court our
Race’s extinction
This justifies
Others’  extermination.
Even those
That palisaded
With bone and blood
The nation
And to hand it down
To this generation
Who cared
Must not  be spared.

External support
We could get
From those
For various advantages
More than willing
Revolution  to export.”

"Shall we conclude
To Auschwitz
We must allude?"//

When smiles
From my teeth
You often scan,
Do not  conclusion jump
Posses my heart you can
The former is for all
But the latter
For one!

When birds on nearby
Big olive trees
A mellifluous music make,
Cognizant time for daybreak
I often used to get awake.
They always chirp
To say
“ Get up what is your plan
For today?”

Tragically, after
People recklessly
Felled down trees
Concrete jungles
To advance
I have missed for
The alarming bell
A chance.

A vicious cycle of drought
Makes the harvest naught.
Food insecurity
Has become
Some countries’ identity.
Rivers,which used to gallop,
Ebbing out, that trend
Has stopped.

Unlike in the past,
Walking without umbrella
No sane person can
For h/she will be
Victimized by the sun.

Nature, which
We used to bully,
Has become
Unruly !

Alas , unless one puts on
A glass
The reflection from a nearby
Tower’s environment -
not-friendly window
Could cast on one’s iris
A shadow.

In the past
Summer was summer
While winter winter
But now has taken their places
Gray matter.

The air was salubrious
But now it has said” Adieus!”////

Though graying
Head and brow,
He developed not
Gray matter
To every one's sorrow!

Mom and dad
Me if  you adore
Kiss me not
Till COVID-19
Is no more!

GERD has started
To hold water
Though Egypt's
Phony politicians
Were making
Many a chatter
That doesn't
Hold water.

At long last Ethiopia
Is set free,
Shaking of spokes,
Its developmental take off
To decree.

To conflict-exporting
Egypt's divisive wedge
And conspiracy
Ethiopians no more
Give ear
Cherishing a prosperity
Journey dear.

In tackling
A mammoth project
Ethiopia on its feet
That stood
Demonstrated
With no need to aid
From the
Double-standard exercising
IMF & World Bank --
All along
Its ambitious way
Against that stood
To Egypt
Showing  favoritism
And brotherhood--
When closing ranks for
A just cause  stand tall
The shunned could.

In the fight for
Freedom Ethiopia  was
A beacon light to Africa
Whose rays
Did stretch to Jamaica.

Repeats itself history
GERD is reminiscent of,
Adwa's victory.

What separates you from the pack,
No man crosses paths without
A second snapshot turning back.

What separates you from the pack,
No man sets eye on you
Not subject to cupid’s arrow an attack.

What separates you from the pack
No man sits across
Without dropping jaws
Cherishing your face, smiles
That doesn’t  lack.

What separates you from the pack
When you walk
No man is blind
To you attire liquefying knack.

What separates you from the pack
You prove
An embodiment of beauty
Even if, offhand ,
You put on clothes
Made out of a sack. ///

I felt
The angel of death had drawn neigh
Me untimely to hug
With COVID-19 positive tag
When a nurse and a police
Ventured to a quarantine me to drag.

Regretfully, the leniency "No!
The pandemic me will not mark
To me, there and then, became stark."

After I underwent
A gruesome psychological  and
Languishing physical moment
Estranged from my dear children
And loving wife
Health professionals, backed by
A responsible government
And  doting society,
Nursed me back to life.

"Cling to life
As blooms yellow loosestrife.
Our health is fine
Soon the same will be true with thine!"
Was what I read from the eyes of
The recuperated,
Allowed to leave the quarantine.
To me such clicks brought to light
On the channel's end
The presence of rays bright.

So as the recuperated
My advice
Is "Pay not unnecessary price!
True to
'Prevention  is better than cure!'
In Covid-19' era
Reckless endangerment
Must not you lure!"

I was grappling with
Electromagnetic wave
Grasping the gist
In my memory to save,
You rammed it home
With your even
Snow white teeth
What is more
Electron-dislodging
Rays emitted towards I
From radiating eye(s)
Like a missile
My soul
To launch to the sky.

Closed to many girls
Was my heart
Yet, you threw it open
With little effort
Barrier *******
Is a cup of tea for
Quantum mechanics expert,
A physics lab
That makes
Its subject's heart

A fallen tree
Suffer too much axe.

When one experience
A fall from grace
In the grueling life's race
When golden days are gone
Anon, many are quick
To throw stone!

He took his wife
A punching bag
He is at liberty to hug
Or to blow up steam
By her hairs to drag.

As it may sound sad
He opted to project
A façade
A doting husband
With noting bad.

Vocal when she became  
About this to his parents
Who she called
Mom and dad
"We do not expect
Our well brought up
Son with
Something underhand!"

"We are afraid
The complaint is not
Plausible as he has
A cool head!" they said.

One cold morning
Verbally abused by
Her spouse
His mother sought
To take a refuge
In their house.

"Mom, your son,for lunch
Will be back soon.

To prepare for you
A special dish
Which you will relish
The neighborhood market
I will scour
It may not take me an hour.

Feel at home
Putting on this blanket
On the sofa take a rest."

After a sleepless night
And in her head and
Outside a fog
It didn't take his mother long
To sleep like a log.

Her son came back soon.
Instead of saying
"Wake up my dear wife
Good afternoon!"
He kicked her
In a manner
That allowed his mom
See his true color.
A galvanometer needle
She got on her feet
"My sanctimonious
Dear son
Is that the way
Your better half
You greet!"
Petrified he stood
No where  to retreat.

I spent the day
In a bad mood
With no hap stance
I could count good.

But at sunset
Miraculously I witnessed
The sun rose on my sky,
While crossing paths,
Object of my sight love,
Saw you closer I.

Aggression to reverse
Soldiers from ethnic group diverse
Marched to the front
To heroically confront
Mayhem, death-toll, terror
What not
Ill luck on its wake
Has brought.
Gallantly they fought
And the bellicose they taught,
As their wont
Disturb they could not
The territorial integrity of
An ancient nation
For its unity
That has been
Commanding attention.

Widows, orphans
And the bereaved lamented
On what them befell—on earth
Aggressors’-created hell.

A malleable generation
By political gamblers
Made blind to
Nation’s history
How sovereignty is maintained
By an all-out citizens’
Blood, bone, flesh, heart
And soil chemistry,
Sees the significance of
Nation’s unity
A mystery.

When the sun shines
One could make hay
But not on a rainy day,
“Let us unite
During rainy day
But when it is
A sunshine,
This ethnic enclave
And the benefit
That accrues there of
Solely belongs to
My likes and mine
Rest assured here
There is nothing thine!”
“We and they” mentality
And politics is what
This generation define!”

What if aggressors come back
With bitter lessons from
Previous experience
On their backpack
Could that for the deluded
Make the value of peace stark?
Our fate will be
True to the speech
“Unless we hung up together
We shall be hanged separately!”
Because enemies
Could put us asunder./////