My rooted feet are caked in blood brown mud
yet my head gazes upon the wonders of the rainbow sky,
I offer up my prayers with thorny crowned palms
and wait as the seasons savagely storm those who have died,
The years of hate have arrived all very calm,
Behind them lie the gliding galleons of well oiled gold.

O hear my pain of wingless hope,
Gales blast me,
Hail crushes,
Tears deeply drawn from the depths of a dead headstone
are soon licked dry by the Sun’s passionate caresses,
My land burns and drowns in War’s choking smoke.

Red as the early song of dawn’s new dew
is my dream this music of black swans bleeding chants of healing,
My petals shiver and away they float leaving me bare and exposed,
Here I am then, pure as the day I was recklessly seeded,
My life balanced upon the kiss of a crushed nightingale’s hopes,
Hearts of diamond stones my graveyard beyond yonder due.

Where be the desire of Valentine which once tore into St. Sebastian
upon the scorched red Roman rust behind the Coliseum’s hated gates?
No rose dares grow there,
Trojan Cassandra looked to the sightless fates
and see how mercilessly they dealt her,
My roots forever ****** to be fertilized upon coffined carcasses.



©Rangzeb Hussain