Music doesn’t belong to me
It never has
I thought I’d discovered it

Well, actually I did
It’s just that others
Had gotten there before me

I wanted it to be mine
Because
It made me feel
Special
Resplendent
Alone but
Less so

So many dead musicians
So many unborn
So many much better than I

It’s ok

Because I
Discovered music

"Lie beneath the galaxy in a cathedral silence,
Stay up till the Sun dives behind arid eminence."

Out there in the seething cold sun,
The glint blinding all that I could see,
Light headed, drowsy for a lack of air,
Disconnected from all that to me dear,
And disconcerted of all that came prior,
Or was about to ensue..
.
I found myself ✓

from the sun-dappled emerald green plains
to the mountainous tides of the deep blue,
i will search for a dream settled in the history of our time.

my dream clouds will sit atop the north
like pillows placed on a bed
too materialistic to sleep on and too minimalistic to dream about.

caged?

Vadym Komarov, June 20th, 2019 - ******

hold me down.
i can see the story fluttering in the light,
but they do not let me out.

they keep me caged like a siberian tigress
bound to the melting frosted forests
our planeted body had provided for her.

they keep me caged.

whirlpool

a step in the sandy dunes of the Sahara has me dry.
the only thing i inhale is silence and sand.
the grainy ridges seen in the distance slowly weather,
until they are nothing but quicksand whirlpools.
as i fall into one, i can only think, “let me out of here”.

it holds me down.

Obed Nangbatna, May 25th, 2019 - Crossfire

spotlight

Lyra Mckee, April 18th, 2019 - Crossfire

in which the moon dances with the sun in a waltz.
even dancing with the moon,
the sun sprays its spotlight on the earth.

what is that?

it shoots its rays on a portion of our world.
look, there it is,
dancing amongst the skyscrapers,
galloping among the spray of bodies.
i wonder if i should follow it.

Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela, January 16th, 2019

i follow the spotlight.

birthed

troy gave me my name.
the civilizations of Ilium,
the villages of Rhodope Mountains,
the flat plained city of Thessaloniki.

i want to run from them.
i can’t, so i run to them.

i find something.

crossfire

point blank guns are zeroed in on me
earthquakes rumble under my feet
as i stumble ahead.

refugees,
immigrants,

Leonardo Gabriel Hernández, March 17th, 2019 - ******

i guess we’re all the same.

Mojamed Ben Khalifa, January 19th, 2019 - Crossfire

monarchs,
Norma Sarabia Garduza, June 11th, 2019 - ******
tyrants,
Francisco Romero Díaz, May 16th, 2019 - ******
presidents,

different shades of governing bodies which diverge from our own political awareness

saints and sinners alike,
it doesn’t matter how much your soul is tainted.
we are all sainted souls that have sinned.

it just depends on whose part you play in the crossfire.

Amjad Hassan Balkir, June 18th, 2019 - Crossfire

tear

we live in ignorant bubbles,
cages of sort.
they are never ending
chasms of expectations and anxieties
our minds have conjured because of our complexities.
they prevent us from catching our stories, attaining our dreams.

i’ve fallen into whirlpools, followed my spotlight, retraced my birth, and plunged into a crossfire trying to escape my bubble.

i’ve followed my dream,
Jamal Kashoggi, October 2, 2018 - Dismembered
now will you follow yours?

housekeeping

i will make my bed,
fluff the pillows that were once
filled with my aspirations.
the pillows, now flat, vacant enough
to let new dreams puff them back up.

i make sure to leave the comforter untucked,
so the next dreamer can slide in easily,
slide into a place that once  sustained my adventures and stories.
i leave it untucked, leave the lights dim, and leave the door ajar.

i do not ever enter again.
A star-lit ballad plays for the dreamers who pursued their dream to the very end.

I have found paradise in the midst of this pandemic.

In the midst of this chaos and atrocity.
I found a sliver of peace amidst the catastrophy
from the taunting void that stares back at me.
I sit watching, looking out, from the inside to the great grey beyond.
Out into the world I used to know.

And I say.

I found paradise in the midst of a pandemic.

At the precipice of all that I am and all that I will be.
Satisfied at the greatest awe, the fluidness of reality
Willing myself to take the leap
Into the yawning hole of life
I am unshackled.
I am untainted.
I am at peace.
And though around there is fire
And though I feel its flames trailing my leg
It's sweet warm caress.
I do not feel the pain.
The heat inviting.
I am unshackled.
I am untainted.
I am at peace.

I found paradise in the midst of a pandemic.



I found me.

Mind is
homeless
when has
no
purpose.

goodbye, my soul

I'll see you again
when I stop lying
to myself

when the reflection
in my mirror
looks beautiful to me

when I am kinder
to myself

and when I finally
stop writing poems
like this

They say that scale can break the laws of science
A crime so high in magnitude
Yet they cannot police
This bully that reality turns out to be

We met by means of tunneling improbabilities
The kiss of a miracle
Punishing the God complex
Of the self-righteous
Because the real laws, unknowable,
Dwell in realms higher than dogmatic notion
Whose knowledge is the surface of an ocean

Hence judgement cannot be
Wrought by the swimmers
And their fear of mortality
That guides them through the waves
And so their laws are the transgression

And We
Are the justice of the storm