I once ripped the petals off a flower.
At home,
I tried to rearrange them,
but something
was amiss.

I made a stem and leaves for it out of paper
I glued it onto a green cardboard,
carefully arranging the petals around
a yellow circle representing the anther.

But the flower was no more.
Ripped and ravished
it lay in the street.

When some man tells you
that you don’t’ belong here
and that you
should go back to where
you came from.

Go!

Take your soul back to Africa,
to Palestinian paradise.
Take it as far
back as
possible!

Go!
and call
upon your ancestral
Goddesses.

Call upon Dhat-Badan,
who is the wild goat,
sure-footedly roaming
craggy territory.
Who, in the middle
of the desert
of disdain
helps you find
an oasis
of respect.

Call upon Lilith,
who read
the devil’s face,
and walked away from him.
Same as she did
from
abandoned Adam,
who was ignorant towards
the devil’s dangers.

Call upon Oya,
whose natural passions,
curse up a storm
That makes men’s world
shake.
Who takes up her
sickle of truth
and cuts off
all rotten crops of corruption.

Take the upper hand,
trust your feet
and dance upon rainbows after a storm!
For that’s
where you
belong!

The ink has dried, so has the crimson stain,
Been washed away, where he lay on the floor.
The poet’s dead, but beat and flow remain.

The flood of bills, he tried to pay in vain.
What else to do than knock on *******’s door?
The ink dried up, so has the crimson stain,

Upon his hand, which has caused so much pain
To rivals, addicts, family, many more
The poet’s dead, but beat and flow remain.

Free goes the officer, by whom he has been slain
No dope, no weapons on that day he bore,
And yet he’s dead, though beat and flow remain.

Forever over is our hood king’s reign,
But he left bars and verses, hoodlums’ lore.
The ink has dried, so has the crimson stain.

His songs forever linger in my brain
As does that bang, that shook me to the core.
The ink has dried, so has the crimson stain
The poet’s dead, but beat and flow remain.

Bananas
are such
sweet pieces
of fruit.
They are lean
and bend
to the weather.
But too soon, they wither
away.
Brown spots
upon their skin
soon turn
into dark spots
inside their vulnrable flesh.

I prefer
to be
an apple.
Round and shiny,
crunchy skin,
and sometimes sour.
But robust
and resistant
to rain.
Brown spots,
after a fall,
are simply
cut out
of their juicy, fresh flesh.

A string of strong
leather
torn off a dead animal’s bones,
holes punched into tender
skin at regular
intervals.
Holding my pants
in position
squeezing and quenching
my guts filled with
sedatives and hardship.
Holding on to hopes,
holding strong, holding on.
Will it hold my entire weight
when …