we ate government cheese
that came in a dull brown box
we were too young
to understand what welfare
and food stamps meant,
our empty bellies never protested
at the salty orange blocks

in front of the bodega,
we saw a woman introduce a hammer
to a drunk tyrant’s skull
his blood pooling on the streets
was too red for new eyes

we watched hypodermic needles
bloom on stoops
cling to life on curbs
the graffiti on abandoned buildings
was our Louvre, our Salon de Paris
sweltering streets our baseball diamonds
prostitutes, black or brown or both
mothered us between shifts

we grew up in projects,
that sheltered drab lives
and senseless brutalities
gunfire, sharp and immutable
punctured lullabies

we were small boys
watching life unfold
the way one stares at an accident
detached and mildly curious
eyeing cooly the despair
and impossible hopelessness
of growing up poor
in Brooklyn

Set aside the formalities                      
Put behind your brutalities                    
Forget about the finalities                      
Throw away all moralities
Come hide from your realities
Forgive me for my irrationalities
I plea not for practicalities
I know of the abnormalities
Do you know of the totalities
Just listen to the modalities

It's becoming a lethality

i am a tree
i am an observer
i do not speak
i listen and listen
and wait patiently
for something to witness
as i stand still silently

i see
war and
**** and
****** and
suicide and
all brutalities,
caused by
human nature

but i see
love and
joy and
character and
movement and
all endless possibilities,
caused by
human nature

i do not have a voice
i cannot move
i can only grow
higher and higher
closer to the sun,
i can only change
the colours of my leaves
to aware others
of new seasons

i provide oxygen
for all these infinite beings
and i do not know
how many years i will
be rooted here
as an insignificant
on-looker

His :

i make my travel
reseeding you
                my dear heart
                      into a compact unit of storage

i relieve from our nesting comfort
dismiss our established downey base of cooperation
                                   cleave from our snared compromise

instead to bed and thieve an unshared atmosphere
guilty joy followed by joyful normality
no stale thing

unravelling light
  lifted
(secure
  that I've a capsule world
  when i turn
  toward our lap again)

goodbye of you i am mended
made completely free
                    on the first turn of a corner


& Hers :

you leave me
      on your travels (you-were-my-travels)
you leave me susceptible
my heart alters to become
       a weak permeable tissue of easy tamper
       membership structure is dissolved
         returned to the vital spill
           welcome fluent contamination
               villainess and godless vibration
                  of the goddess confession

dress hooked up past my waist
i'll power-**** away my morality on day one
each day following shall be made easy
  ushered along in brutalities slip steam
                        and the prom of eddies

back in time i've been working on something..
       i'll call it The ****** List
criminal joys and tasks of double self daring
committed
     (not folded over
       or veloped in the knicker drawer)
           it operates as a basking lurk
                               tucked discreetly
                                 correct behind the eye
                      a charm feature of the unconscious
when released
   it's something melkish and larking with energy
   tacking harm to my activated mischief
      kinetic value and uncontrollable spur

in your absence
     i am permissionless
abyssless
i account for nothing

nooks of the apartment
the memory of us quickly forms a ***** coral
i've stopped washing to suit this mode
my body, a journal of stains and earned bruises
i holla and bay at mementoes of our brace
and then stop at the near point of the neighbours tolerance

time has crushed in on its own thesis
become gummy and tenseless
skipping about in haphazard spasms
  backstep, bow and reversal
     now
          observably organic in motion
           and proud of its many personalities

Oh, You're Back Again !
    no, it is your ghost
is it a spy ? ... i doubt you knew you even had it
it threads in and out of my company
seeming baffled and far from its comfort zone
did i put you there ?
i don't call you
the physical you
because you said 'no phones'
              and 'only in emergencies' (is-this-urgent ?)
Is This Urgent ?!
i restrict where i live in here
     keep the windows widowed and veiled
it makes for an unreal canvas
i'm weeding for a correction
sensual precarious highs
violate
in a spate
with this time alone
i'll make our home a vile space
a defication
and i can make no sense assessment of it any
i fight against digestion within these premises
i stay still long enough i am softened and palped
            by a dense atmosphere and salivations of contact
and outside..

the streets are exhausted
and i've quite the nasty reputation
violence, baiting and thievery
inebriation and toxic language
i shall soon be policed
no doubt i've lost my job
for now our place is a dare for vandals
             when i am an insensible heap
                 and perspiring over you in delirium
                    they devalue the exterior

unearthing
i'll find my creative sprite
that is good
i had missed it
now this is urgent (this-is-mine-was-always)
i take up a notebook and puke it full
i take sticks in my mitt and scrawl my charcoal visions
the blood visions
   the primal mud
  on all our walls

can i piece back our home by your return ?
can I sufficiently correct the blurring history I've smutted ?
do i care to ?
no more fading into 'partner'
lease is up
you'll not find me here destroyed
or waiting
    naked but an apron with my hands cupped and mouth open
i'll have ravelled myself up tight
- having stoked my inhuman malady -
     i'll mate my own travels

                                                        ­             - aborted

Neanderthal thoughts,
Grasp hardened, knuckles release,
Brutalities mist.

Animal Wind God
Births Earthquakes and Snowflakes
Wolf Water God
Smells of Blood
Falls from Heights
Rises from Depths
Pain is Given
         and Taken
Without guilt
Look!
Nature has come to be the way it is
Beauties and Brutalities pile upon each other like Piglets
Absurd God Unashamed God Raw Rough Pawed God
Sky God Slug God Star God Seed God
Pure Instinct of a Beating Heart God

Humans Strange with our love and hate,
                                       Our good and evil,
                                       Our doubt and hope,
                                       Our questions,
                                       One of which being:

If there is a Creator, is it Reflected,
                                           Found,
                                           Manifested
                                                      ­         in its Creations?

Poison Arrow Frog God

YOUR FATHER IS DEAD
And yet you will not let that dead man rest his dry bones
In the dirt, in the grave where he belongs.

YOUR FATHER HAS BEEN GONE THREE YEARS
And yet you speak of him like he sits up north still
In his cabin, smoking his wretched lungs to flame.

YOUR FATHER WAS ABUSIVE
And yet despite every beating, every ****** attempt
In your mind he was the greatest man to ever live.

YOUR FATHER DOESN'T DESERVE YOUR LOVE
And yet even though he never told you what you wanted to hear,
In your head you make up his words: "I love you."

YOUR FATHER ****** YOU UP
And yet you tell me about the lessons he taught you like a saint;
In your life you repeat his brutalities, his learning legacy.

YOUR FATHER LIVES IN YOU
And yet you are blind to his quirks you repeat, that
In your daughter you have made a new you:

Blind, quivering, trapped, choking on tears
She is everything you were and you try to make her
Everything you wished you were
But in your repression, your denial --
When you cling to his grave and the things you made up about him
Like a leech, like a disease, like a haunting,
You let him live again in you.

And he was not a good man.
He was a hurtful man.
A proud man.
A bad man.
A killer of your precious, finite vitality.

And just like he destroyed you,
You will destroy her.

It occurred to me,
suddenly (as I
watched his face
in sleeping sunlight)
that he was a thing
of soft flesh and
warm blood
and not of  
cold deductions
and brutalities

Adam, how doth thou get misled? Lost thy head to the snakes spiteful pleasures?eternally weathered!

Congenial I feel for thou, blindsided by poisonous virtue, as eve thou hast followed her nudely confirmations!

Cyanide lands thou hast brought us, death hath thou cost us, and enemies thou hast made along the way!

With god that is..

Thou were born unto bliss, and made a slithering cuticle between the slip skipped rocks..

Born amongst the loss of all thou hast taken! Was thy tree of life not good enough greedy taker?

Misfortune seems plainer when it's thy name they shout!!Thou shark made a trout, Now ethnic only to beasts who have fallen!

Didn't thou hear thy calling?

Brutalities beast!!!

Thou had a feast and turned it into darkness, thy secrets have been revealed by that fruit that thou plopped!

Plundered? Forgot, for the dragon made a home out of thou.
Gamashes thou Now needs, doth thou wear tattoos for sleeves?

Now that clothes thou must adjust?

Insurrection thou doth bow to!
Adam and eve a rotting stew!!!

When I wake up
Every day
And I wake up late
The day is
Full of promises
The sunshine
Pours in
And I carry out
My routine
Happy, assured

Dusk arrives
I am done with
My chores
And I sit down
To watch television

Why is it that
The end to the day
Is so
Disheartening?

Brutalities
Are what I am
Able to
Carry to my
Bed
At night

O God
Make the nights
Beautiful again...!

Tis a life of many agonies
Filled with constant tragedies
Subject to such brutalities
And reaching our capacities
We seek some new realities
Then flee into our fantasies
To avoid our own mortalities

To the news
I paid attention to you, I searched for a few answers
for a few seconds
and you taught me a couple of things
there are brutalities, and their are downsides to perfectly cleaned sinks
you told me should and you recommended rulers
I paid attention and then I closed the window
I paid attention to the pictures and read the headlines but didn't actually read the headlong
to the news
I confess, I'm sorry I did this
the problem is I'm prejudiced, and grumpy
and I'm convinced that you aren't going to teach me something I don't already know
then I exited your window
Sorry about that,
Seany

I went numb for a while, 'cause it was easier than all the questions
and all the depression. But I also think maybe I was numb before that,
probably a little more each day since I lost a bit of myself, and then I lost a lot more.
Life is just too much to let it all in, you know? How is one young soul supposed to absorb it all?
I think we shut it all out and we get selfish, because it is one hundred million times easier to focus on our own silly little problems than to think of those that suffer horrendous crimes, families who starve, or even to think of the brutalities animals face so we can have a dinner we prefer.
What about the lonely people?
How could you live a carefree life if you let in the thought of how many people you've hurt, or how those few hurt you? God, no.
Why would you? It'd be torture. You let that go, even if it takes a while.

But what if you can't? What if it turns out, you aren't like the rest? What if all the sadnesses and tragedies keep you up at night? What if you're 19 and you're pretty sure life is eventually going to be so ******* much that it will inevitably crush you? What if you are scared to death that you operate so differently than other humans, that you won't make the cut?

What if you're shaking and crying in bed at 11:58 pm, after a day of putting in all the effort to act normal
and you are burying yourself in music praying to fall asleep before it all really hits you
and it occurs to you that empathy and worry and fear is going to drive you six feet under?

What will happen?

Screams, screeches, groans and wails,
Brutalities, agonies, torture, and blood,
Tear Gases, pallet guns, bullets and bombs
Humanity sobs, world is falling apart

Kids are blinded
Men are jailed
Women are molested
The old are tortured

Luckily, you have food
Billions are starving
You have a warm blanket
Trillions live under the frigid sky

Dreams are murdered
Voices are  unheard
Wishes are being blurred
Every heart has become graveyard

Sweet melodies step down as Sighs take over the throne
Rainbow of Joy is washed by the deluge of tears
Soul of humanity becomes a pray of endless wild Forest of Wars
Even the Sun refuses to rise above the Plumb, snowy mountains

Yet you say world is beautiful??
For you are at peace….
Come out of your palace
You will see….
Sky painting itself red!
Butterflies renouncing their dreams
Birds with trimmed wings
Blood oceans, barren trees, burnt houses,
Teared eyes, and shattered bodies

Earth is ugly
Earth is savage
Earth is a cage
Earth is a jinxed place
                  (Paghunda Zahid)

It occurred to me,
suddenly (as I
watched his face
in sleeping sunlight)
that he was a thing
of soft flesh and
warm blood
and not of  
cold deductions
and brutalities

Let the marginal tillers, handicrafters usher in prosperity
For life of labour and self-esteem sufficiency is worth living
Let the least and the lowest be granted affirmative action
For the good of an individual is in the good of all sections
Let us together structure mindsets, free of social evils
Showing extreme resilience against wrongdoings
Let us empower the exploited, weakest and oppressed
Let us eliminate hunger, brutalities and violence
Let the poorest ride on with humblest integrity
Let us all discard egocentrism and be sensitive
Let us savour the essence of hard produced fruits of labour
Let us groom faith and trusteeship in their abilities
Let us close the lid of past sufferings and hardships
Everyone will shine through integrated development
Sarvodaya shall welcome Universal Upliftment...

I look here, I look there

trying to compare

between two places

One once was a home

and the other refuses to be one.

One is surrounded by visible and invisible high walls

and many brutalities.

The other isolates me with strict laws and policies.

Every night, I sleep hoping for a morning with a refuge.

During my sleep, sweet dreams cross my mind,

but they are faced with ugly nightmares.  

It’s complex.

I wake up from my nightmares,

and the two places are the same.

One is isolated,

and the other isolates me,

I try to find my refuge though.



Mohammed Arafat

14-04-2020

Sometimes,
I wish
Time would just
S T O P
For a second,
For an eternity or two,
So I could make this moment
Of fragile perfection,
S T R E T CH
Just a bit longer,

Before the brutalities
Of life and space
Come crashing back in,
Stomping on our delicate
Silent symphony.

Oh, for but a moment.