November 2016
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Photo credit: Aoise Tutty
Won by Fools
A man is created to live, to learn, to earn, to love, to dig, to gain, to fail, to refrain.
But what’s a man if he’s played, dumbly portrayed, deceived and enslaved
to thoughts that aren’t his
in a gambling game
that has no rules,
won by fools.
A man is not a man if he’s not able to live, to learn, to earn, to love, to dig, to gain, to fail and refrain.
Photo credit: Ismael Nieto
Identity
A little girl with a heart full of life
Crawls into this world with dreams so wild
Take my hands, I may be your light
If only I had more time as a child
The dark wings of night enfolded
Here’s my head, purge out my nightmares
They lied. Saying this life can be molded
I’m begging please, light my way with flares
I always see them passing me by
Shadows of friends looking me in the eye
With every loss a piece of my soul dies
And sour memories leave my body dry
In my country, I’m labelled ‘mad’
Locked in the asylum inside my mind
They’ve broken my soul, trust me I’m glad
I can’t feel pain even if I tried
I drowned my sorrows in the deepest of oceans
I finally began to feel
Seized the key to unlock all emotions
That I became something real
I found my purpose in the souls of others
Stitching wounds for shattered hearts
Cleansing spirits, replacing mothers
Found my identity as a new lifetime starts
Photo credit: Rachel Chisholm
Kabul and her Children
The unemployed beside the destroyed
not sure who is who
between buildings or boys.
Bullets and rubble fill dusty pakols
wool, beaten and woven
to block dirty snow’s cold.
Burqua crossed eyes, the color of sky
womens’ enigma,
both freedom and sty.
Engulfing them slow
crawling up from below
this motherful city
hiding what’s
smotherful
colorful
within silent grey mystery
looking upwards
past something
that destroyed joy
by her woe.
Purple
By Ziad Lawen
The Wizard watched as the waves stopped at the top of the mountain rock.
The clock tick tocked and the moon dropped into the silhouette of corroded crops.
The farmer farmed his farm while the butcher butched his barn.
The Durk strifed,
the Jewels priced
and
the Briticks cried at wasted pints.
The wizard watched on.
The chess pieces pranced further;
expulsion of pawns.
The King sat nested,
and Queen got bested,
while the labor pieces
labor for peace
while
the Elite defeat and retreat without ever moving their feet.
The wiz wazzed while his elephant paused.
The trunk rose high,
smashed down the mirror of water – 7 years more –
and drowned the frogs at a crumble of the immense trunk.
Lasting tears,
for many years,
spread of fear,
as the Elephant’s cheers turned to jeers.
His eyes rung up,
and with the sharp plunge of his tusk,
speared the wiz in his wiffled lung.
The wiz laughed of lust for his lips last to touch – the lips of lady trust.
The master joining the fallen jinn,
tears ran down his stubbled skin,
melting the color within.
Coloring the world,
falling from the skies finitely,
and our collective minds began to swink,
and our waters ran pink,
and foods undoed,
and air as fresh as unblossomed hair
and the whales howled,
and birds flew alone,
and the elephant’s loyalty was no longer honed.
There dwindled the wiz and his trusted steed,
“Why did you make me bleed? Reduced me to nature’s seed, a once blossomed tree?”
“Because this is not meant to be, the end is now, starting with We.”
Hurled the purple elephant.
A small mouse scurried by, and off was the purple beast, off to spread the disease, once a trusted steed, nothing more than a paradox of peace.
متاهات
الشاعرة ألاء المالكي
تراصفت الكلمات على طرف لساني
فإذا بقلمي ينطق على الورق
متغللاً داخل غلاف أفكاري
صانعا ليال يكسوها الأرق
أردت أن أوقف معصمي
فغرقت يتصببني العرق
فضحني فكتب ما يسكن في جوفي
و تركني أجول في ماض قد سبق
إلا أن أصبحت أسكن في محور ذكرياتي
داخلةً في عالمٍ عن الواقع افترق
هل أنا سجينة كتاباتي
أم أنا في حبر أوهامي أغرق
رحت أتسائل في نفسي
عن هذا الذي اخترَقْ
المعالم داخل نوافذ قلبي
وكتب على الورق ما سرَقْ
..لكن لا جواب لمن تنادي
فقط كلمات راسخة على ورق
Photo credit: Jakob Owens
Lost
By Adel Awad
“GROW UP!”
They would keep saying every time I’m leading the argument
I don’t think I can grow past 5 foot 6 even if I tried at the age of 26
but if they’ve had to scream, then one thing is for sure
I am winning.
Call it a guilty pleasure but I love that feeling of knowing that they’re wrong,
knowing that I have another opportunity for a ‘Hey, I told you so!’
As I smugly rub my facts on their faces like an unlikely messiah they would never be proud of.
“I can’t wait to get a Mustang”, I tell my brother to which he replies
“Why don’t you focus on being a better human being first?”
If burns had names, I would call that the Angelina Jolie of them all
but two things – I did get my Mustang
and I feel like a crappier human being.
Oh, what would it take for this soul to command the neurons in this brain to fire up the nerves within my spine to charge these fists to curve up against my ears and listen.
Just listen
to those who tread past me on a road I didn’t entirely choose but I’ve had to make my way through this life I don’t seem to nearly want somehow
as I drive through this highway eagerly looking for a sign.
Any sign
that can tell me which exit to take or which intersection eagerly awaits my arrival.
For all I imagine my destination to be is some sort of a ghost town
riddled with the souls of ancestors I did not know.
I wish,
I wish I could just hold those wise palms of my granddad again
and let each wrinkle tell me a story
of how he lived his life as a 26 year old,
of how he found his exit,
of how he held grandma and told her how he loved her for the very first time,
a grandma I never got to see
and even if it came to it, I would want that palm to slap this face a bit
straighten me up a little bit
let my ego take a hit and tell me to stop feeling like
Shhhh…
It all comes down to this
I ain’t no knight in shining armor,
my armor is rusty and bent as I stand in a battlefield
fighting against this cancer in my mind that just won’t let me grow up
that tells me the truth of being born as a second generation Asian immigrant in an Arab land immersed in western media.
I realize that I don’t even know what my accent is supposed to sound like
and then I’m caught in between ‘being yourself’ and ‘being different’
but in the quest of being too different I ended up losing myself.
I have begun to realize
that just like a colourless rubik’s cube
there is no point in figuring me out;
A black and white rainbow
that shines for none
and I’m forced to show you only two shades of me
leaving the rest for you to seek
so tread carefully through the spectrums of this perfectly lost soul.
I know I didn’t choose these cracks or scars
but all I can do is accept them since they are a part of my reality
and ignorance won’t ever keep the promise
of making the stains disappear,
I smear new colours over them
and dab on the canvas of the moment
to create a bigger picture.
That’s the only beauty that remains
the beauty of this abstract mess called ‘life’.
Photo credit: Kristina Kiseleva
Hollow Sorrows
I leave the other half of my bed empty,
just like the other half of my heart.
For you to lay there again,
for you to make me feel whole, and smart enough-
to know it is you who I had to leave an aching space for;
to not experience another loss,
to not feel flowers die and rot,
over and over again
in that hole in my heart.
Photo credit: Ismael Nieto
Jealousy
By Jean Teodoro
Swollen eyes,
I might have cried that much
Mind has been tired,
Running with thoughts out of doubts
Wanted to scream,
Cast these unwanted feelings
Hatred and pain,
Breaking the silence of purity
Questions in my head
Don’t know how or when to ask
Yet, not sure if I will believe
Any words that will be revealed
Selfishness,
Creating walls high enough
For others not to see, nor climb
Am I exceeding that much?
Photo credit: Daniel Burka
Silent Valley
By Biji Dominic
Silent valley is silent.
In silent valley, you can experience
the beauty of nature,
virgin green woods will inspire you.
Silent valley is silent.
In silent valley, you can hear
cacophony of birds,
in silent valley, you can see
so many rare plants and trees.
Silent valley is silent.
When you are in silent valley,
do not disturb the flying birds
and green vegetation.
Let us conserve silent valley
for the future generation.
It is a paradise on earth,
silent valley is silent.
Photo credit: Ismael Nieto
Social Judgments
By Jamil Adas
Judgments will make us monsters
Monsters that don’t want to foster
A co-existential concept
Let’s strive to try and offset
The hatred that’s in our conscience
We rise yet we are bound to falter
(Human) Nature in a minuscule nutshell
Thank you to every writer for the thought infusing poems contributed and
thank you to every passerby for reading the art of our talented poets.
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Edition IV
Edition V
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Edition IX
Edition X