I first opened my eyes

my mouth 

my palms

deep, deep

in a barley field

I wear a crown of thorns

like the demise

of a thought that is at an end

beginning another 

and another

How pitch-darkness 

leads us

to kindle 

fire after fire

to endure the loneliness

madness is a cultural relapse 

whether my name 

is an anagram

or a nom de plume

I must put it on the scale

Yet the roads still

transit the city 

straight

as they travel through 

the channel of anxiety

*

Vessels of hope fraught 

with my youthful dreams

Approximate the shores of despair

making an unhappy landfall

*

The day has no sky to gaze upon.

Loneliness sits on my chest.

My labour is a locked granary.

I learnt about hunger and pain 

in my cradle,

as I learnt to treat my wounds          

before I could smile. 

My shadow drifts over

the crowds at Nelson’s column.

I feed the birds

stationed on the bronze lions

with foreign words,

chain my shouts to a pulpit.

Between 

now and then

Between

things lived or not

I am going

nowhere.

*

I took with me the rain and snow

An avalanche under my arm

Wearing somber face

On my passport

I spoke in the language 

Of aspirations

But the signet I had

The sign of freedom to enter

Foggy London weather

Disappeared into my eyes

*

The ship docked to seek

The words in disguise

My tongue tied against

The train of questionings

Unhearable voices ask

Refuge for my dreams

Has fate abandoned me? 

*

The aircraft lands

On its feet

The sound of alien words

Travel with me

Stillness in the air

Brings forth 

And devises borrowed lives

In an underground train

Railtracks cut thru

Moonlights over me

Lamenting darkness

In a tormenting state

Faces assemble

Before my own

Salute me 

With political correctness

Death is far and far

But visits briefly

I bury my kin

Into my bosom

I am an item

In multi-dreams

Infused

By the Western discourses

First, I displayed splitable

Mind then thoughts

Immersed in a life

In a newly found land

I am baptised with

A new psyche

The house of fear 

Hit at dawn

By hailing stones

My shout for protection

Not worthy of police records

*

i sat on a broken chair

emptied my soul

filled, signed a paper 

and with invisible guilt

took their oath

my dream of returning

one day

died in Regent’s Park

i took refuge in a rose garden 

where i found myself, clueless

i filled out endless job applications

received endless rejection slips 

returned with countless poems 

the labour exchange office

taking care to remind me of my place


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