For the Anniversary of My Death
Every year without knowing it
I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
— W. S. MERWIN
that moment when the snow is gone
but the world is still colourless
just brown grass
grey sky
black branches
like the planet is a charcoal drawing
waiting for someone to start adding green again
Poetry from the archive: posted on ig on 16 August 2022
Transcript/alt text:
a steady rumble
vibrating through every wall
sleepless nights, terror.
—learn to live with it
I had a vision when you rolled down the windows. I saw open hallways, red oaked and fresh, held open as if by bejeweled fishing line. I felt the prickle of new bleach on the nape of my neck with sun blanching my bedsheets, every door swept cavernous with laughter. I smelled misstirred alfredo, crisping underneath our invented recipes as we wait for a timer that never comes. There was no need for key rings like handcuffs, for doorways like rubbered tombs. I don’t want our flower girl to shake drops of Lysol off her fingers down this aisle, peddling herself corrosives instead of petals. I want flour. I want salted butter. I want dyed fingernails and latte teeth. I want to wake up in the room next to you and know that we are both watching the same movie play out: easels made of salvaged wood, doorways marked by careless movement. Air spinning through our home like a fish lure, skipping across water into a rainbow with giant eyes, unblinking.
Doors as distant as the clock’s unwinding, as open as wildflowers, and as wide as our palms climbing off whatever cross we were told to carry.
my fingers are dipping into a shared sunset like country yolks, a screen sopping me up. The roads between us twist like a copperhead bed. this city has Paul Bunyan shoulders of metal, wires constricting their bodies to tug-of-war slices of sky. All the alluvium outlets are ouroboros. The highways never unwind into each other.
But when I heard your lilt in the cormorants, felt your palms on me through murals and graffiti alike. when mossed lilypads, slick and sunny, brought my fingers back to your mire. when I saw the way the city’s river rounded its pillowed curves over the reeded silt, the salt spilling into itself, fresh water muddying body mind and soul, I missed your estuary self.
sometimes i feel like i would recognize you anywhere
not by your face
but by the way the air changes around you
Poetry from the archive: posted on ig on 13 August 2022
Transcript/alt text:
pretty blue-sky day
a ride through the countryside
we’re taking our time
-lazy afternoon
CHALLENGE: DEAR CREATIVE PEOPLE, WRITE A POEM BASED ON THE GIVEN IMAGE.
Image :
Mine :
I fell into the depths of beauty.
I fell from misery.
I fell from love,
I fell from God,
and I felt like a dove.
I let myself finally be free
from all the cages and merchants
that once bounded me from falling.
I was scared of falling,
and I still fell.
Finally, I fell
and I couldn’t stop falling
again and again.
I let myself fall
till I sleep
where once, I rested.
From a womb I fell from
to a womb I’m falling into.
Oh how I love falling……
( Image and challenge taken from Instagram )
CHALLENGE : DEAR CREATIVE PEOPLE, WRITE A POEM BASED ON THE GIVEN IMAGE.
Mine ;
I looked up to her window,
every night from the shadows.
Darkness engulfed me
Into it’s course.
But she?
She glowed like moon,
her light warmed my heart.
Even in my imagination
she was so vivid,
I couldn’t tell her apart
from a dream.
I feel bliss and bless
looking up to her,
but how may my love feel?
Looking down at me
At my darkness,
how ruined I am……
Maybe the love story
of dark and light
can only be witnessed
on the heavenly realm sky
and not on this mortal land……
What a scam it is… to think that they will care,
maybe after we leave, so we don’t leave, we don’t give up on life and its little stupid things.
But, they don’t. They kill us every single day, with their behavior, words, actions.
People! Ah people! And life! Ah life!
It’s the little stupid things in life that kill us. And it’s the little stupid things in life that carry us.
Sadia Hakim
Poetry from the archive: posted on ig on 8 August 2022
Transcript/alt text:
you once dared to laugh;
now, you just gasp in horror
as it all goes dark.
—peep the horror
ehyeh asher ehyeh
The bush does alight with a vengeance to speak to man once more
And tell him not to do the things that He does abhor
As He once spoke to moses
Hollered in His might
For all with ears to hear and sight to see the sight
He said thusly, angrily, admonishing the man
And if you didn’t know it he said “I am who I am!”
In all His simply saying so He sought to see a seeker
And slay the serpent simply in the minds of those who’re meeker
Its all stuck stickily in these words i have thus quoth
I am who I am, and that is what He wrote
And moses knew at once The Lord Adonai spoke to him
And He spoke through him as well and then the light did dim
Once more millennia later the lord sought to dark the sky
A thousand miles away people still did wonder why
A son was born in manger, to a young girl of fourteen
For she was the one the lord did see as righteous and clean
The boy who’s born did bring about a brightening of sorts
And saw in such a sinful place an evil he could thwart
In golgotha or in calvary where people go to pray
And He died to save the sorry souls who live on earth today
Once he walked on water to the excitement of the men
And he proclaimed and John then wrote “I am who I am!”
They heard the words the lords son spoke and spread it far and wide
And sinners sought out the son no longer did they hide
They seeked him out and settled down their sinful flighty ways
And to this day his words do heal and brighten up folks days
I am no believer in any traditional sense
But ive read the word and seen the power hence
I see no light in darkened places and hear no angels choir
I’ve never sought the light of God to free me from the mire
I’ve never freed myself through god of my earthly desire
And never have i heard the voice through booming or crackling fire
But I know the lord I know him well I know him through his acts
I know that god can not be known I know it as a fact
I know many a sinister thing i know them well and true
and i know that through knowing things the things will too know you
I am who I am as well I am as god made me
They say that the lord knows all and everything he sees
They say he wants us all to live in heaven evermore
They say that the way is through adonai, through the lord
They say He’s the way the truth the life
they say that through the word of god ones spirit does take flight
I simply say such different things regarding the lord
I say that imprisonment is found inside his word
I say its taking something from all of you who have belief
I say its suspending need to want the wanting and the grief
I’ll fight forever to free myself from God’s voice inside my head
I’ll fight forever evermore until the day I’m dead
I need no seeing seeking sinfighter in my brain
I simply need to strive to free myself from all this pain
Poetry from the archive: posted on ig on 30 May 2022
Transcript/alt text:
pure mountainous white
an untouchable glory
soft—until it’s not
-cloud
Poetry from the archive: posted on ig on 27 May 2022
Transcript/alt text:
overwhelming brain;
my headspace is far too loud;
need to get it out.
—release it onto paper
Poetry from the archive: posted on ig on 22 May 2022
Transcript/alt text:
you’re in the corner
i ask you what’s on your mind.
you lie, say you’re fine.
—neither of us are fine
Poem I wrote after an anxiety attack due to accidently coming across something that really shook me up
On the road again
Up the hill,
Around the bend,
A winding road,
Without an end,
Out of breath,
Then second wind,
Now I’m back to running,
In the breeze, knees skinned.
