Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Part of an invisible unit ambush
a refugee camp on unmarked streets.
On television a flame glows.
A slow train clicks on a far off track
as my name is scratched on the wall
of a cell. The world is charged.
Some local newscaster tells us
Today we are tearing ourselves apart.
Those aren’t the words she uses.
Watch her eyes. In this lost world
I take my cue from the city’s silence.
The Nile flows quietly by.
Gunmen surround my house.
The mob gather in their greatness,
tearing doors off their hinges,
searching for permits. The hour
is about four. In the stillness
that comes before dawn, I ooze
like oil into the darkness.
Alone at last, but not intentionally
dressed as a hawker, there is a city
inside me, in a space filled
with the rest of my life.
My city is a burning flame.
There is no word for this uniform
that once belonged to someone else.
I am my father’s crop breathing dark elements.
Words move the needle. Once with my own silence
I coaxed the Narus River from its bed, waiting
in the folds of a night for a moment in time.
Waiting seven years for the grandeur of God.
Waiting for the good light that brings
all things into blossom. Waiting to leave.