Poetry – Page 3 – Hargeisa Literary Magazine

Poems, Untitled

Harboured & caged in darkling slums /

Trickled in squall and besieged by gulls /

Decaying away whilst hid from ritzy predators ready to prey and spray /

Romancing with trouble keeping one double in the huddle /

Hover in society tryna be supple /

A lost boy with a lost soul,

Rove around for 13 summers & it felt like I’d always been on parole,

Harboured & caged in darkling slums,

Trickled in squall and besieged by gulls,

Decaying away whilst hid from ritzy predators ready to prey and spray,

Romancing with trouble keeping one double in the huddle,

Hover in society tryna be supple.

Cries from the past still lurking in my memories,

My extremities,

Surrounded by pain yet my mind is in a state of reverie.

They say we are oppressed,

Stopping us from practicing our faith—Why do we need your consent,

Segregating us from society until we are condensed,

Or more like diminished,

Chain us down and disintegrate our image.

FARDOSA SULEIMAN (Photographer) is nineteen years old and from San Jose, California. She began taking photographs one year ago.

Instagram: @fvrdosa
Twitter: @fvrdosa

MOHAMED AWIL (Author) writes from London. He explains, “Normally, all poems recount a story. For me, my poems tell the story of my life, and recount whatever the moment brings. Once in a while that story is miserable, and here and there it is a happy one, however it is a story in any case. A considerable amount of the time, my stories are either something that has happened to me, or to somebody I know.”

Instagram: @scatteredscrawls

The Essence of Home

I wait to be recognised by the land that chewed them up and spit them out /

into cold black seas and winter nights in Heidelberg–

Kismaayo. The humid heat of day time slumber–

Mannheim. The birth of a child /

I look around and see the faces of those who saw their people slain.

I feel as though a snake’s skin shrouds me,

I can’t wait until it sheds,

paper thin flakes of sentiment depart,

I left it behind on the table of a house long forgotten,

Aqal Somali they call it,

I yearn for a life I’ve never known and will never know,

Yearn for the touch of tongues of my own blood,

Yearn for the understanding of a generation once removed,

Removed from home as they were,

by the sound of bullets and by festering, untreatable wounds within.

Even though they are the survivors,

The war,

it rings within my own ears sometimes,

Like the sound of endless waves lapping softly at feet crusted with salt water.

When I see faces of my own,

I wait a beat, a second beat, a third beat and a fourth,

I wait for souls of shrouded skin

blowing in

like east African sand.

I wait to be recognised by the land that chewed them up and spit them out

into cold black seas and winter nights in Heidelberg–

Kismaayo. The humid heat of day time slumber–

Mannheim. The birth of a child,

I look around and see the faces of those who saw their people slain.

Saw them impaled on walls of iron, blood crusted on mosque walls,

like abstract art.

The smell of betrayal, of rotting entrails, starvation, of emigration–

The sound of a dial tone brings me back,

It all went straight to voicemail.

ASHA NOOH (Photographer) is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She captures spaces around her with a focus on Landscape Photography in her hometown and other cities. She uses photography as a way to escape the busy day and to express herself. She is working on expanding her craft into film and graphic design.

HODO DARWISH (Writer) is a 20-year-old Economics student. She is a poetry enthusiast who aims to address topics such as displacement, diaspora, and equality within her writing. In fact, her inspiration for poetry stems from her late grandfather Cabdullahi Muuse, a renowned poet within the Somali community. She aims to one day reside in Somalia and make a lasting impact through working with NGO’s and locals to empower and equip the next generation of leaders with the necessary tools to rebuild their home.

Instagram: @cmysoulx

Rites of Escapism

There’s something so fascinating about bathroom lights at night, while ancient frankincense is burning, like soothing air, finding its way back home

The way spacious mood lifts life in stars closer to you; after a long relaxing bath

You feel empowered again

Hidden in this sacred space

A bit of self-love won’t hurt your selfless character

Escaping

Forever escaping

Reshaping your innermost precious

The inner child you lost in May

Is forever escaping

Slowly floating

Lending warm hands to our ghosts

Like when you try to juggle my planets in a game of laadhuu

I will cut my hands!

For I am the thief of my reality

Forever escaping

At least for now

To a temporal place

Not here

Where the birth of nicknames and tag-names come alive between tower blocks

For every roadman there’s a roadmap, reviving ancestral remembrance

I see

Young men on road

These roads don’t need man

Brother with a brother

Brother against a brother

Brother who forgot his brother

The smell of today is raging feet and ambiguous flavours

Flooded voices

A spring of screeching tones

Plunder a way in, right through dawn

Put on your specs and see the young that live difficult; and live not to look back

The vulnerable likes of

Weezy’s

Chipman’s, Inspecta’z

and

Creepa’z

The former

Abdi’s, Mahamoud’s and Khadar’s and more Abdi’s

run home like light bearing in hand, igniting pain in their environments

I’m tired of names that are lost above names, lost in translation, lost in the lanes of shotta’s, knife crime, gang-breeding and lowlife dhaqan celis-potters; they’re dreamers in the end!

Don’t judge before guidance

Invite silence sometimes

Pass mountains

Nostalgic gardens

What a tragic romance

Cul-de-sac

Tender conversations that mould into toxic subjects

We end up laughing about

Regretful years
Sliding
My tears are forever escaping
Going back
I remember the 90’s
When it was cool to have Tupac and Backstreet Boys posters in your bedroom
Now these walls are empty
And thoughts are vivid
Screaming more confusion
When my hands can’t spread their wings
Stiff, stuttering, suffering in stillness
Hoping for our shadows to speak our songs
Time flies, faithfully
Eyes swollen
Damp creases
Plastic water
I fear for the day that we won’t be able to leave our fossils for our children
Will our footprints be celebrated?
Somali flowers are kept for our future
Let us be
Our journeys
Until our names are remembered
And be open for the process of continuous pain, for it is unsealed like dragging a corpse with your teeth
Escape!
“Show me the way to go home”
“Show me the way to go home”
I woke up from a bad dream, folklore galore
I’m tired and I want to lay my mind at my feet
In uneven tension
What is perfection without the confidence of our imperfections
Be your hero today
If it must
We don’t know what’s next
Be your own decision maker
When the words of today make war between your native language and your diasporic/ given language
What would you save first?
Me against yesterday
I hope tomorrow will change
I hope tomorrow will be brave
I’m forever escaping, my child
Like sujood on rose petals
Pristine visions
Prisms of jewels
Invading giant spirits
Welcoming serenity
A safe shade for history and beyond, like herders in green loafers
You are meant to run for love
But if you can’t change it from a deeper self
Don’t change it all
I am forever escaping
My words burst for a thirsty spirit
So write to escape
Live to find, a brand new you

AHMED MAGARE (AUTHOR & ARTIST) is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and writer and is a member of Birmingham-based international writers group, Writers Without Borders. He is originally from Somalia. He migrated with his family to the Netherlands during the Somali civil war, aged three. He lived with his family in the Netherlands for most of his teenage life and eventually decided to move to England to pursue his further education in creative arts. In his writing, he explores the notion of hyper-dislocation and the experience of living in the West, through the poetic and static lenses of self-reflection and perseverance. He navigates mentally between Somalia and living in the West, questioning the state of longing, belonging, and comments on sociopolitical and cultural subjects inhabiting the space of global Somalis.

Find Ahmed’s books on Amazon: When Heroes Hide Behind Curtain Ropes, and Vessels.

Eve

Listen, Dear:
Do not trust Anyone
Who doesn’t take your
Hand and say;

“Here! Look, it breaks me, too.

I‘m here for women.
I’m here for the women.
I’m here for the women like me.

I’m here for the woman who is me.

Listen, Dear:
Do not trust Anyone
Who doesn’t take your
Hand and say;

“Here! Look, it breaks me, too.
Here! Look, I have scars, too.
Here! Look, I pray it away, too.
Here! Look, I cry to sleep, too.
Here! Look, I survive it. too.”

FARDOSA SULEIMAN (Photographer) is nineteen years old and from San Jose, California. She began taking photographs only one year ago.

Instagram: @fvrdosa
Twitter: @fvrdosa

ZAMZAM AHMED (Author) hails from Borama, and is a 25-year old university graduate with a degree in Business Administration. Zamzam is an aspiring writer/poetess who discovered her passion for writing in 2014 when she first came across a spoken word video on Facebook. Poetry became a canvas on which she expresses herself artistically. She hopes to become a well known poetess in the near future.

Instagram: @zxapoetry

This Poem is Hard to Hold

My good love is gold /

Hope that’s enough shine for ya /

Hope you can snap your heart to this feeling

I tell you from within

What words my tongue can’t release

My good love is gold

Hope that’s enough shine for ya

Hope you can snap your heart to this feeling

This healing, for a moment in time

AHMED MAGARE (Author & Artist) is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and writer and is a member of Birmingham-based international writers group, Writers Without Borders. He is originally from Somalia. He migrated with his family to the Netherlands during the Somali civil war, aged three. He lived with his family in the Netherlands for most of his teenage life and eventually decided to move to England to pursue his further education in creative arts. In his writing, he explores the notion of hyper-dislocation and the experience of living in the West, through the poetic and static lenses of self-reflection and perseverance. He navigates mentally between Somalia and living in the West, questioning the state of longing, belonging, and comments on sociopolitical and cultural subjects inhabiting the space of global Somalis.

Find Ahmed’s books on Amazon: When Heroes Hide Behind Curtain Ropes, and Vessels.

Twitter: @ahmedmagare