Tag: diaspora

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 Submission 17

1.

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.

2.

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

Rites of Escapism

Rites of escapism02
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.