By my Father's Grave

Sand dunes on my father's tombstone

if i die today

will my head bleed 

will i be crippled by a volley of bullets

will two trucks crush me in between them

will a woman poison me

will i fall off the trust towers?

I heard a cockroach scream

a shrill voice

so loud that

the Niger kept silent

If my heart beats

then it beats the drums

of an army crippled by a woman's love

If i belonged to one race

then my skin would've been even...

i am the son of men;

men who conquered and ruled...

men whose names are engraved

on the tombstone of history...

I am impatient

i am like the Niger

that flows from the heart of my fatherland

i am like the wind

that gathers dunes on the Sahara

The thought of my father

brings a subtle burst of nostalgia...

when he came home from work

when he held me in his arms

when i saw him breath his last

when i saw my grandfather shrouding his body with white linen

i have never seen my father's grave

but they say he's dead

they say his last words were ''my children...''

they say he loved my mother so much

and she has remained single since his demise

she dreams of him when she sleeps on their bed

so she spent years sleeping on a couch

Footsteps through my father's heart

through the memories

engraved in my mother's eyes

They say i sit like him

they say i eat like him

they say he is my father

but nobody showed me his tombstone

They told me the path to his grave is bushy and dangerous

but i am his son...

i could risk my life just to kneel by his grave to pray and cry

for Allah's mercy on him...

I stand on the fields my father saw

if i could stand by his grave

and feel the earth that envelops him

then i could be the man he was

I write from the graveyard of my thoughts

there is solitude

there is silence

but there lies life beyond the unseen

By my father's grave

the Quran in my right hand

the quest for jannat is endless

an endless tunnel that stretches so far...

so distant that only faith can bring the needed light...

If i could live by my father's grave :'(

a thousand feet

Let’s take a ride,

Let’s take a walk across a field,

But let’s water the farm

And plough a field.

Let’s wake up and look into life;

The deep wells scattered on the Sahara.

Let’s look into the faces

And make faces

At the faces that feign their emotions.

Let’s smile at the ones that don’t understand why;

Why grass should be green and why weed must be dry,

Why the sky is blue and why the clouds move,

Why I’m writing this and why you are reading this...

There are two answers to every question;

Even this one?

Distance is a word that encompasses a billion miles.

Let a thousand feet walk home, to my home!

Let each tongue hold a word each from the depth of the explanation of the word love.

And tell my Mother that I love her in a thousand words.

Let the thousand feet greet my Brothers

With the remnants of the message to my mother.

And if a tear should fall,

Let it be sent to my Love and let them tell her that;

“He loved you this much”

For even if all the beautiful maidens of Fouta Djallon were placed at the feet of my heart

I would still search for her face in the crowd.

For all the scholars in Timbuktu,

All the shrines in Igboland,

And even the Masai priests

Can’t explain my words...

For the feet that marched to topple

The Libyan leader

Like the feet that are marching

To tame the Lion of Syria

As the world dries the tears of the Rohingya Muslims

With dust...

May Allah build mansions for the martyrs 

With the rubbles that crushed them.

Deep is the well that can quench

The thirst of the Sahara

Sometimes love isn’t enough

But I ask;

What can ever be enough?

Four legs make up a chair

And the man short of a leg is still a man.

There is so little

That could have been so much.

The castles we build with our minds

Remain in our minds

Those transient minute thoughts

Remain at the base of my cup of tea...

Let’s eat more sugar

More salt, more oil and more pepper...

Less vegetables and fruits

Doctors are hypocrites...

I have a question for the eyes that read this

A question that has a thousand answers;

If you had a thousand feet where would you walk to?

 

   

Allah is One...

A world behind

Is it me?

Or memories obstructing?

I see it

But the picture behind

But the colours I’m blind to.

Me has a companion

But I is lonely

It is I then Me.

I never walk

But destinations embrace.

My Rabb is beyond greatness.

My thoughts cling unto the rope

So every deviation is noticed

I speak but ponder over the former

It’s all in five

But made in six

Remember Ar-Rahman

Then in seven

Above and below

We are arranged.

For the end isn’t Qiyama

But when you see the first angel

Then the two and you the third,

Till Qiyama when assembled in three:

Those nearest,

Then the right and the left.

Just ten were promised

But we believe then hope

For Allah’s promise is true.

The beginning was odd.

So is the end.

Allah is one...



written on the 25th of May, 2010.

That Smile...

Me

Through the still waters of the Ankobra

Through the rushing ambience of the Weija lake

Through the colours of the streaming wind

Through the impossible...

I will be your Adomi bridge

I will stand through the rain

And through the lip cracking alabata

For you I will let the heaviest truckload of Sisala charcoal pass over me

I will be the bridge of our hearts...

A stockpile of red bricks

Bags of Dangote cement

Banku to please the community behind my belly button

I will build a red wall around me

So my thoughts will dwell on you only

I will kiss your feet

And caress your hair

I will place my ear on your tummy

To hear the rumble of the brawl beneath

I will kiss your forehead

Just to see you smile

A mile through the sand dunes of Amasaman

A dive into the abandoned stone quarries of Bulemin

A leisure dip into the Korle lagoon

Fishing in the stomach of my hungry cat

For you I will milk all the cattle in the Fouta Djallon

And make you a river of sweetness...

I am meaningless without you...

Even if I lived at Nima

And commuted via the rusty CMB-Mamobi buses

You would still love me

I know because I see it in your eyes

So when I make it to my Trassaco home

It will be you and you in my range rover

And me in your heart...

I know little of you

As I can’t tell how many strands of hair you have

But I will know you

Something tells me no matter how far you go

You will come back home and find me

Smiling...my arms open...

Then in matrimony

I will have my first kiss again

GITMO, MY HEART BLEEDS

This poem is dedicated to all the muslim prisoners of war across the globe...from gitmo to abu ghraib to every single secret prison for muslims on the surface of this earth...

Beginnings are hard.

The grain germinates,

Words are heard.

By allah’s qudrat

That delicate plumule

Sneaks out of the hard cover.

Each breath is hope,

As each pain is expiation,

We foresee and smile.

If it takes miles

We will walk

Though our toes may fall off

If borders stop us,

If cages surround us,

Allah is enough for the patient...

We will smile

But hide our tears

As enemies boast.

We walk.

As allah’s promise

Rushes to embrace the deserving.

If cages surround

And borders stop,

We will wait...

Alhamdulilah!

Death is our victory

And to them a loss

Though you cry,

Smile.

The reason is close...

No matter how hard

They try

They cannot change allah’s will.

Sit but walk

Cry..., and smile

As this dunia belongs to the one you bow down to...

                                            

                                       27^th jumada al awal, 1431

                                           (11^th may, 2010)

DINNER WITH THE DEAD

I want to forget about the thousands of leaves that have fallen.  My years are reminiscent of the past I dread. I have just two seconds to live and I don’t know how to explain how it feels. I think I was born too soon, I grew up too fast, my mind refused to think like my age mates.

Can I ever forget the death of my father? I was five but my mind replays everything to me; the voices, the frustration, the screams, the tears...then death. The look in my older brother’s eyes, he was eight. The tears in my kid brother’s eyes, he was three. My mother. Before I die someone should please show me my father’s tombstone, his grave... I’ve never set my eyes on it, never.

I grew fond of my grandfather. The evening before he died I was with him then I left, so did his soul the following morning. I remember sitting in his porch crying, I had turned ten three days earlier. Could I wake up from the dream? Could I tell myself that I will see my grandfather again and drink tea with him as we used to do whilst the sun set, eat his leftovers, watch him perform his prayers, go for eid prayers with him, ...the warmth of his smile. I didn’t know I will ever stand by his grave with tears in my eyes.

My grandmother was full of energy. I used to say she will live to see my children. The night I stood by her hospital bed watching her breath heavily was a mike Tyson punch in my face. As everyone recited the kalimah I stood watching my sweet grandmother fade away. I felt she wouldn’t live through the night. I went out to the car park with my cousin. When we got back up, the elevator door opened and we saw everyone down in tears. I cried because I had observed that the dead never came back. I miss her insults, her love for sprite because she drank it on her flight to Saudi Arabia, her tendency to give, the way she laughed... all I get are tears in my eyes when those memories evade my thoughts. I was sixteen.

I have been awake for way too long. The wind is fading through time. With these two ambling seconds I’m lost. Should I spend it in a mosque glorifying my Lord or I should spend it on the fading pleasures of this world? It’s dark and the fly has nowhere else to perch than on my screen. Do I kill it or do I watch it feel at home. I will be six feet down soon. The heat, the solitude, the stench...who will be my friend? I thought as much, I have no friends amongst you but I’m sure my good deeds will be company enough. Would you then call me a bad friend if I spend more time on good deeds than on you? Whoever is willing to be buried alive with me in that pit is my true friend. My good deeds are willing to follow my corpse alive. A promise you can’t make even for all the wealth in the world.

My vegetable garden at the graveyard, the cartons of meat I kept at the mortuary, the red wine cellar at the hospital’s blood bank. I’m alive! But I’m dead. I’m only twenty but I have just two seconds to live. Who is ready to be buried alive with my corpse in two seconds? Who will dine with me?