poetry

Shiloh Phoenix – TCK poems

The Two Are Not Alike
by Shiloh Phoenix

In Maforay tonight
it is raining
pounding splatters on a tin roof
and the dark is warm wet barrels
full of hopeful promises
that we will plant in the garden
tomorrow

In Reading tonight
it is quiet
cracked sidewalks lining houses
and the dark is yellow paned glass
full of cautious doors
that don’t ever open for
strangers

My soul sleeps soaked
in Maforay rainy season

My body breathes blasphemous
in Reading summer heat

and i am nowhere much

{I’m disintegrated tonight, divided between places where I don’t belong.}

I’m still peeling from that sunburn
by Shiloh Phoenix

The tree today is supple and heavy
laden with the weight of too much rain
but where you are the sun is an
Egyptian god, relentless in his dominion

If I can carry this sunburn
across the Sahara skies
could I bring back my hands
cupped full of water?

Life never works the way I
want it to
and neither do you
oh Africa, with your back turned to me

Once I was yours
now I am a lost memory
swinging slowly in these trees
that are not the same at all

{and its a constant reminder that my world is small – small in the millions of miles}

Lost Souls of Africa
by Shiloh Phoenix

“it’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you”

I once had a friend
just black enough to be called
n****r by strangers in Alabama
but too white to be mistaken
for Senegalese
She left Cape Town years ago
but she’s still tasting the
warm salt of Africa’s ocean
in her dreams
and she told me
even though winters in Minnesota
are bitter cold
they never numb her longing

My brother, black as the dirt
his mother farmed her whole life,
black as the silence about his
missing father, wrote me a letter
from the psychiatric
hospital where they put him, telling me
that he feels like he is losing
his whole self in a war against himself
and he doesn’t know who he is anymore
I replied that California
is where people go to get lost
not to find themselves
Go home, my brother
you are a prince in your own land
though the doctors here have
named you psychotic

To the lost boys of Sudan
I too have watched my workplace
throw out food, and I too have done
the math of how many people
that could’ve fed, and I too have wept
for the stories I cannot tell,
the people who do not know how
to care or even understand

Two years ago I watched
a little white girl
pack up all of her things
and get on a plane to Sierra Leone
but she was too young to know
what she had gained
and what she would lose
or how mirrors never tell
enough of the story

I have never met a land
so alluring as Africa
I have never known a people
so full of yearning
as the lost souls of Africa

Today it is a cool and grey afternoon
in south-east Pennsylvania
and I am gathered with a crowd
of black boys, laughing at each other
in Swahili, wearing skinny jeans and
Nike sneakers while they pore intently
over their English homework
They are too new to know yet
how much they’ve lost
and I will not be the one to tell them

{Opening quote is from “Africa” by Toto}

Grey-Green Rain
by Shiloh Phoenix

Why would you go back
she asks
Isn’t life better here

i smile
Depends what kind of better

Financially
she nods

i shrug
I guess so
but some stuff matters more

her eyes are intent
above the rim of her mask
but i can’t think of how
to explain
the warm freedom of Africa

grey-green rain
i remember
heavy mountain humidity
mango juice sticky
palm trees bent wind
smoky night on red gravel
dust and dust and dust

ashes on the breeze
hunger boiling in pots
whispered songs
starch stiff in the schoolyard
stars enough to bathe in

hot breath sweaty
bus tilted in red mud
roosters’ indignation
choking silt water
bare feet on firm dirt

baoba fuzzy sugar
glass soda straws
ice cream wet plastic
wrinkled skin rough
hope enough to taste

she is waiting
my tongue is wet
full of colour and memories
but no words

Other poems by Shiloh Phoenix
Other TCK poems

By CulTuremiKs, ago

CavalierEternal – Immigrant Poems

[i couldn’t pick home from a lineup]
by CavalierEternal

red dirt soles
naked in afternoon sunshine

the asbestos dust
hooked to my left lung like a birth mark

knee deep in this man made lake
awkwardly wrestling a foreign first tongue

sunderland summer
by CavalierEternal

sugarloaf mountain peaks
outside our window, I will
climb her tomorrow I promise
go into town in a good shirt
you wear the new dress your
mom sent when she asked —

are you happy with her, yet?

I could have sworn you would
leave then, curse me, call old
friends, smoke two packs of
cigarettes, take the car to the
river edge where we met in
the muddy bed once.

I never said you should come
back, I folded your things in a
suit case at the door with a
note I wrote I am less than
enough to satisfy wanderlust.

you said those are my father’s
words, my mother’s curse, the
sound a door makes as it closes
is physics not proof everyone
leaves you.

i am talented at leaving
by CavalierEternal

I leave this city
with her angry barricades to you

I do not want
these humid summers
her dull sunrise doused in grey
you keep the drunken streetside arguments
for your 2 a.m. lullaby

I leave the east coast
with her tired history to you

I do not want
these hurried movements
her densely packed den of strangers
you keep the frigid winter coastlines
like a still life portrait pinned to your wall

Follow CavalierEternal on AllPoetry
Other TCK poems

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Childhood Poems

Only In Sleep
by Sara Teasdale

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten —
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild —
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?

More poems from Sara Teasdale

The Stars Are Not The Same All Across The World
by Shiloh Phoenix

My first memories include
tile floors cool beneath my feet, fans
blowing endlessly while the crickets
sang in the dark and the world was quiet.
The stars were always out, there, always
brilliant and near and crowded in the sky, like
there were too many and they couldn’t hardly fit.

I grew up there, in that place of chickens
at dawn and sheep wandering grey in the dusk
and fires blowing ashes and smoke all around
the dust of the land, the dust of the people.
We were a large group of family, brilliant and
crowded into the village, like if one more mother
gave birth to one more baby maybe we would be
too many for the space. But somehow, we learned to
condense ourselves into tangles of bodies and there
was always room for one more. Just one more.

I lived years and years of the sun rising every morning
and water sloshing new into the bucket, dredged up
from the earth with the modern miracle-gift from the
tall yellow-haired men so long ago. Our parents told us
those stories, about how the white men gave us
life from the dust, how their machines brought pure water
right here, to our village, to our home. They did not tell us
about the chains that came before that, about how it was
only right the white men come back with life to give as
payment of their debt, about how their restitution could
never make up for the generations lost. No, our parents
lived small stories in a small world and it was enough
to teach us the ways of our grandfathers.

I heard, though, from older youth, about sleeping
in the slave castles next to the ocean, tasting
the salt of the air and the leftover tears, wearing the
disintegrated chains of other grandfathers and remembering
that if we forget that history we have lost something.

But then I grew up and followed the footsteps of those
slaves to the land of their sorrow, I stepped onto that blood-soil
and tried to make it a new home. Tried to redeem it.
In this new place, the stars are faded in the sky, lost in
the vastness of electricity and development and busy.
Even if we had time to stop and look up, we would see only
the reflection of our own lives staring back at us.

Other TCK childhood poems

Dar es Salaam Delicacies

Story of a Little Girl

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Josh Gibson Media – A Different Time

Josh Gibson Media – “I think the hardest part is not the memories themselves, but it’s searching for the box of memories and realising how far under the bed it is hidden, and how far away that world has become. But Sometimes it’s important to remember, even if it hurts. It’s learning to let go, whilst not forgetting. Its learning that there was a time for that, and there is now a time for this. Holding on to the memories of a place once called home, and knowing things have changed since. And when no one else can understand, because no one else has seen. Its remembering that God understands, God has seen, he was there. He’s collected those memories, the good ones and the tough. And that…that’s more than ok, that is enough.”

Josh Gibson is a London-based content creator with an eye for detail and a passion to create. Check him out at his website –https://joshgibsonmedia.com/

By CulTuremiKs, ago

The Airplane Pillow – TCK poetry

The Airplane Pillow

I’ve been sleeping on an airplane pillow all this while
drowned in a white pillowcase
folded over and set at the top of my mat
and the impermanency has etched itself
over top of every memory I have here
I always knew I wasn’t meant to stay

But somehow that airplane pillow
folded over and over itself until it was
small enough to fit in my pocket, to go back
the same way it arrived; and all my hopes
got tiny too, squished and soft and transportable
like maybe that could make up for the rest

But it didn’t
and I left
everything
hopes and pillows
and all the rest
small behind me

~ Elizabeth Hemp

Click to see another poem by Elizabeth Hemp

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Tanzanian Rainy Seasons – TCK Poem

Dar es Salaam Delicacies

Nose pressed up against the window, I wait
for pitter-patters to turn to pelting poundings
as hundreds of flying ants rise upward,
dizzying my eyes and swarming my head.

So predictable: Tanzanian rainy seasons.

“Dad! Come on!” and he brings them as always:
bright yellow boots and clashing pink raincoat
with words on them I can’t yet read, words that
Mom says I’ll learn in school next year.

Tupperware in hand, I rush out,
dancing to a chorus of wings: a flapping frenzy.
Within minutes, I have plenty of the squirming creatures,
my prized possessions, enough to make Mom proud.

Back at home, the three of us busy ourselves.
Dad hangs up my dripping raincoat while
I tug away at endless wings while
Mom heats up the stove and readies

a drizzle of oil, a handful of flying ants, a pinch of salt;
sizzling in the pan, they fry quickly.
Then, around the table, Mom, Dad, and I sit,
munching and crunching our seasonal snack.

So predictable: Tanzanian rainy seasons.

And even though I lived through many of them,
I can no longer recall whether the flying ants
tasted more like bacon bits or burnt popcorn.
So I wait, nose pressed up against the window.

By Melanie Han, an avid traveler and a poet who was born in Korea, grew up in East Africa, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing in Boston. She has won awards from Boston in 100 Words and Lyric, and her poetry has appeared in several magazines and online publications, such as Fathom, Ruminate, and Among Worlds. During her free time, she can be found eating different ethnic foods or visiting new countries.

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Story of a Little Girl

This is how it starts
A little girl, too young to understand,
Told she is leaving behind an apartment
For an adventure, and she is glad.
Too glad to ask questions.

This is the middle, the
Whole entire story really
Dust and heat and foreign languages,
Friends who look different and
The little girl learns so many things
But it all comes down to this
Nothing ever stays the same, nothing
Ever lasts forever.

This is how it ends
A little girl, too old to forget
Is told she is leaving behind her world
For a new one and she is shattered.
Too shattered to protest.

I guess this is the real
Ending though
When the little girl walks
Onto the plane and flies away
Back to the world of
Apartments and becomes
Someone new, someone different,
Someone called
Me.

By Ghanaperu

Other poems by Ghanaperu:
You’re Invited, You Know
TCK Syndrome

Follow Ghanaperu on AllPoetry

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Learning How To Stay – TCK Poem

If This Love Is Supposed To Be Permanent (I Don’t Know How)
Elizabeth Hemp

No one ever taught me how to stay
And you’re getting too close
If this love
Is supposed to be permanent
I don’t know how to do that
And I must confess
You’re scaring me
This close is too close because
What if you leave now
And my world is shattered
As I have always known it will one day be?
Too much power, too much trust, too much
Potential for hurt and no one
Has ever accused me of being an optimist

I don’t know how to stay
This point is farther than
I’ve ever gone before
And I don’t know what comes next
Except leaving
Leaving has always been the abrupt cut off
For all of my history
And I have always hated it but if I’m honest
I don’t know how else to do it
This is the point in the story
Where the ending is supposed to go
And it’s aching nervously
In my bones
I don’t like not knowing what comes next

So there’s no reason to leave
Except every reason in the world
We’re too close, I’m too scared,
You can’t understand this fear in my heart
Compelling me to leave you behind
Before it’s too late and I am the one being left
Again, like always…
Besides that, no one ever taught me
How to stay
And all I know is goodbye

Safety is in goodbye
Safety is in goodbye
Safety is maybe not worth it –
Do I dare to try
And stay?

Click here to read more poems by Elizabeth Hemp

By CulTuremiKs, ago

I Don’t Recognise Myself Anymore

The purity of the air after rainfall –
The sacred smell of sandalwood
Wafting down from the hilltop shrines
Reminds me of something.
My deadweight soul, flapping with airline tags,
Lies gasping, dusted with the residue of long years
Lettered ‘Fragile’ and ‘This Way Up’
Entreating those that handle it to be careful:
To see it safely on its way to wherever it’s going.
Coat-hangers strewn on the unmade bed,
The unwashed floor, the weary bags,
The cluttered tabletops
Which will perhaps retain traces of my having been here
When I am gone:
A few fingerprints maybe,
Scattered fibres from my clothes
Or crumbs of what I’ve eaten.
Otherwise I’ll be on my way
Like the breath in my lungs
And the black blood rushing from my hidden heart
And the voice of Winter groaning in the pipes
And the hissing gas of the stove
And all the unsaid words and murdered thoughts
Bleeding in the sink of my mind
Incognito down the street, keys clinking in my pocket
With the tumbling leaves and the frantic ghost of the city
To a new address.
And maybe I’ll see you again,
But we both know it won’t be the same.
I’ll twiddle my new keys and feel my chains
As though I’m my own jailer.
Because I don’t recognise myself anymore.

Author Unknown (if you have any information regarding the author please contact us using the form)

By CulTuremiKs, ago