by Michele Phoenix
Poems Standard
Echo
bright splashes of sound and smell laugh
in my face as I drag
a finger through the dusty residue of last night’s
dreams
thoughts reaching eagerly for the edge of our windowsill
voices ring through my sister’s room and
small feet
chase the goats of Rue 3
I stick out my tongue because the air
is warm and salty and I
am glad to be alive
my feet find their way to the kitchen
and I smile up at a dripping face
“here”
I wriggle my hips into the skirt held out for me
stiff
with the sun and wind of Harmattan
the trucks begin to arrive
shouting hello to the watchman and we run
bare feet slapping across the cement, skidding
to a stop in the sudden sand
as I sneak a look behind me
before ducking through the doors
whip the willow
is new for us but the music
is already in our veins
so we listen our way into the patterns on the floor
rhythm
pulling the room in dizzy circles
lock elbows and spin faster
crooked
grin
we could dance
all night
later
the roof is a breathless
purple
leaning out over the courtyard, the moon
is nowhere to be found
quiet footsteps
pad on the stairs
I turn around and you point
so we look up at the sky and
pick a star to wish on
…
an alarm clock rings in the distance
my eyes fly open
groping for the mosquito net
and I turn my face towards the window, but there’s a wall
instead
confused snow
drifting quietly
to the ground outside
a new window
over there
I am lost and this must be
Minnesota
by Kekelime
Poems Standard
Eyeroll
we are done writing
for this summer
our words
trickled out in cautious hope
as she wove the squirrels into our story
and he stood, refusing to let another person leave.
I traced the interstate with two fingers
in the misty glass, and
again in the small oval that was my window
three planes later
I’m rolling down a mountain on my hands and
knees
a small red dot waits on my screen.
sleep well, banana.
by Kekelime
Poems Standard
Lens
my memories, they are not of Ethiolo
of small feet winding
down a dusty path to a water-well worn
with the chatter of women, girls I used to know
I can’t see the dirt, red against your ankles
hear the call of buckets to one another
sloshing in the sway of hips
flip flops mingled in the early morning light
I remember knives flying
tongues sliding
across the smooth expanse of the language we shared
stretched through our fingers as peppers danced, green
into your pan
the screech of a wheelbarrow
bare feet slapped
across the bricks, padded
through the sand
I remember
sticky heat, and
breeze through my hair
waves lapping
against a shore that curves into the distance
lost blue in a city sky
by Kekelime
Poems Standard
It’s a Funny Sort of Feeling
it’s a funny sort of feeling
of longing for places
you know you cannot return to
and even if you could
it wouldn’t be the same.
it’s a funny sort of feeling
to dream of a life you once had
one where every bit of you
almost
wished you were somewhere else
(far away)
that you could start over again
and then you wake up and find that
you got your wish
and you are no happier
it’s a funny sort of feeling
wishing you could turn back time
relive part of your life
just so you could have what you used to but
you know you can’t
because Time has only one Master
it’s a funny sort of feeling
when you start to forget
and eventually all you have left of places you once knew like the back of your hand are
bits and pieces of sound and smell
fragments of faces and wisps of songs you used to listen to every day but now
now you can’t stand to anymore because all you hear is
everything you used to have
by Africameleon
Poems Standard
Farewell?
it wasn’t perfect
no, far from it
but we somehow found perfection
through wakeup calls and
muddy afternoons
through endless nights and
sleepy skies
through glowing embers and
fiery grins
and the pitchblack sky
raining streaks of colour
chaos intertwining with
shouts of glee
and falling asleep to floating circlets of colour
and the biting cold
to muffled giggles and whispered:
‘nights
it wasn’t perfect, no
but it was perfecter than I could’ve
ever asked for
by Africameleon
Poems Standard
To My New Friends (from an MK)
There is not enough time.
There is never enough time
From the moment we meet
I am thinking of the end; maybe
Because I have done this before
I’ve done this too many times before
And every ending is too soon so
There are two choices in response to that truth.
Courage or cowardice, love or fear,
Connection or solitude.
I have never claimed to be courageous,
But I’m trying.
Dear God I’m trying and it’s harder
Than I thought it would be…
There is not going to be enough time
For me to love you in
And the coward in me says don’t try
But the image of God in my soul
Says otherwise.
So I’m trying.
by Ghanaperu
Poems Standard
TCK Syndrome
There will be no trace
of me, here
after I have left
The colours of my paintings on the walls
are not stains
the laughter of the memories
won’t stay forever
and everything that ever made this
space mine
is transportable
I knew enough when I came here
to plan it this way
So you’re standing at the door
smiling for the hope of a future
but I
can feel the suitcase handle in my fingers
and I don’t remember myself
anymore
Does that make me
a bad person?
If I have shuttered my mind
and heart and soul,
folded my memories away into dusty boxes
and stacked them in the back
of the attic, is that
weakness?
All I know is
you have never left
like how I have left
and you can’t understand –
impermanence flows through
my veins as the very blood of my only hope
for survival
So I will smile and wave
at you in the doorway
and gather up my belongings
to carry myself away in
I can never return
because
nothing is ever the same again
by Ghanaperu
Poems Standard
Plane Ticket News
I’m going back.
Staring at the paper in my
hands, all is dark around me except
this one fact.
I’m going back.
Did I choose this?
Do I want this?
My sister grins, wide and knowledgeable
as if this choice will define
the joy of my future.
I don’t think I meant to choose this.
But how could she know? For her
it is home and light and safety, nothing
dark in her history.
In the dark of the evening, all
the memories return like shadows and ghosts
slamming through the walls around me
and I have nothing to say to them, so
my eyes are tightly shut as if that will help…
Am I going crazy?
Fighting against things that aren’t even here…
I’m going back.
There is no choice now, not anymore. Only
the plane tickets in my hand
and the excitement of my friends
and the look in my sister’s eyes
when she tells me she is glad.
I think, I tell her carefully,
I think I’d rather die.
by Ghanaperu
Poems Standard
(Don’t) Keep Your Distance
I know about this,
this dark stillness illuminated
only by a single streetlight.
orange glow over everything
and we try
to forget
that we ever cared.
I know about this,
this quiet loneliness surrounded
by unending pavement.
dotted lines marking the way
to nowhere
just like
every other time before.
But
rewind, lighting fast,
because this hasn’t happened
yet
Today is the beginning,
shy smiles across the room
before we know anything
and I want to tell you,
I am a prophet and love
always hurts in the end but please,
please don’t
keep your distance.
by Ghanaperu