Prison walls
Torture chambers
aDesert torturers
An angry dark tide
In the dead of night
Eerie lonely frozen streets
Fiery eyes and cold gaze
And so I live nd you don’t?
One ‘survives’ and the other not…
Is my luck a blessing or a curse?
Was your life a tragedy or prophesy?
Were your parents merely unfortunate?
Are mine a sign of our times?
You are dead I am not
Is there a difference?
Below grave or above
Is a question of location
Not a pronouncement of life
You are dead and so motionless
I am all inert and utterly voiceless
You are dead now but not lifeless
I am simply a poor listless refugee
You have a name: Dearly Departed
All I have is a bane
You have a grave
You have a place
I have…none
You are dead
And I…I am
…I am…
Eritrean
Still
listen
The birds want to sing for you
Children are skipping…
Laughing and calling
Listen to them
Chanting alphabets
Alif…ba…ta… tha…jim…ha…
Listen to the calls for prayer
Life is calling you by name…
Kill that drum… not my son…
The sounds of everyday…
The sounds of life
Clanging school bells
Chalk against black board
Footballs from feet to post
Laughter … banter… chatter…
Calling and responding
Pretty little girls giggling
Kill that drum …not the school
Da dum…dum dum dadadum dum dum
It really doesn’t belong here
With the sound of women hard at bargaining
The vegetable sellers and all their colour
The chicken market and all that cackle
The goats bleating over the sheep and their pomp
The smell of sweet tea and fresh bread
Tiny spoons clicking against neat cups
And mischievous boys running between crowds
Coy girls selling their basket ware
Kill that drum not this market…
Under the old tree where you can’t hear them
The elders are making their hushed deliberations
Loud in their head… the caution of their wives…
The wind rustles the leaves of the tree above
Whooshshshshssh…
In the distance the river flows
All the way from the mountains
Fwha fwha fwha…
Do you know how long they have all been here?
The mountains feeding the rivers
The rivers feeding the land
The land feeding the men
The men feeding their families
Kill that drum not the village
dudup-dup dudup-dup dudup-dup
Is that your heart beating?
In our village that is still alive
Amongst friends at school
At the bustling market square
Under the big dignified tree
Please don’t kill yourself
Kill that drum …
Dudup-dup
Dudup
Dup
Good
You
Are
Still
Alive
There is hope
April 2011
Wailing at my shore
A stir
A thousand tears that caused a wave
Ten thousand notes of untold woes
A hundred thousand hands reaching out
From the depth of a dark sea
In agony
A chorus of a million anguished voices
My name on their lips
A desperate knock on my door
Of three million silent deaths
Of shattered dreams
Mine included…
Washed ashore
Strewn to vultures
Of cruel deserts
In foreign lands
Or fed to sharks
In angry tides
In the stillness of my peaceful abode
A persistent quiet plea
That won’t let me be
The unheard slaughter
Of an old freedom fighter
First they killed his voice
Then his dreams
Then snuffed out his life
With him the light…
His last breath was my name
A disturbance at my shore
A muffled groan
Of a generation spared
From war that claimed
Fathers
Mothers
Brothers
And sister
Saved only to be crushed
By the survivors of the crushers of yesteryears
A familiar stir at my shore
From the far away land
Whence once I fled
To rescue my own
First I rescued my life
Then my dreams
Then my voice
But
What good is a voice
That has no roar?
What good is a dream
That has no colour?
And what good is a life
That has no honour?
Wailing at my shore
From the empty hut
Of a loin that bore
Ten sturdy boys
And five stunning girls
Who are all no more…
With quivering lips
And trembling hands
She spelt her name
In my heart…
And now I can’t let my eyes shut
An echo at my shore
A cry
A boy yet unborn
Whose death warrant was writ
As his mum tried to cross a border
With barbed wire piercing her feet
Whilst patrols shoot from behind
And in front
Her end also ends his start
Their last breath a loud shrill
All the way to my far away ear
And now I can’t hear excuses no more
A call has reached my shore
Of a thousand more plights
Unrecorded…untold…unheard
And I refuse to look the other way
For what good is my voice
If it doesn’t roar against injustice?
What good are my dreams
If they don’t make a difference?
And what good is a life
In this valley of death
If I refuse to hear the dejected…?
Their call has reached my shore
And woe unto me if I look the other way walk off
May 1st 2010
You shall not speak your mind
You will not demand change
You cannot question
You will not pray
Will not sell
Or buy
You must not have any dreams whatsoever
Nor have any hope or aspirations
You will go to war on demand
Or dungeons unknown
Will denounce friends
Betray conscience
Have no faith
Principles
Or ethics
And there will not be a free thinking soul
You will not uphold your honour
Cannot celebrate heritage
You will have no history
Nor pride in culture
Total submission
No questions
Emptiness
You shall assume the identity ascribed to you by us
You will only use the languages we tell you to
You will have the kind of education we allow
Worship the gods we create in our image
You will only eat as much as we tell you
You will read what we want you to
We will call you what we want
Only live where we ask you to
Give up anything we ask for
If you refuse we shoot
To kill, no hostages!
Order from above!
May 24, 2010
Eritrea
At
19
Talk about our pain by all means
Discuss the origins of all our ills
Log every victim… identify every perpetrator
But don’t postpone the healing
Make plans for amends…
Recommend recompense…
Shed light on the past… illuminate the future
But then don’t postpone our healing
Highlight all difficulties…
Analyse all drawbacks…
Agonise over pain…sigh over the strain
But don’t postpone the healing
Open up the wound…
Scalpel the scars out…
Scratch those itches…undo the stitches…if you must
But don’t postpone the healing
Deliberate till dark…Plan till dawn…
Call on the experts…pour over all the papers
Throw hands in despair… see the mess beyond repair
But don’t postpone the healing
Gaze into the darkness so deep and weep
Look evil right in the eyes…
Judder before the gnashing of teeth…
But don’t buckle and postpone the healing
Shed all the tears for the past…
Mourn all those that we lost…
Face all the anger within… and sorrow without
And then get on with the healing
Heal your wounds… and then theirs…
Sooth the throbbing…bandage the gash…
Can’t you see we are all hurting?
And now comes the time to let our healing begin…
16th July 2009
I will write it in tears
…one day I will write a story
But I won’t write it in ink
… It fades…
And I will not write it on paper
… It rots…
Not black… or bleak…
Or bright… in blindness
My story of you… for you…
Are colours of unparalleled gallantry
And celebrations of the free…
Betrayal unimagined
Spelling out pain untold
Inside crumbling prison walls
Of silence…so deafening…
And of wailing so loud
… Yet unheard…
Sleepless nights
Of endless quests
Vacant eyed young refugees
As dreams die
Bowed headed old heroes
With cold bones
As despondence seeps
…Then…
That which ink cannot write
And paper will not hold
I will spray on rock faces
And into the rivers
On tree trunks
And on sea shores
I will write it on city walls
And prison gates
On our foreheads
Into our handshakes
For I will write it
Using these very tears
Jan 2009
Can I pick that flower you so tenderly grew?
Name it ‘freedom’ and replant it by your grave?
May I borrow your ink and pen a verse or two?
And narrate that unfinished story for you?
That child out there with vacant eyes…can I pick her up?
And tell her all the things you wanted to…
Can I shower her with love so tender?
And instil in her your convictions unshakable…
May I tell her that this was not meant to be?
Can I borrow your voice for a moment?
And tell the world what the promise was…
That which nineteen-year-old boys grew old holding on to
May I grab hold of a compatriot’s shoulders with your hands?
And shake them until they wake up and remember what the dream was
May I pat the shoulders of that comrade you left behind?
And encourage him that it is not over yet…?
May I call him by the nicknames you came up with?
May I resuscitate his jovial smile?
And make this valley echo with laughter… once more
Can I wipe the tears off your mother’s eyes?
And tell your children that you don’t regret your life a bit?
May I gather your siblings and tell them it was well worth it?
Can I trumpet your deeds? Shall I tell the world all that you achieved?
Can I finish that poem you were writing?
Could I perhaps sing the song you were humming?
I will soon retrace the route and start where you left off
But right now all I want to do is live this moment for you
Aug 2009
Now
You see me
Familiar am I?
Yes we have met…
Remind you?
Imagine this pen was a spade
Then think back to your holiday prints
Me in the awfully tattered khaki
You in baggy shorts and funky t-shirt
Looking out of your designer shades
As I squint into the midday heat
No I wasn’t looking you in the eye then
Nor were head to head like now
With my ears tuned to muffled cries
From the underground prison
Yours to the booming music
Immediately above
Me planning my escape
As you enjoyed your escaped
That September we both left Eritrea
Seventeen hours later you were here
I was shot at on the border
Was sold, bought and resold
The map of that trip is scored on my back
Do you want to see?… No I didn’t think you would
My best friend was maimed
The other one died in a cell
My sweetheart drowned
Countless I left behind
I am hear now
If you can see me
Read my lips
Slave
No more
Am
I
… inspired by Luam Estefanos’ article on her experiences in the military service; two years ago Luwam and colleagues launched a campaign to stop slavery in Eritrea, please join the campaign and help them make this a reality visit: https://www.facebook.com/The-Stop-Slavery-In-Eritrea-Campaign-567119453380564/?fref=ts
“There is one pain I often feel, which you will never know. It is caused by the absence of yo…” Aeschylus (Ancient Greek Dramatist and Playwright known as the founder of Greek tragedy, 525 BC-456 BC)
…Little brother, they tell me it is physically impossible to remember pain and they say the sensation of pain that we think we remember is but a reconstruction of emotions ordered by the narrative account of our articulated recounting of the painful event… what do I know? They could be right… what I do know is I could never have reconstructed the sharp sensation I felt the day they finally told me that you were gone for good… oh I knew you were gone long before they told me… I think I actually knew the day I saw you board that truck…that last glimpse I caught of you told me all I needed to know about what the rest of my life would entail…. Untold pain the like of which you would never experience…but the day they actually told me you were gone I felt physical pain that my body has never ever been able to forget…. It was the sensation of a sharp red-hot knife that both pierces your skin and then goes on to undo every bit of your insides… I don’t think I have ever been all there…all together since that moment…
There are moments of brief solace though… like most mornings… well the few minuets between my uneasy slumbers and slow alertness…there is always that moment of amnesiac sanity… where my pain is forgotten…or atleast not so sharp… and even the memory of your departure is not there… we are four and three again and I have just started school and you creep into my bed worried that I will go to school early in the morning and you would miss out on saying goodbye… complaining that it is so long until lunchtime when I come home again…I try to make out that I am now a very important member of society… a school girl and very grown up and you must simply learn to keep yourself occupied with your own little friends… your own little games and your own little unimportant life… you protest and try and tell me that it hurts… right there… I snap out of my haze at precisely that moment every time…you point to the very spot where I hurt right now… you knew! My baby brother knew the pain of separation… perhaps your little body was preparing you for the permanent separation that would come a short while later…I …I don’t know whether to cherish my hazy morning encounters or pray for them to go away… I am worried if I let go and forget the pain I will forget you too… and then there will be nothing but the empty bed space, and the empty chair and your memory will be confined to your physical absence… I can’t… I won’t forget… I simply won’t let myself…
I smile a bitter smile every time they light a candle and call you a martyr… you were no martyr… martyrdom involves conviction and knowledge… you were the sacrificial lamb for someone else’s madness… a sort of suicide but once removed… they commit the act of suicide but you and countless others die in their stead and as their token of gratitude they light a candle and sing of your martyrdom every year…
Their life is very much in full swing… they plan more suicidal feats every coming year and as ever someone else’s brother will have to do the dying for their act of suicide… if they don’t die of war they die of hunger or torture and when they choose to not take things lying down they die in merciless deserts and angry tides… either way they die… the only difference is they are not called martyrs and no one bothers with the candles and songs… no one except perhaps a forlorn sister somewhere out there… and I somehow envy the privacy of her mourning…
…Love always…
…selam…
Dedicated to all those who have lost loved ones to war and the ills of dictatorship…please join me as I vow to never condone the needless death of our youth in vain silence or meaningless rituals…
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