At the Border the World Ends
Jackboots and helmets demarcate us and freedom. / Plus in binoculars, multiply with machine guns, divide by / bows and arrows and the ever ubiquitous police dogs / who growl yellow teeth, salivate for captured flesh and the / sum equals a walled city, a concentration camp.
Chicano Ghosts
She tips her head back, / And soaks up the sun. / Bleached bone upon dust, / upon dust.
Ilé Africa
They crawled into the limbo / of space and arrived at our shores, / deadened the strings of the djembe, / that whispers to us in the dialect in / which we use to cast cowries and / pour libations upon our hallowed path. / They broke the nose of our ancestral faces.
simply black
the earth is an eyeball of monochromes. cataracts of inhumanity blind the black man from his kindred, and when the white cotton is separated from the darker ones in the laundry, the blacks turn a blind eye to what belongs to their source and agitate for a place in a whitewash.
South African Elegy
The city puffs plumes of smoke into the air that blend right / in with the clouds. I can’t breathe when we stop at the red light, / right next to a child reaching out an empty McDonald’s cup to the / traffic.
Where is our ancient town?
Where is our ancient town? / Oh, father, who am I? / Where is our ancient town? / Where is our city?
Basement Refuge
This rented basement is soundproof, so when / the bass guitar of homesick, make-up band shudders / for a gone homeland, its resonance / pounding into the ground floor, / island children become the beat
Gratitude
As I was kidnapped / As I was disappeared / As I was tortured / As I was murdered / My only consolation / Was / Your Words
Moon Blues
When the flooding starts, and the rich flock to / their yachts, the rest of us will inherit the beach-front views / only to climb up trees and whine at God — but you promised!
and how shall i walk when the street sings of fire?
they uploaded a song / before the blood dried. / it asked us to leave. / leave what? / the land that remembers our ancestors’ coughs, / the wells we named after heartbreak, / the callouses of our dead / still softened in its soil?
Standing Ovation
In America, a murderer receives a standing ovation. / Meanwhile, bodies tally against the ground faster / than we can count. / I can’t quite decide what is more disturbing; / the chilling sound of applause cheering genocide, / or the large-scale catastrophe scorching the world.
operasi seroja
the night comes for us, / when mercenaries / scan palm leaves / for drops of blood / of martyrs. martyrs who / write poems about / the living.
How to Survive the Apocalypse
At some point, / you’ll stand on the porch, / watching a hydrangea fight / for its life in the wind, / and think: / This is survival. / This is all it ever was.
Who Let You In?
“Who let you in?” / “How can you afford to walk through / these doors?” / “Wrong color, wrong place.”
Dry World
Heaven has sailed far from me / My Earth is sinking like a boat / Wind lifts dust to the mountaintop. / Everything that belongs to me scatters / Soya beans, sorghum, bananas blow away / My world has been swept away by wind.
Are You Still Trying to Tell Me Something About Mercy?
I rebel, I rebel to stay in the house tonight, / there’s a war on the streets, and I have been asked to fight. / My mother won’t look at me, and my father’s gone cold, / and the only gift I’ve gotten was not to grow old,
Ars Poetica
that to become a poet / you need to have had your home / stolen from you / your dreams confiscated, / your hopes held hostage
His Tousled Hair, His Toothy Grin
When I settled in America, / anti-apartheid meetings thrilled me- / Injustice anywhere is injustice / everywhere scrawled on walls.
Gatekeeping
Meanwhile, hell writing another bill of sale, / buying territory for expansion, / gentrifying dreams, redlining / degrees of treachery. / In a world of flames, / rent ain’t affordable.
The Ancestor’s Song
I read that you walked / across the continent / searching for your / ancestral home / 3 small moving dots / seen from the wide / sky’s view
color you dark
if i could color you dark, / i would. / you’d feel that bullet in your chest / as they wear that silent pin. / they trade your brown skin best / for the unarmed cost of melanin.
the Decolonial Passage 