While I was Writing

I don’t know if these words will find

The one’s they were written for

Or that the expression they contain

Will be heard by those they were meant for

Or Even if

The need is greater than the art

I find these times to be of great concern

I sense the breeze is strong for those of duplicity

This is the irony in these tales

And their meanings

Drone bombs fall on my brothers

My sons my daughters my sisters

Blinded by poverty and the air of deprivation

Blinded by machines that show no mercy

Blinded by the men who control their aims

Blind are those who see not this travesty

Foolish am I who thinks we will reach this amnesty

Yet, despite this anger and rage

These lyrics are not bullets

They are not incendiary

Maybe these thoughts are too simple

Their aim a little elementary

Could it be that such emotions

Just don’t reach the parts of us

That will give rise to a force

For change

That will actually deliver

The people of Gaza from their innate disaster

The price of the suffering in Bosnia

And the screams of Ten-year-old Husna in Chechnya

I use to believe

Now I just bleed words

And lyrics for us forgotten misfits

We chase the web for YouTube and a million Tweets

While I was writing this…

Another family’s dreams was just blown to bits 

“While I was Writing” by Cypher 7 A.D

Cypher 7A.D is a Poetry & Spoken Word based enterprise aimed at expressing issues that count, not those that sell..peace.

http://www.cypher7ad.com

Karo Kari

Karo Kari..

They stab the scars of humiliation onto her beautiful skin

The pool of blood flowing through her mouth pleas for mercy 

Innocent girl screaming in agony for her mother to stop

How could the soft hands that once used to nourish her pain

Be the same hands that have become the instruments of her brutal fate

She fell in love, as innocent as she can

With a man who left her with a swollen stomach 

The baby screams through his mother’s black and blue skin

But the beatings are not enough, for she has dishonoured her father’s name 

Mercy is not a factor weighed on the scales of honour. 

So they pass her lifeless body for the others to stone 

Her tears flow into the sand bathing the tombstones underneath

Her tongue is clothed in black

In agony it moans for God’s name

Her paralysed heart is giving up

All she can taste is the pain of her and her unborn’s funeral tonight. 

Parents for her will not weep. 

Instead high heads they shall keep..

The words betray me to describe the pain..

The pain in my heart for all the innocent lives that have been lost in vain.

By Gulsum Asadova

One day (she'll come by)

One day she’ll cross paths with me, one day, God Willing

The sun will soon sooth my skin as I stare, but I’ll be too scared to speak,

Weak, as I question the cheek of questioning her eyes

Rivalling the clear blue skies

She’ll walk past that memory will last

Imprinted in conscious thought….

She’ll arrive like an asteroid and leave a void

As I’ll fight with my self’s self

She’ll smile, so bright, that light will overcome an eclipse,

A smile that sucks your words into a stutter

To scared to utter: s-o-r-r-y wha..What’s yo-u-r name?

Confidence evident, her beauty will be unrepentant

Like white fluffy clouds forming a mount to match Snowdon

Like roses blossoming without the thorn

Like freedom, like peace, like justice

Sheer beauty of the mind; no face no race, no beholder

The sun will clash with my iris as my mind and heart

Will be in occupation with something, some say a virus.

Silence.

I wish to sail the seas of love I’ll say,

Then get told it’s just a cheap cliché

I’ll step up, trying to be brave, unshackling the boyhood shackles of adolescence,

Comprehending the sense,

I just want to be friends, I say in my mind.

Carefully treading so as not to disease by heart with desires.

You see if my deen was a queen I must find her, and if desire is the fire I must

Extinguish it.

Then I’ll step up and say…

 ‘For you I’d line up the stars as a consolation and line up memories of us into a constellation.

I’d commit to truthful love and eternal bliss, trust, soul’s intertwined, combined, lined, not defined, for you’d I’d take that risk.

I’ll say it without fear attempting to sound like a modern day Shakespeare with all the metaphorical, exquisite, linguistic poetic devices my brain could muster.

And she’ll reject.  Humbly say no to my superficial phrases,

Not fazed because then I’ll know, that’s her.

And One day, she'll cross paths with me, God Willing. 

By Mohamed-Zain Dada

Twitter: @Zainthepoet

Articles: www.times-series.co.uk/blogs/mohamed_zain_dada

Nonsense Poetry

This week, the young people, inspired by Edward Lear produced their own limericks.  Here's a quick intro to Edward Lear and an example of his works:

Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.

'There was an Old Man with a nose, Who said, 'If you choose to suppose, That my nose is too long, You are certainly wrong!' That remarkable Man with a nose.' 'There was an Old Man on a hill, Who seldom, if ever, stood still; He ran up and down, In his Grandmother's gown, Which adorned that Old Man on a hill.'

The Words Apart collective formed our own limericks accompanied with illustrations: 

By Fauzia - The Lady Gaga Limerick

By Arj, Vain Pete

By Zain - The Turd called Clegg

                    


                                                 

  
By Special Guest DJ Steaz - Broken promise

By Tajhame Jackson - Marriage Baggage Limerick