Identity Poems
In A London Drawingroom
by George Eliot
The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
For view there are the houses opposite
Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch
Monotony of surface & of form
Without a break to hang a guess upon.
No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
For all is shadow, as in ways o'erhung
By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
Are clothed in hemp. No figure lingering
......
Mama, Come Back
by Nellie Wong
Mama, come back.
Why did you leave
now that I am learning you?
The landlady next door
how she apologizes
for my rough brown skin
to her tenant from Hong Kong
as if I were her daughter,
as if she were you.
......
Passport
by Mahmoud Darwish
They did not recognize me in the shadows
That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognize me,
Ah... Don't leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
Don't leave me pale like the moon!
......
The Buried Life
by Matthew Arnold
Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
......
September On Jessore Road
by Allen Ginsberg
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts
Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go
......
Who am I
by Saleh Ben Saleh
If Life is easy,
why do we strive?
And search for hope,
to keep us alive.
And feel the pressure,
which causes pain.
And leaves a mark,
or an ugly stain
It makes me wonder,
......
Mask
by Vincent Topp
Living a couple’s duality but both yous keep on their masks
The inner you and the outer boaster
The outer shouter and the inner thinker
Two faces, of sanity and its inversion
The inner bruises and the outer glows
They’ll never see the tears filling up the inner reservoirs
id human
Hiding in plain sight
Suffering from daymares
You only talk to the mask
......
i am a weight
by imi dia
i feel like a weight
no
no
in fact
i am a weight
a weight that drags me down
down
down
down
into the further pits of the earth
......
my decay
by imi dia
my soul empty
hollow
like my casket
awaiting my presence
for my body to lay
for the space to fill
for my heart to sway
the countdown continues
carries on in dismay
......
second love
by Miki Vermeulen
It’s not even about missing you.
It’s about having to remember
how fast and sudden you switched up,
and how horrible it made me feel.
One day you flipped,
you were sad and miserable,
you didn’t even want to be around me.
I don’t know what I did because you never told me.
You left me so confused and alone
......
