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Best Poems Written by Aan Mansyur

Below are the all-time best Aan Mansyur poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

A Forest Fire's Prayer

please make me more simple.
kill the most part of my life.

if arson is my destiny,
let me  turn to ashes nothing but the dry leaves
on feet of the trees, so they’ll grow denser with ease.

tell sorrowful tales to the sky
about wild orchids, dead before they bloom
about fallen seedless fruits.
about birds lost in smoke, birds losing their nests.
make her cry. make the sky shed her tears.
help the forest foster more leaves and grow 
a greener green. 

take me to the town’s waste
to the kitchens of the famished
to the veins of those shivering with loneliness
to the couple who’ve spent too long sharing 
their backs with one another

please make me more humble.

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Facing the Dinner Table

isn’t it hilarious
how it is that only tonight
both you and i have come to realize 

for years this dinner table
has vastly stood between us

and all that is spread upon it
may never manage to evade the distance
or the partitions blocking me from you.
therefore, i clasp the bowls
filled with withering leaves
colored a dead green
missing their shine
the shine i once saw subsiding in your eyes

the dishes pose to be red
with schallots, carrots, tomatoes and chilli
or morelike love that often bounces of in
conversations between you and me, about other people.
the rice has forgotten how to be the white
that is supposed to break our hunger
fallen into whatever

water in the tall goblets
are wells waiting
for your throat and mine to become rivers,
staircases that shall return him to the sky
to impregnate the clouds again
the fruits long to rot
grow maggots and return to the branches
or they might be missing the knife that stabs
to take them away from the stiffling silence
amidst nonsense talk we share. 
what color has yet to find its way to be a table cloth
to make this table look slimmer, to toss away the layers of conversation
drowning us like the fat on our bodies

isn’t it such a pity
how only tonight
you and i have come to realize

the fact that my hand could no longer 
offer food to your mouth

nor the other way around.

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

A Poem For a Blind Wife From Her Deaf Husband

the aim of this poem is very simple

only want to tell you that the clothes
we wore on our wedding were light green, but
the leaves used to wrap the wedding cakes were a darker green.
sure, both are green, but a different green, my dear. 

a flowery headband tuck into your hair
you may feel it but might not know
that the flowers are white jasmines

on my head, nestle a pair of doves, also white.
i always imagined us, that day,
as a pair of trees in the spring.
you were a blossoming tree.
i was a tree where doves nest. 

i saw people came and smile.
they talked while enjoying the food.
but what they were talking about, i could not hear.
care to tell me, dear?

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

Omelette

really, i’m really starving 

from the frame of my room’s window 
afternoon sun looks like an omelette 
wonderful, well-fried, big and wide

but that omelette has been divided,
slaughter by neighbors’ tv antennas 
by phone and electronics cables 
and without a few for my stomach 

i try to make my tears not to drops 
remind me again my mom’s omelette 
i used to be find one, a whole one,
as her love with her children

with continues fallen saliva 
i see that omelette without wink 
but only few seconds then 
it is gone ravenous-dine 
by whom i don’t know 
and then left sky alone 
like dirty-grubby plate 

tonight when dark covers the space 
night lamps one by one wake 
i will crawl go out from my room 
then silently lick the sky-plate 
before cleaned by rain or dew
only to entertain my hunger stomach 
then sleep and dream about an omelette

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

Hug

1.

"Have you hugged yourself today?"

I still remember that question.
I was not able to answer it.
But there you were, you always so,
if you ask questions
you have had the answers.

"Your arms are too short for your body.
but certainly long enough for me."

Then you came into my arms
and dwelt therein.

"Do you still keep that hug?"

We asked each other.
Then we laughed together.

A hug is the only
answer to the question.
Then buried us into memories.

2.

My wife prefer to hug than to say a word:

"i love you, boy!
i love you, hubby!"

As if the two arms
can convey all the secrets.

Our children grow
loving arms more than words.

That is why every night my wife
prayed to be an octopus.
And all of us come into
the hugs of her hands.

3.

One by one, the body
will escape from the hug

then our arms
began to carry guns
and wars.

The body was destined
to belonged to a hug
then later owned by bullets.

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Three Final Notes

1. 

with eyes closed,
i witnessed my own pair of eyes
setting free millions of fireflies,
like leaves bidding farewell to it’s trees. 

the fireflies gathered at the tips
of my fingers and planted their last kiss
before taking flight, glittering the night sky

the fireflies fled far and wide
in search for your eyes.
eyes closed for another pair of closed eyes.
conspired by nature and night. 

and you thought the fireflies
that flew into your eyes formed a dream,
the one you kept guessing the meaning of. 

but in time you will know,
whenever a firefly lands on petals of your cheeks
that very moment it is i whom you think of. 

2. 

suddenly i was able to understand
everything that visited my eyes
even the ones that i thought were dreams 

suddenly i was in love
exceeded all the fallen loves
that have hurt my chest. yet 

when i want to say this to your ears
i no longer have a voice,
when i want to say this to your eyes
i no longer have the light. 

3.

slowly water seeps within the pores of my skin
forming small rivers in my body 
a river in search of caves in my chest
looking for the sea that was once occupied by
thousands of your tiny fish 

right before my eyes were shut
and the coffin was closed,
the rivers overflowed,
evaporated into the vast sky,
the one you always gaze up to
while biting your own lip
to stop the tears from falling,

because you don’t want to seen weaker
than the sky in the months of rain 

don’t worry. you and the sky
will get by the grief
you cried from my death.

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

April

clouds and sky of April
will become a beautiful zoo
entertain me every afternoon

and plants more friendly
for little feet who walks

the only reason I believe
because fewer contain pain

wherever will go and arrive,
your steps can leave the door

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

From My Journal: Sunset, Etc

:1/09/2001

"I love sunset," you said

I hear hopes 
and the whole lot on my dining table 
while chewing breakfast 
I sing my childhood songs 

:31/10/2002

before sun is erased by night hands
my mother turn on all  the lamp-eyes 
in the kitchen, verandah and guest room 
she does really afraid of the past 
which is waiting in the dark 

:07/06/2003

sunset like orange juice tear from your glass 
and the night is its stains in table-cloth 

I come here try to find the pieces of glass 
that fall crash the white café floor;
glass that ever touch your lips, 
glass that ever kiss your lips, 

:21/12/2004

sunset enlighten 
swallow bird shadow 
fall on the sky shadow 
in puddle of your tears 

on the carpet of sands 
no more your shadow 
on top of my shadow

:08/04/2005

since sunset o’clock 
there is me in waiting room 
in my hands pages of a novel 
open someone's affairs 

night who come late
don’t bring any train 
that bring you 

:28/11/2006

Mountain of Saraung,
umbrella of a village 
sun crawls too hard 
come to the windows 

on a couple of lover 
who is cursed to be a wall-stone 
I see there is no sunset

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

From My Journal: Trains

(I have three trains 
in my diary pages)

Solo, 14/01/1994

I met train a week 
before you will not meet me 
anymore

I was really nervous to know it 

you ever told me: many pickpocket,
they know how the new-ones
spell their names and shake hand,
also where the wallet hidden 

in my town, you know, there is no rail, 
but I want to find you most

you said another time,
"Do you know Balapan Station song?
I live no so far from there."

Yogyakarta, 23/01/2000

in front of ticket room, few seconds 
before train close its doors
and go, in a rush I want  
wear you a thick hug 
as sweater for rainy days
which is bring influenza 
and amnesia

Makassar, 30/08/2005

time used to be a train window 
everything pass as thunderclap
outside that window, I couldn’t 
see where your face are 

then time become train rail 
send back all people who went away

unfortunately, I had left the station.

Details | Aan Mansyur Poem

A Postcard

you send me sentences
through a postcard
of orange fruit color

(like day turn to be dark?)

“i bought a pair of new shirt
dimmed brown-yellow”

(like rain wants to fall down?)

you didn’t ask me
i’m well or not
you didn’t say miss me
you didn’t expect reply

(like story in the end?)