Best Exile Poems
Mark
The earth turns its face from you
as if ashamed. You
who tilled the soil, now marked
by what the soil received.
Your brother's blood—
how it murmurs, how it screams.
Deafness would be a mercy.
Wanderer
At Babel, you watch them build
their tongues a discordance of hope.
You know better.
The tower falls. Always, things fall.
In Athens, questions hang in the air
like ripe fruit. You reach for one
find your hand empty.
Constantinople burns.
You've seen this fire before
in your own heart, in Abel's eyes.
Love
Her laughter—sunlight on water.
For a moment, you forget remembering
the weight of your name.
Time, that relentless thief,
steals her breath, leaving you
with pockets full of silence,
her absence echoing in your eternal night.
Witness
Verdun. Mud and blood
indistinguishable. You've carried this earth before,
will carry it again. In Selma, voices rise.
You join the chorus, unseen.
Your story spoiled, yet written
in every cry for justice,
a testament to your own unending quest for peace.
Grace
The sea spilling secrets
waves crashing against the shores of your soul.
In a quiet cell, you contemplate forgiveness—
that impossible shore.
Your heart is a vessel of unspoken prayers.
Each wave a reminder: the divine
as elusive as your peace.
Mortality
She sees you—truly sees.
Beyond the mark, the myth,
to the man who carries centuries in his bones.
You learn to love in moments, not millennia.
Each breath a gift, each touch a benediction
her presence a bridge to your humanity.
Return
The earth no longer rejects you.
You lay down, finally
into the arms of the brother
you've carried all this time.
Abel smiles. You close your eyes.
The silence, at last, is sweet.
You reinvented me
giving me a rebel's energy,
providing license for my love to sing
the touch of your soul meaning everything,
From us wild words arose
speaking of history and stars we chose,
expecting too much of Destiny
venturing on through wilderness and purity,
Inspiration innocent in it's infliction
made us bleed for need of salted affection,
exhibitionists with effrontery for the eyes of etiquette
expressionism unfolding humanism from stellar grit,
When wisdom had no mercy
she was a woman feminine in fury,
wanting to be stronger than truth
when I said I love you she demanded no proof,
All she wanted was a pretty poem
poetry that brings happiness home,
so we made substance of swagger
feeding life gold mined from passion's matter -
J.A.B.
Road to exile.
Boko Haram immigrants of hell,
nurtured to torture,
Bomb-tore people like vulture.
We all scared for our own fear,
Death,
that makes us all victim.
Just for a much smaller group or network.
It bothers me, in my inner mind,
how heartless a human can be,
heart more harder than the wildest beast.
who just turned devourer, for religion and illiteracy.
It bothers me less, knowing the time we are in,
The ruthless time of age,
the era John, reviled,
For only those who stand strong will be full of ecstatic.
They claim to be ignorant of Boko,
yet they made use of it,
They path this way, for all these Cock and Bull story.
Regardless of, we will exonerate.
Our faith in Christ Jesus will grow stronger,
For the Conqueror Peaceful Lamb,
Will slay the Perpetrators, with His rod.
Only then will the Crying Soul Rest.
When innocent got killed, others left,
Beyond the hills to unknown lands,
Escaping death that chased foot prints,
With nothing, just the empty hands.
Helpless *Pandits, became homeless,
Feet on ground and sky over head,
Horror and fear gripped their minds,
Their heart was alive but soul so dead.
Loaded guns, kept looking for them,
The torment they couldn't withstand,
And even in sleep, they would weep,
As they dreamt of their native land.
Empty tents, to call their new home,
At times blew away in wind and cold,
Years went on, in absolute darkness,
Many shattering stories never got told.
Nothing has changed culprits are free,
Tears have dried in twenty-six years,
With no return, life in exile goes on,
Still the bitter past, haunts and scares.
March 18, 2016.
Political Ordeal - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: C T
*Pandits are the aboriginal minority of Kashmir (India).
Kashmir, God's own land on earth, is the motherland of Kashmiri Pandits. The year 1990, saw a mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from their own soil due to threat to their life and, brutal and barbaric killings by the separatists.
More than 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits were forced to abandon their homeland.
Even today after twenty-six years of their mass exodus, their ordeal continues. The new Modi Government in India has made many promises to them, but so far nothing has been done for their resettlement . Their life in exile continues........
i am lost
in the conflagration of spirit
where no philosophy abounds.
yet i love.
where are the people i crave?
am i a monster?
crafted and bolted
for purposes i can not accept?
there is yet much of God’s beauty left our great country
even in the midst of ever advancing devastation.
and there are so many who see this beauty at all costs.
but i have known so many who have felt the indifferent stare.
for them beauty is stale food
escape from the roaming gangs
a simple drip from the ceiling that stays within its catch-pan
and the eager smile of their precious infant who does not starve today.
God is dead, they say.
but the Invisible Hand thrives.
even in despair
It picks what It needs
toward Grand Assimilation,
to which i will never submit.
yes, i write today.
at least
one more day.
but i join in nothing.
yet i love.
I'm in agony!
As the energy drains out!
Cruelest lunch, arrive!
I want to go back to my country
But I can't seem to find the way
Poverty is blurring the coordinates
With every passing day
I want to sit with my family
And speak my native tongue
Eat my mother’s home cooked meals
And feel that I belong
I am happy to have the work I do
At least it pays the rent
But after buying food and clothes
I wonder where the money went
How do I talk to my children?
About the place that I call home
To them it's just a story
that I tell when I feel alone.
I worry about my parents
And the strife they daily face
In a place once rich and vibrant
Now sadly out of grace.
My old piano
Was banished to the garage.
My house seems so cold!
where gossip once flowed in the coffee shops
and sums were not measured in gigaflops
at dawn peaceful stillness often ruled there
now but memory mixed with thoughts and prayers
always comfortable in our own skin
every judgment not a battle to win
lost in the fog of this wandering realm
sailing forward with chaos at the helm
an eye for eye, tooth for tooth, do likewise
life and death became daily exercise
cost of living has different meaning
since misguided missiles went careening
full of guilt and fear til our days are done
constantly searching for home, finding none
Fog rusts railways seemingly parallel to nowhere...
Phantoms sit down on the cold metal trying to warm up
The moon smokes bats with stars as echo location
A janitor cleans up the daily memories of men with shoes
Taxi drivers fall asleep in line waiting for customers who never come
*
I fly up high but nobody seems to care I am coming home
The walnut tree recognizes me and smiles with lips of rings
I am coming back to childhood as I was ruthlessly exiled
I feel my shoulder blades happy with buds of wings of cotton candy
There is nobody in the Control Tower
I just realized...
...I lost my shadow twenty six years ago...
www.scripca.com
go into exile
forget productivity
take a Sabbath day
For misdeeds, if you want to punish me
and wish to send me to exile somewhere -
I would prefer to become the sunlight
of dawn – unfurl my blood stained wings over
the Mount. Kanchenjunga to rest awhile;
Tangerine sky would witness it only
My sins may evaporate to form clouds
roaming hither and thither aimlessly
Those may explain the story by taking
different shapes – a collage of fine arts
You may burn me in yellow fire of death
My ashes would spread over the dark clouds
and your anger would make the sky azure
My remains would touch the feet of mountain
before falling to the mother's warm lap
and my wishes would flow with the fountains
in a hope to start anew - once again
18.11.2016
Existence in Exile
Dispensing realities of parallel dimensions thrown into alternate extensions
Panoptical parasitical pretensions lie the overlords of illegitimate intentions
Chaos encroaches an anomaly serving the omnipresent obsolescent odyssey
Travelers of space-time unconsciously rediscovering the past sacred geometry
Hemispheres of dormant deceptions live deceivers of maleficent conceptions
In the cosmic corridors of corrections and refueling in the abyss of reflections
Within infinite bubbles of the multiverse navigating neglectfully we traverse
A catatonic continuum we immerse as we ride the eternal elliptical in reverse
For now we welcome the wormhole entering worlds of the carcinogenic cabal
Into oleaginous oblivions we crawl with ideological illusions we habitually haul
Within a consciousness condemned and realities severely sacrificially stemmed
Amidst a hellion hyperspace suspend will we arise altruistic aligned and amend?
May.19.2018
In 100 Years
Sponsored by: Brian Davey
for Prithwin
first
left downstroke
start from the top
plane out
let the long anchor tip roof-line curve sharply upwards
at the stern down-end
pile it in stuffed in the centre
leave the bottom open
that’s where the studded boot rightly fits
Over billowing transmuted waters
the haze lifts now and then
winds amber green waft and skim
with the late light caught shimmering
no albatross circles the mast
guilt is pure guilt without wanton arrows
there are no signs of land
but the proffered hand
the wanderer knows no words of his own
Reach - disgorge with your nails
Walls that concuss entrails
Can he yet placate asylum
echo the cluck of a poaching North American coot
nestling amidst Eurasian breeding reeds
taut bunching yarrow rushes
an embattled haven
against majestic swan ships
sleek velvety rich drake
peacockish barnacle goose
come in early from the cold
Let the dards of Orion spell syllables of ease
through the congested smudge of yore
contorted fantizi ideograms
cursory calligraphic long dripping brush strokes
pale to pinyin
Simplified
the exile gasps for instant phonemic breath
under choppy waves of stuttering tongues
racy blades
extirpate langue crucify parole
mix meaning into heady synaesthesiac brew
loss of face is a loss of noodles
develop equals hair
Could René Char’s Zeit Geist
have diagnosed the myna’s Kâla-Purusha
Reach – disgorge with your nails
Walls that concuss entrails
Resources
1. This poem has to do with a Bengali translator’s first encounter with René Char at his residence The French poet questioned his translator on the meaning of “le dard d’Orion” in
his poem: “Jeu muet”. The translator interpreted the phrase as having to do with
astronomy and thus rendered it as “kâla Purusha” (Zeit Geist or literally as in
Hindu mythology: the Primal Being at the beginning of time). René Char then
picked a certain variety of the cactus flower in his garden and said that the
French “phrase” applied to that particular flower.
2. The imagery in the poem also relates to the simplification of classical Chinese
characters (fantizi) by the Peoples Republic of China in the early fifties and the
alphabetisation of Chinese characters, known as “pinyin” as opposed to the Wade and Yale systems. The simplified characters produced certain semantic anomalies.
©T. Wignesan, Paris – May 3, 2009
We live are words and if not were just typing.
Ive come to a crossroads understanding little or nothing of the game
but knowing my place has been taken.
No longer in demand I sit with the other burnt out writers looking
back with grand dellusion and litlle hope for my return.
The dark waters of a uncertain tommorow overshadow the past glory
and future failures of my existance.
The last round poured the new gaurd will be here tommorow.
And as you pass the ones toblind to see as you've become to
jaded to feel you realize.
To live the words failure is a must for no agnst is true without
a glimmer of hope.
I stay ahead of the verse like a pool waiting for the tide.
Now in a place once called home I find strangers in old faces
shadows cast dark figures in alleys all lost for the better day.
But im no judge just a exile forced to carve a nitch
outta his same old space.
To tired to care yet still to ego ridden to leave.
Im a exile to friends who live next door.
They hammer the walls laughter takes there nights.
Im locked in only with memories to recall.
The smoke trails across the empty room of my mind.
Like some old stories ghost I merely haunt this worn down shell.