I somehow keep forgetting
To adjust things for my age,
For things I once did easily
Don’t, at this current stage,
Let me bounce back quite as fast
So that I still feel the effects
Way beyond the time I did them,
Longer than what one expects.
Walking several extra miles,
Which, when walking, felt okay,
Has me totally exhausted,
Though it was the other day.
Sleeping less than what my body
Would prefer has its results,
Something that would never happen
To most younger-type adults.
Eating what I am not used to,
‘Specially if the food is rich,
Or an extra drink at dinner,
Might produce a little glitch.
Many older people fight this,
Since it’s easy to deny
That they need to take things slower;
Now I’m understanding why.
My soul remains silent until you allow me to see,
And even then I will bear down with the words I speak,
You think your life depends on it with the situation at hand,
Yet all the while God's using it to make you better understand,
His perseverance, and patience, His loving kindness and grace,
All the things he had given you when you couldn't see his face,
Trusting in his leading and relinguishing control,
Even during the moments when feelings come and go,
Must I look and play the part, which is what man expects to see,
Or rely upon my father and trust him wholeheartedly,
Because man has expectations and judgments, and where is the freedom in that?,
And when we fix our eyes back to that the trust in God can retract,
It is the fight no one ever wants to speak on, like taboo they hold their tongue,
The struggle that's unspoken where pride can control and run,
In the crazy world of sports,
A player’s age reflects,
On varied fields or surfaced courts,
What everyone expects.
For athletes in the 40’s range
Or those soon closing in,
Will likely see a subtle change
In what they need to win.
Perhaps their bodies just don’t move
As quickly as before
And even if they find their groove,
It’s tougher, now, to score.
In much of life, our wisdom grows
And elders, we are told,
Should be revered, but in the pros,
The young ones earn the gold.
I curtsy to say may he allow me one last dance
At the end of my play, at the end of my last day.
A celebration of life, mine, in due time.
When soon but no one knows absolutely when
Do they? Perhaps, he does.
Covering the Earth as the shadow of Life
Lurking everywhere in between rebirth.
Always on alert for something to become dirt.
Soil is his soul. Shadows, his coal.
He needs no black robe nor a scythe,
He has no bloody body nor real eyes.
He shovels lots of it, everywhere, all the time.
He expects no bows when the curtain calls
All prayers go unanswered, perhaps just simply ignored.
When the time comes, he does his job.
He transcends them upstairs, or casts them down below
Complacently, he doesn’t really care about high or low
Me or you or anything at all, as long as he just does his job.
It must be important,
Life seems to depend on it.
Dozens of hands have lifted me
the registrar who pressed too hard,
the counsel rifling always for the paragraph that might save someone.
But I remember one above all others.
Not the presiding officer's
that hand held me the way a man holds what he has already decided.
I mean the petitioner's hands.
Dry from travel.
A callus on the right thumb from work I have no name for.
She held me at the corner, not the spine
as if she knew she was not entitled to my centre.
When she set me down before the bench,
I felt the precise weight of her hope: not large, not small
the weight of one who no longer expects rescue
but asks only that the world note what happened, and when.
I am not judging.
I am the file.
I remember everything the verdict did not.
“England expects that every man will do his duty” – Horacio Nelson
Naval Commander Horacio Nelson
The vital Battle of Trafalgar he won.
Lost his right arm and his sight in one eye.
Revered for heroism, from a gun wound he would die.
Evening murmurs quietness,
Quietness reflects fright,
Fright stoops the soul,
Soul needs bright,
Bright evaporates the shadow,
Shadow cracks night.
Night brings trouble,
Trouble creates discomfort,
Discomfort nurtures the darkness,
Darkness embeds courage,
Courage expects for morning,
Morning kills night.
Night shows the scuffle,
Scuffle breeds power,
Power lifts the drained,
Drained discovers dawn,
Dawn pinnacles the voyage,
Voyage leaves nightfall.
Poem by Mugisho N.T.
Experience is that math teacher
who gives you tests before teaching the class
marks it in red
and still expects you to clap
It is that bad friend
standing in the corner with folded arms
showing you its tongue
saying I warned you
but never stopped you
Experience is like hot soup
it never burns from afar
you must taste it wrong
before you learn how to blow
It is a stubborn landlord
that collects rent in advance
no excuses
no balance carried forward
Experience is like a tight shoe
you won’t know the pain at the shop
you will only understand it
halfway through the journey
It laughs like a drum with no cover
loud
unapologetic
especially when you repeat the same mistake twice
Experience is that exam
you cannot cheat in
because the questions
look exactly like your past
It teaches like rain on a zinc roof
noisy
disturbing
but impossible to ignore
Yet somehow
it is the only teacher
that stays after class
until you finally understand
Because experience does not smile
it proves
and if you listen closely
you will hear it say
next time
you will know better
Experience is that math teacher
who gives you tests before teaching the class
marks it in red
and still expects you to clap
It is that bad friend
standing in the corner with folded arms
showing you its tongue
saying I warned you
but never stopped you
Experience is like hot soup
it never burns from afar
you must taste it wrong
before you learn how to blow
It is a stubborn landlord
that collects rent in advance
no excuses
no balance carried forward
Experience is like a tight shoe
you won’t know the pain at the shop
you will only understand it
halfway through the journey
It laughs like a drum with no cover
loud
unapologetic
especially when you repeat the same mistake twice
Experience is that exam
you cannot cheat in
because the questions
look exactly like your past
It teaches like rain on a zinc roof
noisy
disturbing
but impossible to ignore
Yet somehow
it is the only teacher
that stays after class
until you finally understand
Because experience does not smile
it proves
and if you listen closely
you will hear it say
next time
you will know better
I carry weight no one can see,
A heavy load inside of me.
No hands to hold, no voice to share,
Just silent screams and endless care.
I built these chains with my own hands,
I walked alone through shifting sands.
The world expects, it takes, it steals,
But never stops to know what heals.
I bear the storm, I fight, I fall,
I stand again, despite it all.
The burden's mine, my cross, my flame,
I am the spark that fuels my pain.
~Fizza Bukhari
He looks at me with eyes so soft they speak a thousand words.
Words filled with compassion and tenderness,
What kind of love is this?
His promise is firm and His heart is kind.
What kind of love is this?
He is the perfect Father; indeed, He is.
What kind of love is this?
Self-sacrificing, yet so almighty, He gave his life on a cross.
What kind of love is this?
It is the kind of love that chases you down and leaves the ninety-nine.
It is the kind of love that fills your voids and makes your dull world shine.
It is the kind of love that heals your wounds and restores you just as new.
It is the kind of love that reaches out when all you have has abandoned you.
‘Unconditional’ best describes this selfless act of love.
It is the kind of love that only gives and expects nothing in return.
One expects time to crawl like a turtle,
But it runs. Oh, it runs like a Cheetah, baby!
It's tough to tell who is the bigger enemy
Between him and her---> procrastination.
In pursuit of a place in the sun, one must run
To keep up with him. And yes, do avoid her!
Destination bound
Greyhound Bus
Through the night
Under the Moon and stars
Recline back and sleep
Dreaming while
Traveling style without any care
Hound bus wheels spinning
Journey into anticipation
Highways know the Hound Bus brand
A name known throughout the land
Passing Mountains, Around bends, downward and upward climbs
Greyhound bus fulfills until the end
Friendly hand at the wheel
Open and Close in enter and depart
Next day morning rise in arrival
Family expects
Joy in travel
Reading a Novel
Arriving fresh and ready
Greyhound bus vibe
Arrive alive.
Time doesn’t pass.
It claims.
First, it gives you room.
Then it fills it without asking.
Days repeat until repetition feels like evidence.
You wait for meaning to announce itself.
Completion arrives quietly and keeps moving.
The future enters as obligation.
You move with it, the way gravity expects.
The past reorganizes itself without permission.
What remains is what went unattended.
Loss isn’t loud.
It sounds like continuity.
Nothing important vanishes outright.
It just stops calling your name.
Moments thin under daily pressure.
One day feels ordinary.
Later, it becomes everything.
You realize you’ve been living in the aftermath,
long before anything officially ended.
Time never takes everything.
It takes enough.
Life strolls in without knocking,
drops its bags on the floor,
and says, “Right, let’s see what you’re made of.”
It gives you sunrise after sunrise,
some that lift you,
some that blind you,
and a few that punch you in the ribs
just to keep things interesting.
It teaches you how to love with both hands,
how to break without shattering,
how to hold memories like warm stones
in pockets you didn’t know you had.
It throws laughter at you in waves,
and grief in storms,
and somehow expects you to surf both.
Death, though,
waits in the corner like an old friend
who doesn’t rush,
doesn’t push,
just knows the timing better than we ever will.
It’s the quiet punctuation at the end of the wild sentence,
the door that only opens once,
the moment every heart eventually returns home.
And between those two forces
the spark and the shadow
we learn to dance.
Sometimes graceful, sometimes a mess,
but always moving,
always reaching,
always trying to wring meaning
out of the time we’re given.
Because life is fire,
death is the ember,
and we are the glow in between.
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