Excise Exercise 2:
In a wasteland
decision is a choice.
Faced with Life or Death
makes progress clear-
What are the options?
Face the Fear of both.
One brutal truth.
Find love's survival hope.
Cut off black poison.
Amputate the hate
that cast love out of reach.
Gangrene was never the colour of Peace...
In a wasteland,
Green is the colour of Relief.
Nestled in undulating dunes,
crystal clear the clarity that dispels
myth's mirage shimmy shake
Faith is a caravan-
Tuareg Blue and White.
Waiting out duststorms.
Burnt Umber.
Brief.
Aqua M Pen Umbra Poetry.
27 January 2024.
Choose to live.
127 hours. A story of survival.
"To err is human."
To err is to miss the point.
Wanderer,
free spirit,
gets around the endless world,
he relentlessly seeks happiness.
Open your eyes
encounter an aurora borealis
simple to perfection,
like a lost Eskimo
or as a Buddhist monk
who attains Nirvana somewhere in distant Burma.
Or rather as an aborigine influenced by mysticism
or a lost Sufi
among the vapors of the hookah,
the scents of a forgotten time
that leave behind only the perfume of memories
abandoned in the wilderness of life.
Being a Berber in the desert
or Sahara Tuareg,
when the pleasure is enjoyed in a fleeting moment
while absorbed in timeless meditation,
enjoying life
in perpetuity carpe diem.
Who am I?
I am a lion who comes out as a goat
I am an ocean with waves big enough to drown
I am a child of Mesopotamia
A descendant of Shaka Zulu
Baptized in the Nile
I depict the sword of Mansa Musa
I am the backbone of civilization
An icon of emancipation
I represent the pyramid of Giza
And the lighthouse of Alexandria
A symbol of hope
And an emblem of freedom
I am a depiction of Chinua Achebe ink
An illustration of the hieroglyphic
I am the carapace of Hannibal
And the shield of Tunka Manin
I am a player of the djembe
And the author of Sundiata Epic
I am an inheritor of Timbuktu
A citizen of Kumbi-Saleh
A compadre to Askia Muhammed
And a son of Mansa Musa
A follower of Kwame Nkrumah
And a kinsman of Ahmet Sekou Toure
I am the native son of Gao
A fisherman of Lake Victoria
A Tuareg from the Sahara
I hailed from the cradle of life
I am the black in Panther
And this is really who I am, A black man.
i love you
and i want you to be here
what will the Tuareg do
without the desert
that furrows
behind a dark burnous
his thigh – his
pinched by the caresses
of the vulture
what will he do
without the fragrance of the date palm
even of one of them
grain for growing
a Lightning split the sand
just opened up like rain in my handfuls
and like a vestige of tomorrow’s wind
in my eyes
stared at somewhere
after the reflection of the olives
in the oranges of South
with my breath
forgotten
in the caves under water
like the sea drum
of the ancient Old man
who lost his heart
of sorrow die only the waves of the sand
with the white sea foam
a scream of a seagull
a moan of the boat
i stay deep
like the sea orchid
among the yellow radiance
to wait for you to come
You came into my life
My Tuareg of the desert
Brought to me by the winds of fate
To fill the emptiness within
Nature played her part, bringing us together
Raising a sandstorm shielding us from others eyes
Just as the wind causes the sand to vibrate
So my body mirrors this feeling
When you touch my skin, to kiss me with longing
This dervish of emptiness begone.
Leaving grains of sand of desire
the priceless pearl of hope.
Penned 11 September 2013 by Seren Roberts
Contest - Build your own Sand
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