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John Ngor Deng Garang Poem
There is a character I had known back at the barracks,
That his doings earned him the title 'Smoke man,'
He had weird habits that always succumbed to change,
He had a way of bringing life to introductions & then deep graves on mid-parts,
The only thing he ever finished was his ciggie.
His loss of interests shriveled like rains in July,
And he lost patience fast,
You could hear him complain of hunger at times food delayed over the fire,
And when it's finally served,
He would take three or at most four spoons,
Spit out the last and bark 'Whatever this new recruits can cook, a rat can better,
As he pulls out a victim from his cigarette packet.
Sometimes I think he found more meaning in cigarette packets,
Than in all the Arabic the Janabu spoke,
Along with his promises of outcomes,
He did not have much,
But had never been poor enough not to afford a pack of ciggies.
Yesterday he was out on a Valentine's date with a girl,
I could sense his excellent starts,
As the woman released conservative chuckles and giggles now and then a while later,
At one moment he reached into his pockets as if searching for something important,
You could puzzle out the anxiety and expectations on his date's face,
As if expecting an engagement ring or something of interest,
To her disappointed he shoveled out a lighter and smirked.
They say time changes people,
But for as long as I've known this man,
He's never changing,
Not until he goes into a grave,
Where there are no chairs & cigarettes.
*Janabu is an Arabic word for a senior rank military officer
© John Ngor Deng
Copyright © John Ngor Deng Garang | Year Posted 2023
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John Ngor Deng Garang Poem
I feared heights when I was a kid,
& as an adult, women and responsibilities are what I fear,
If heaven is in the skies,
Maybe one day I'll meet Him on Jebel Amianin,
When the urge to think,
Draws me close to Him.
It's weird how of all the million pages in a newspaper,
Children only scan the colourful pages,
Funny how I used to be that kid too,
Carefree and excited,
Yet now,
I can't help hating familiar places that once held dear memories,
Growth has two things,
Disappointments and misquoted statements,
They say bees flea smoke,
But what if smoke is the most polite language that tells the bees go away,
We sleep with hope of a colourful tomorrow,
But when we wake,
Tomorrow is a yesterday and the next a tomorrow.
Sometimes my future is the miraculous Mosaic bush in flames,
& I have high hopes a ram will appear and I'll I'll walk out the furnace,
But every waking morning,
None of these hopes,
Comes out of the smoke.
Now I grow from strength to strength just to fill someone's shoes,
For expectations— which always did exist
And needs, of no name— of many names,
Just like I'd drop a tear in the ocean,
And be tasked to find it.
A pair I can appreciate about growth,
Is that I can sew words and make a dress of it
& Coffee isn't off my boundary anymore,
So yes,
I'm living the best I can— one day a boy—the next a man.
Copyright © John Ngor Deng Garang | Year Posted 2023
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John Ngor Deng Garang Poem
I never whispered or screamed it out loud,
But somehow, I think we both knew.
Some words are too soft for sound,
And some men too shy to spell—
So I kept quiet, and loved you in my heart instead.
I’d see you pass by my auntie’s shop,
And I would look away—afraid inside.
She spoke so kindly of you;
She said you were rural and rare—
The kind of woman who lives in small moments.
I went abroad to study,
And met many foreign ladies—wild and calm—
But none could warm my colder days.
That December when I returned,
I wished you’d smile and say, “It’s been so long,”
But neither you, nor those soft words, ever came along.
You married well; Adhieu gossiped.
Men and women ate to their fill that afternoon.
You were very happy—I heard the news.
Yet still, my imaginings grew stronger,
As I sat by, hoping for an unhappy marriage—
But the lone bench reminded me they were only hopes.
Five years have come, and five years have gone.
Life has moved on, as life must do.
You have had children, and all the love you ever wanted.
Each time I hear how well your marriage is,
My head turns a hair grayer—
Yet your eyes still hold the only light I ever knew.
We never made vows; you never said you loved me.
There was no promise that someday it would be mutual.
It was a love that had quietly flown in my heart,
And ended somewhere where the Nile turns.
Copyright © John Ngor Deng Garang | Year Posted 2025
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John Ngor Deng Garang Poem
They buried him facing East—
not so he may greet Christ,
the way, the truth, and the life,
when he returns—
but because his ancestor Deng-Aguet and his gods
rest in the East,
and they were ashamed
to look him in the eye.
The best-selling newspapers said nothing,
and slowly, but as life must,
life moved on.
The lies the morning radio sang
thinned by bits,
yet the whispers never stopped gathering.
Even louder, someone would ask,
“Did you hear about the boy who refused to be silent?”
And someone else would nod,
as if silence itself had begun to tremble.
Time passed,
and his words became ours.
They found refuge in throats
that had long forgotten how to tell the truth.
Teachers quoted him without naming him.
Preachers called his defiance faith.
Even some of the men in blue began to hesitate,
for his life haunted the barrel
they were meant to silence.
His mother, now older,
sits by the Nile sometimes,
watching the water they claimed took his life—
a story she does not believe.
Water loved him;
it was the first to hold him
when hers broke to bring him forth,
and the last to sail him farewell,
in honor,
to places he had never lived.
She does not cry anymore.
She only listens—
to the murmurs of a generation
learning to live right,
not long.
And his tombstone does not read John—
for it is too foreign
to define the life he lived.
Instead, a small sign reads:
Here lies no one.
Because truth,
they say,
never
truly
dies.
Copyright © John Ngor Deng Garang | Year Posted 2025
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John Ngor Deng Garang Poem
My son,
the inspector said your body was found floating,
calm, like you always were,
the water holding you
like a secret it could not keep.
I asked you so many questions,
but this silence—
this silence is the first lie you ever told me.
They took the one thing you ever truly studied, son,
they took it!
I wanted to scream,
but my throat was clogged with words I never said.
All I had were regrets and prayers.
I wanted you to remain silent,
and now that you’re quiet,
I realize silence is not living.
Silence is not peace.
Life is never quiet;
the only life that is quiet is not living.
This is why I called you stupid.
I knew what this country does
to sons whose thoughts are louder than presidential motorcades.
You asked me,
Mama, are we living or surviving?
I couldn’t answer.
Son, how could I tell you—a child—
the only kind of breathing I have ever known
is the one that hurt but kept you here?
I warned you not to fight the government,
that they kill people for less.
But you said they kill us even if we’re quiet.
Son, I realize you were right.
But it’s too late to take back calling you stupid.
They killed you for trying to live.
They killed you for remembering you had a mouth.
Son, you wrote,
“If I must die, let my death serve a purpose.”
And the news read:
Young truth-teller killed in unknown circumstances.
I tremble, for the one who wrote the story might follow you,
for truth, here, is a contagious death.
But your cause echoes around the capital
like a prayer that came true too soon.
Son,
now I finally understand—
you were never reckless.
You were a vessel of freedom,
who bore truth and light.
And when they thought they had turned off the power,
they completed the circuit of your becoming.
So shine, my boy,
shine.
They extinguished your flame early,
but they cannot flip the switch on what you began.
Son, someday, when I join you in the skies,
the ancestors will ask me, what did your son die for?
And I will answer:
My Manyar* died trying to teach his mother how to live.
*Manyar — a childhood name the mother called the author
Copyright © John Ngor Deng Garang | Year Posted 2025
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John Ngor Deng Garang Poem
1/3
Mama calls me stupid,
She says if the degree I’m studying doesn’t teach me the value of my own life,
then I’m illiterate.
She inquires, don’t they teach you how to live long in college?
She warns, don’t throw stones with your poems,
the men in blue shoot at anything that sounds like thinking.
And I ask her,
Mama, are we really living or just surviving?
Is this what you call living, Mama?
Why are your hands a résumé of hardships you never applied for?
Why do you eat hope the way poor people chew meat, slowly, like it might walk away?
Why does your face carry a calendar older than Sudan
when you’re only forty-five?
Why is a refugee ID, the only formal identity you’ve ever had?
Mama, if freedom smells like recklessness,
then I choose freedom.
In college we don’t learn how to live long,
we learn how to live right.
And if I choose to speak out,
I do not choose to die foolish,
I refuse to live afraid.
They will come for me, Mama,
they will.
But my death will serve a purpose.
It will teach them how to live long
after killing voices like mine.
And someday,
when they ask you what your late son studied,
you will say,
“He studied truth… and he died fluent in it.”
Copyright © John Ngor Deng Garang | Year Posted 2025
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John Ngor Deng Garang Poem
The curtain hangs half-open, welcoming daybreak.
Outside—a rooster screams the day open, reciting yesternight’s moans.
A lizard on my window nods, as if he knows our sins.
He’s seen lovers before—
& he knows fire does not forgive the log it loves.
The sheets lie still, like elders sipping a story
too sacred for the young.
Your scent kneels in the unholy authority of my room,
like a prayer mat after dawn.
It refuses to leave, for it knows—
last night, like others, had no long-term goal.
My mind revisits episodes of last night,
like two birds wrestling in a cloud.
Our wings were tied by the string of want.
One fell; the other followed on top,
because even falling can be fellowship.
My ex once said silence grows teeth
when you keep feeding it memory.
So my teeth reach into Jericho,
before you whispered,
“don’t wake the river inside me—
it still dreams of rain.”
But I was already drifting,
too far for salvation,
as I stared at Jericho like an open wound
that refuses to bleed.
You moaned for morning glory,
and the security dog barked—a note of disbelief.
Somewhere, the sun began to burn the world.
But in here, my lust turned into bread—
you, the yeast.
Each second hammered in like a clout nail
into the dark and quiet.
This river will never forget
this mouth that drank from it.
In the middle of my own weather,
I paused—watching raindrops that never touched the ground.
I’m done, and tired.
Even wisdom grows weary of being right.
My pillow has folded itself
into the shape of your head,
writing the psalms of this event.
The day yawns wide,
as if to say softly: you are a fool of warmth.
I press my lips to the cup you used.
It is cold now.
The taste of coffee and presence
sits at the bottom like truth—
truth that I am a fool of warmth.
Copyright © John Ngor Deng Garang | Year Posted 2025
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