Song 1| Sweet Name


Sweet is your name to my memory
Smooth to my clean shaven cheeks.
Did I tell you I knew about you
When in sense and word we rhymed?
You were my morning brightening star
A song I sang when I knew not how.
I saw your face always in phases,
When you smiled without blinking,
And spoke without moving upper lips.

Sound are my dreams when I fall asleep
Saying your name repeatedly and softly.
You were right when you kissed me
And not wrong when I held you back.
But it is your heart that I adore;
Your smiles that dropped spotless love –
For while many friends I have had,
To find one like you is truly hard!

















Song 2| Broken Lullaby

Stranger your tongue and tone is a broken lullaby
For before we had time to talk, we said goodbye.

I have met many who look like you, and have said “hi!”
Only to discover they are not you when they sigh.

I have tried to forget about you and reach very high
But when your frame illuminates mine, I say, “my, my!”

We were like sister and a brother when we shared a pie
But you knew to me you were not just but another guy.

One thing you didn’t want me to do, I don’t know why
You never let me stroke your knuckles or let me try.

You were an angel who brightened my very blue sky
And carved the wings with which I was able to fly.



















Song 3| Subway

Thank you subway in which my mind comes to life.
For in you I hatch poetry beautiful and sensual.
You fill my heart’s chamber with precious thoughts
And chip my hands with fruitful narratives.
At St. George myriads disembark in high heels
As bells and sirens cloud my ripen memory!
I hear the chuckles of young nightingales
And pay attention to the songs they sing.
Kennedy to Kipling sings my soul in pure verse
As I recite the sweet numbers of divine crescendo.
In staccatos of blank and rhymed lines
I find my being and the reason I live.
Oh, you gods that rule in these darkly tunnels,
Muses who sharpen my linguistic genius –
Stand at Bay when Castle and Frank broadly view
And all veterans keep and protect at War-den.
Strange is when life abundantly flows at Keele,
While guns and brains are traded for favour at Jane!


















Song 4| Love-Marriage Mystery

Stranger to the world of love and deep feelings
Struggling to understand why we do things.
I saw a girl that I thought would marry me;
I slapped the flakes when it was not to be.
Is it only fantasies that our ideals faint?
Are there proofs that its dreams that we paint?
Reading through lives of human stories,
Realizing that they are just forsaken glories -
For every good two people that will marry,
Foremost will be to kill their ex’s and burry.
Yet their memories will never escape at all,
Yelling aloud in their absent-minded chore.
It is the sound of heavy drops of tears,
Eating nerves and awakening myriads of fears.
Why do we change shirts like soccer players?
Willing to live with products of unmet prayers?
Oh, the mystery of marriage and love,
Only God truly knows what’s true and above?


















Song 5| Goma Lakes


Besides the still waters of the Goma Lakes,
There we strutted silently in search of fortunes.
Movements in sacredly displayed bumble sashes,
In green lands of well groomed marshlands.
Here in silent thoughts, we hatched future lives;
Our minds ran deeply, and our studies gained thrust.
There at the great university uncertainties loomed
As our graduation days grew thinner and closer;
Men and boys here came together of age
While girls and women kicked in tight jeans.

Goma Lakes, our heart and soul:
With every ripple a circle of avowed expectations
And every drop, a thought of anticipated vocations.
By the serene water fronts, our fears turned to joy
While our vanities told us we were still learners.
The level of every rescinding depth
Summed up our desire to overcome retention,
And fallen branches made our temporary bridges.
Oh, Goma Lakes, where our betters crossed
Before their day of jubilation, they celebrated!

Goma Lakes - your tall straight trees
Shall account for all the plans
Which besides your oasis, have been made.
Your caves of rounded bush and pricking barbs,
Hide deep secrets of broken virginities.
We shall come back to Goma Lakes
To vindicate our pasts now forgotten
And rejoice over pleasures that eluded us
Here at Goma Lakes, we find healing charms;
Besides the Goma Lakes, our hopes live again.
Here, our stories developed plot lines
And secured us from republics of cruel fines!

Song 6| Sun

Sun when you are tiring, do so fast;
When you awake, blow no trumpets.
My people live under brimming rays;
Under the guise of licking roofs!
The meek darked-hearts share space
To rise from rage and pain of struggle,
Seeking for safety in a wrong place!

Sun on my people you shine last;
After exhausting all your strength!
You bring feeble rays of nutrients
To calm minds weak and hands limp.
Children fumble in filthy streets
Begging for food in stinking basins.

Sun, set and don’t blame it on the past;
Neglecting hope on the sea of trouble.
Your light turns to mourning
And stories become weapons of failure.
They fall so deep in the pit of misery
And no-one braves to rescue them.

Sun close not your eyes on the just;
Darkness hides its devious deeds
In royal lies and eloquent speeches
While rulers build futures and chalets
Where they hoard pearls and treasure
To feed their gigantic appetites
With empty hearts and packed heads!







Song 7| Mantras

Alien you brag, even spite yourself
That slavery had its part in antiquity.
You rave at the mention of its breaking
Claiming the ancient minds boo-booed.

You are not alone, many are just like you
Who serve frustrated bosses
And pal around with industrial superiors
Who thwart laws of ergonomics.

Rules in the executive boardroom
Ring a different tune from those on the floor.
Pain and its cousin, broken joys
Wrangle incessantly in disgruntled lines.

At shipping and receiving stations
Paper and palm-tracks crambo through coils
Irritating already fragile eardrums
Caused by years of repeated motions.

Breathless hearts pound into warehouses,
Ignoring blood is thinner than diesel,
While shaven bosses lax through idly,
Imbibing coffee and chanting mantras.












Song 8| Wealth

Oh wealth, oh money, oh riches!
Oh mighty, oh power, oh strength!
Oh wealth – do not deny me
Oh money – do not elude me
Oh, if you can, embrace me
Oh, I beg, do not forsake me.

I know the merciless heart of lack
And the miserable hand of poverty
In both, human dignity retreats
And stiff hands of embarrassment rule
Sense and reason take an easy way
And knowledge is a beggar’s whip.

I have asked you, lover of none
And beseeched your counsel,
Accepter of all
Because in you,
Wit and foolhardy trust
And fame answers only to you.
















Song 9| Chaisa

Chaisa, oh Chaisa, how poor a place
The thought of you breaks my heart
Oh Chaisa, how dusty your streets.

Chaisa, women carry two pairs of shoes
And wish churches have two washrooms
Little army cling to ivory-legged limbs
And would not give up to strong winds.

Chaisa, men travel with polish brushes
And boys wear camouflaged dustcoats.
Chaisa, your houses have no foundations
Catching easy colds from heavy tropics.

How can I forget you, in your lowly hour?
Or forsake you, when you need power?
Chaisa, how can I your desolation ignore
When in dirt and dust you lay low?


















Song 10| Northern Hemisphere

I sing to your beautiful skies and days
Oh universe of the magnificent North!
As a child I only thought of rains
And sun-scotched patches of October.
In visions, wisdom slept pale;
In endless whispers of love.
The posts of the universe in twos posit,
Walking between thickets of dry sands
And reaching white and chilly valleys.
Our minds race infantile fantasies -
Comparing you only to Aphrodite.
A child in terror-ripped village
Vowed to drown the darling of South
Calling her Snow and Mirage.