Issue 4 Poetry

Issue 4 Poetry

A Mark
Your palm was in my gaze from a road full of fingerprints
The tension of your thighs and walk
I felt you
You felt me too

I saw you take your deep breathe as you made your mark on my heart with those deep brown night eyes
I saw you
You saw me too

I want to know how your mother assembles your name with the alphabets and
how your father taught you the words of love

I on you
Made a mark
You have marked
On me too

My roads are shaky and my breaths are irregular
Already apart hence this momentum a stressor
I met you before
And you met me
Time ago

Thus I know my feet will lead to your path
Salam to you
You, Salam me too

-Samantar Osman Gurey

Untitled, ca. 1493
Sit with me as I give waterfalls of what it is be a black man
A man, who is not the norm
In a room full tables
But you, the chair
As pillows swings your way
Bricks comes mine, because my aura anger them
I am the clothes displayed, when sales come to visit your town
I am defined as the penny you scrutinise to give the poor man
I am the black man

-Samantar Osman Gurey

My Father
Today I was told, I crossed my legs and glanced like my father.
But this did not stall my spirit’s climb.
My hard aches were witnessed
I am growing as a man
I am becoming wiser
My hair grows like him and my face talks in his youthful voice.

Because my father isn’t just an ordinary man.
To blossom as the child of the Dervish Askari, is to lose it all and eat again for the fight.
Because my father isn’t just an ordinary man.
To adapt in surroundings built on your ancestors’ pulled teeth, and still raise names from dark damp allies.

Come, sit with me as I shed my skin,
unfold hidden secrets and regrets,
unlock doors never opened,
flap and fly with my new wings
and dine on my first pray as Niin.
It’s chapter that has no cliffhangers.

-Samantar Osman Gurey

Ode to SOAS  

Bang the drums! 

Leap insurrection of the 

Huddled masses

Hurdle, and barricade 

The doors – quick 

Don’t let them in

Or out; the library cries

Collections of artifacts 

Scream for attention, the

Administration never 

Listens. Breathe voice 

To the marginalized, to the

Countless stories untold

Tell them, tell them, tell them

Bang the drums! 

BOOM.

Tell them

BOOM.

Tell them

BOOM.

-Ariana Elizabeth Akbari