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
-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
