Selections

Zakariyya Mohammed
Five Poems

COMING HOME

I left and came back

        What was green had ripened

Fodder for caterpillars
Flesh to be chewed on like qat



THE ROSE AND THE BULL

At night the rose is dark

At night a black bull
flies from the rose
It pierces the skin
with its two silver horns

At night the rose is dark
The spilt blood
of the hapless passer-by
drips from its horns

At night the rose is dark

But in daylight
the rose’s black bull
is only a shadow
lying in ambush
So beware
when you pick
the rose
Beware

Carry a dagger
close to your heart
to butcher
that bull

which lies
all day
folded in petals
at the heart of the rose



THE HEART

        is a paper eagle
coasting over
        an arboretum of wind



NIGHT

Night is opening its poisonous flower
It seeps through the sky
like a tincture spilt into water

Night is unfurling its flower
for the solitary insomniacs
who stumble along from step to step

Night is enfolding the city
as the homeless come out
from their doorways and basements

Night is opening its poisonous flower
as dread rolls down the stairs
like a melon
War

War is on the horizon, you can bet on it
Trouble is brewing

I shepherd my nightmares
herd them like clouds

Under cover of darkness
the message gets through –

rumours of divers and planes
metal fish and artillery

I shore up my fort
which crumbles in front of me

We are heading for trouble
over stones, thorns and waste land

Only the implacable sun
knows how long and how violent

knows exactly how cruel
our war will be

Only the sun
can tell

how the flare of its flames
scorches the edge of the galaxy



THE ROSE

I want this rose

I want to shatter this rose
like I want to crush a fine vase with my fists into splinters

I want to slaughter this rose
like I want to gut and skewer a turkey

I want to mutilate this rose
like I want to circumcise a virgin with a flint

I long for this rose

I want this rose to suppurate
all over my body and soul with abscesses and cysts

I want to stick this rose
into the dead socket of my one blind eye

I want to use this rose
to wipe the Milky Way from the stars

And I want to toss this rose
up into the clouds to explode



Translated by the poet with Sarah Maguire