Residual

Abdo, Lebanese IDP
Photo Courtesy: UNHCR

We y'all smug

As froth in a mug.

And we don't even ask why

Our moment of truth resides in a lie. 

Our days go boom,

Our nights is gloom.

One man brings harm with guns

While the other's armed with bombs.

Our sunset on Tigray,

Here's where the moon fell down,

And here, and here. Kale's the entrée. 

We love that sound

It's the rhythm of death pangs.

Hell's busybody gang

Pitched tent

In the place where we are;

Love's spent.

A blow will mend a scar.

Akpan

Otherside

Photo Courtesy: UNHCR (@Refugees)
For Syrian Refugees

Will I make it to the otherside?

Beyond this grave of dreams;

That special place where the imagination

Explodes in daylight?

My soul barely exists

Waiting thirstily for the delights

Of fulfillment in a world

Where patience is defeated.

It's hard not to kick against the goads

Cause the times is ill fated.

The quest for glory

Drains me and fills me with rage,

The road to immortality is paved

With hate-induced goals.

Yet mortal men thrust into it blinded

Multiplying well-avoidable throes.

But will I ever fill that space

And appropriately

Obtain the good grace

To equip the man of my dreams

With a tool to win in this spiteful race?

Akpan

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