Water Rising Fast

Photo Courtesy: unhcr.org

We couldn't go back

Water was rising fast

Running right up to my chest

I felt totally helpless

I tossed caution, I fled

With a stove and gas cylinder

I'd thought the worst was over

When I escaped Myanmar.

Six refugees have been killed

Precious lives spilled

Like beans

Here I am stuck under a thatched

Roof that leaks

Cause we couldn't go back

A thousand more

Lost their homes to flash floods

Scrawny belongings washed away

Reminders of shame

Now inflicting pain

In harrowing detail

Thru a twisted absentia

We couldn't go back

Prisoners of inertia

Whose patience bust a crack

Washed away

We wish it was our pain

Washed away

Wishing it was the shame

Washed away

Wish it to war getting us displaced

Washed away

Wishing it was yesterday

With its graphic detail

We couldn't go back

Not to Myanmar its sacked

We couldn't go back

Not to our makeshift shack

There's water swelling off the ground

As from our eyes, water tumbles down

We can't seem to escape our past,

How long can we last?

The water's rising fast.

Akpan

Crackdown

As the army cracks down on peaceful protesters after the coup,
the violence that is commonplace in the countryside
serves as a grisly reminder of the military legacy of atrocities.
— New York Times
Courtesy: @nytimes (Twitter)

We're strangers in a familiar place

Confined to our homes in a solid cage. 

The things that ought

To work for our salvation,

Wakes a trail of desolation.

In my homeland

Blood runs thicker than sand,

Freedom put a stake thru our hearts:

Freedom to express who we are,

Freedom to choose our own path,

Freedom to demonstrate

And not get shot at;

Freedom to have our say

On who runs the affairs of state.

It's hard to get past

The image in your mind,

'Specially when you got stabbed

By your own tool, from behind.

They threw our leaders in jail

Our women keep getting raped.

It's the only way, or they're dead…

With gunshot wounds to the head.

Soldiers patrolling every street,

So now it's kill season

And dead bodies keep increasing

Yet nobody's out to give one reason,

Asking question's perceived treason.

But we still bleeding

And the junta ain't ceding

Yet the whole world ain't heeding

So, who are we kidding? 

Akpan

Dream 22222

Millions of Myanmans fighting for their democracy.
Who ever could have thought military coups would
still be a thing in the 21st century?
Courtesy: Twitter

The dreams I dream

Are but stuff of dreams

Spread on thick

Like cream on salad,

Like mayo on burger

Already dripping with butter.

I mean why even bother?

My dream's reality on the Big Screen,

Such illusions that make you wanna scream.

This dream I dream

Don't need no script:

Here there be tygers

And spiders that breed monsters.

My dream is a gallery

Displaying the crippling of a people's will

And the shitty rise of the military.

Ridiculous thesis involving hearses

That's how unscrupulous earth is. 

My dream is of home,

Guns n' roses and buried hope. 

My dreams are grim,

My lungs' filled to the brim. 

My dream of creatures without a soul,

Brandishing skulls and crossbones,

Punctuating political polls.

The dreams I dream

Are but the stuff of dreams.

Akpan

Final Wish

Gul Zahar, the 90 year old Rohingya refugee who
passed away recently in Kupalong refugee camp in
Bangladesh. She never lived to see her final wish of
returning to a peaceful Myanmar fulfilled.
This poem is to her memory.
Photo Courtesy: UNHCR

All of twenty five years,

Each moment racked by a spate of tears,

I've been betrayed by hope

Into thinking a lifetime of sorrow

Would bring forth a new tomorrow.

Myanmar, I wish I was your Genie

So I could clinch your soil

Once again, in the ball of my fist.

Hate would hear my voice and recoil,

And I will grant your seeds this final wish:

They will run away nevermore!

Now my soul returns to its Maker

My eyes unseeing the salvation of Myanmar.

My body expires after ninety years sojourn

In exile in the makeshift tents of Kupalong.

My one regret remains that lost final wish,

I missed my long walk to freedom and peace.

Akpan