Two Poems by Lynda Tavakoli

 

Haibun for Gaza 

 

Would it matter what I told you? If I said that my sister’s warm cheek presses into my own cheek like a kiss, the blood from her wounds leaking into my mouth as hot as a river of fire? Or how it feels to already know that her softening weight was what protected me? Or if somewhere beyond this choking darkness the voice of our father ricochets through the rubble as he hunts for our collective breaths? Would it actually matter? I call out, Baba, Baba, into the bruised space of my mouth, but the sound is seeped within itself, lost to my own consciousness and the growing stickiness of my sister’s skin. Yet I think, here I am safe. Safer than in the space above that is the most dangerous place on earth to be a child, and where our father is grinding his fingers into dust. So, even in this hell where my sister has found her own paradise, I am thankful. And Allah is merciful. He has removed from my ears the drill of the drones and the threat they have carried all the hours of all the days since the beginning. There is a kind of comfort in this unfamiliar quiet and I close my eyes to it, welcoming its finality, but knowing too, the suffering my own death will cause. So, I breathe and pray, my fingertips touching in a bridge of prayer inside this small mosque of air where I am waiting now, only to be unearthed. 

 

 

a mote of light

in the dust of our despair

illuminates the dark

 

 

 

 

 

WCNSF 

wounded child no surviving family 

 

 

eyes unshuttered 

like a stare of owls 

they swallow the dark 

with parched tongues 

their identities inked  

on the surface of skin 

as signatures for posterity 

 

Noor (Light) 

Khalid (Eternal) 

Layla (Night) 

Nasir (Protector) 

asleep upon the hands 

of dead mothers 

they remember the before 

when touch was a cradle 

of belonging 

and the after a bloom  

of stars in paradise   

 

Aziza (Beloved) 

Amal (Hope) 

Farrah (Joy) 

Asad (Lion) 

their silence shields them 

for who can know 

the slash of shredded limbs 

exported from a screen 

or the weep of crusting flesh 

from what remained 

of what remained 

 

Nasir (Protector) 

Safiya (Pure)  

Dahir (Victorious) 

Bashir (Bringer of good news) 

gathering of the unclaimed  

these children of ghosts 

exhuming the darkness 

for what was lost to them 

these ghosts of children 

nothing now to own 

but our humanity 

 

Habiba (Beloved) 

Iman (Faith)  

Hamid (Praiseworthy) 

Zara (Flower) 

Lina (Tender)

 

First Published in the 'Poem Alone Blogspot'

 

Lynda Tavakoli lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, where she facilitates an adult creative writing class and is a tutor for the Seamus Heaney Award for schools.

A poet, novelist and freelance journalist, Lynda’s writings have been published in the UK, Ireland, the US and the Middle East, with Farsi and Spanish translations. She has been winner of both poetry and short story prizes in Listowel, The Westival International Poetry Prize and runner- up in The Blackwater International Poetry Competition and Roscommon Poetry Competition.

Her poems have also appeared in The Irish Times, New Irish Writing. Lynda’s debut poetry collection, ‘The Boiling Point for Jam’ is published by Arlen House.