MEJRI CHEDLIA

 

MEJRI CHEDLIA

 

1-

Were you there?

To the wanderers

To those with no fixed abode

I wonder how many miles you rode

How many faces you did meet

How many did you greet

With your tired withered smile

Tell me if you managed to unload

The lies, the ones we've been told

Tell me if you still remember

The show, sorry! the masquerade in the street

Or did it become a common sight?

I was there under the scorching heat

Did you see what I did?

The woman with a bending back

The children who lost the track

The man cramming a shabby sack

Trying to make it stand upright

The girl with untidy hair

Looking somewhere

calling for a non-existent right

Searching for her mum, drifted away

By the tide of time which invited her

For a ride and she trusted time.

Were you there when that kid

Hurried to get hold of the scattered grains

For that dove whom he believed

Would bring Peace in its beak

And he swallowed the lie?

The scared dove flew

And the kid understood

That Peace was buried under the rubble

And he regained the street

Roaming within the winding paths of defeat!

I am sure you saw the "Corona Virus" circulating

Sickle in hand, busy, lives harvesting

 

 

Confession

 

I dare not mention your name

In others' presence

Neither out of indifference

Nor out of superiority

I simply can not

Lest they notice

How I blush, how I tremble

Uttering your name may resemble

A lightening sudden flash, a tsunami

That shakes my all

Your name is a secret not to reveal

I dare not say it aloud

It is mine and I am proud

To have you within my heart

I fear if pronounced

It could depart

And this is why I have to remain ALERT!

 

 

Inspiration

 

From the details of the detail

From what others think trivial

From what is for granted taken

Poets draw their inspiration

The sight of a father bending

Tying his child's shoelace

A mother inspecting her daughter's face

A butterfly flapping to greet a rose

A bee buzzing happily taking her dose

An orphan dreaming of his mother's lap

An elderly yearning for a gentle tap

Dry land supplicating skies for rain

The oppressed helplessly fighting pain

From the sweat on a father's forehead

And all the tears shed

From the day and night, the sun and the moon

Filled with passion granting a boon

To the poet's eye seeing the unseen

Making of the worker's drops of sweat

A rosary praying for him

Transmitted through well-woven verse

Tickling all parts of the universe!

Gigi Mejri © April 2021

 

MEJRI CHEDLIA