Author: Rafia Bilkis
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Winds of faith
My eyes sweat at the sight of ankles running free in the grass songs and dance that circle by hands linked, where hands are calloused, only for each other, and lips only know of mirth and promises and hair that snags in the winds of faith voices that weave through Breath and sleep even in…
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Daughter’s cry
O Father, why have you beaten Mother away The lands are dry, and your children crawl whipped by your words that direct no man but broken backs O Father, your great hand has nothing to guide no sunlight reflected, and no sunflowers dancing to you for the rivers of Mother run dry she has sunk…
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An hour sliced off
I know there are still wars outside not just the ones for territory fighting for things that will only ever belong to us for an hour sliced off the lifespans snuffed but the cold wars of the mind, hunger and bonds of blood and in this cocoon I find myself in I sleep a while in…
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My name in her mouth
I loved her more, than I can know her yellow-pink smile, sing-song voice lit eyes that widened to meet mine She moved to the rhythm of her seasons and I, have fallen for her from the time my name, fell from her thin lips like laughing clear water a call, that trembles, the chambers of…
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Sweet Red.
She was carried in a bird’s gizzard that had her red plump flesh covered in juices, melting her into sweetened goop. So full she was like nothing before, for death did not let a single pore go by, that it did not infuse to brimming. Her bones though lay untouched, clean and hard, asleep, spat out from the sky into…
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Recognition shining
You would think it is the Day of Reckoning Heaven split, marbled gold towers tumbling Hell clodded in earth, banked into soft ash and the people of the world clasping hands, recognition shining in their eyes one joyous smile to another, one uproar to another ‘I see you!’ “I see you!” and the sky streaks in…
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Naked Touch
It is not a dirty world it is, innocence confused led blind by blind. Slip off the clothes, let it pool around you, the blindfolds undone and look into the abyss blinking back Feel your naked gooseflesh Watch the jerky movement of your joints come to life by your will Watch how each atom in…
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Innocence in want
How the wind plays into trees bending, breaking, and uprooting How it walks, crunching roofs of sweet homes, chasing butterflies and flops on its butt flattening fields of wildflowers. How its innocence of wonder lay waste, unaware in want.
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Night Unnamed
The warm fleece upon my shoulders the wings set along my blades the fire sparked within my belly, the lute wrought into my throat all placed by the weaves of her deep tresses her upon whom I wish her upon whom I pray she who thrums through my breast, strikes the skin on my bones…
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The Lover
There is a man with a lute his eyes thread clouds sunsets line his skin, and soil perfume his breath, ever present, ever-awake— He never speaks but through strings he sings a yearning for what has gone and come gone again… like lovers linked in a dance, spinning away till hands stretch to the last filament…
MindWraith 