Displacement



There are times
when I cannot look
my own grief in the eye

There are times
when TV, internet, alcohol
are the only medication for the mind

There are times
when grief and loss are expressed
only through displacement

At those times
I can cry a deluge
for Princess Diana, Whitney, Mandela

At those times
I link to collective grief,
break down the party wall

After those times
I blow my nose
and carry on.

Performance at Golders Hill Park

 Hampstead & Highgate Literary Festival
http://www.highgatepoets.com/2013/09/09/hampstead-highgate-literary-festival/

We are performing on Sunday Sept 15th at Golders Hill Park

Bulawayo

This poem won 1st prize in 2011 Lupus International Poetry competition.

Thinking of what's going on in Zimbabwe right now  so decided to put up again.  Supposed to be elections announced by end of July, people everywhere are QUEUING up to register to vote all you people who don't bother to  vote.  Members of the police told to photocopy their voting slip and hand to their commanding officer ... to show who they voted for ....

Bulawayo is south of Zimbabwe and is where the Gukhurahundi took place in the 80s, under Mugabe when 30,000+ Ndebeles (Mugabe is Shona) were massacred by foreign mercenaries hired by Mugabe.

In the playground
we compare notes
to place ourselves.
Where you born then?
Watford. Harrow. London
English places.

I wait. Holding back.
Then I say it, rolling the vowel sounds
slowly on my tongue,
casual like.

Bul-a-way-o.

What? Where’s that?
Low key, shrug.
Africa.
Africa?
Wow. Then silence.
Staring at me.
No one can top that.

I walk off slowly, nonchalant like.
I don’t know what Bul-a-way-o is.
I know it’s in Africa.
They tell me nothing about it.
Too busy with the present,
to bother about that past time in Africa.

I don’t care, I’m different, special,
‘cos of Bul-a-way-o.
Its mine, my place,
I came from there.
No one else does, ever.

In the album, a black and white picture
of small me on some steps in a garden
and an ‘arm-a-dillo’, strange creature,
in Bul-a-way-o.

I like the name
Bul-a-way-o,
where I was born.
No one can top that.

Anna Meryt ©



 

Is it finished yet?

I keep thinking this is the end,
the last time, no more, it's finished -
I'm angry when I think that,
I tell myself, I can't go on.

I'll make plans,
my rational brain takes charge.
How will I organise my time
now I am one, not two?

Mornings uncluttered,
days busy with projects,
evenings, my own ...

I'll visit old friends here and there
Berlin, Brussels, Bristol
Indonesia, India, Africa.
I'll be free, free.

Stop, stop! Rewind rewind!
What about the empty rooms?
The long quiet days?
Cooking alone on dark winter nights?

What about the daily chit chat
and lack of to and fro?
No more intimate moments,
and laughing together?

And so my mind see saws
up and down, like two old men
in an endless argument, never agreeing.