Category: Rivers of Broken Water
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voyageur
WORDS: we wade by the moonlit sky;as it becomes adept in hidingthe cerulean view.as the old horizon,span itself over the galaxythunder whisperslightening speaksand age travelsfaster than the speed of light.we ask it to wade;so we can holdit effervescence oflight, life and laughter.each year our songwaxes brighterand we hang agelike stars in the galaxyand billions of…
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vine on the wall
WORDS: burn the twigs with frankincense, and each year the vine waxes stronger. weaving itself across the wall like a neck adorned with lavalieres. ivy ebbs and flows. fauna flaunts itself;each year swelling, expanding, trespassing across neighbours borders boundaries appropriated.cut. snip. burn. across the walls of the mind,they watched the roots seek vengeance.do…
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when you painted my dreams as dark
WORDS: who would have thought it to be me?my versions of the sunset:in my summer dress, leaves the darkness upset.because i’m not bringing it to my new dawnit won’t rise with me either:in the morning sun. i spent seven days mourning my mind.then I made myself hibiscus tea, i drowned and abated the symptoms of…
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waves and cycles
WORD:waves are nothing butthreads of water pulling back and forth like frayed fabrics.the inking on the notes confesses that silver clouds with silver liningshas speck of silver molecules in its crashing. it clangs like a cymbal and subdues,only to arise again and repeat. spiralling into nature’s spontaneity.we measure tsunami in man-made timescales. and when hems…
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we, the wildflower women
WORDS:she was a valiant seed;but in those days;father knew seedswere nonentities.so, he couldn’t affordto nurture a kernelknown for fragility.he held the belief thatseeds bare seedswho then bore seeds.and in due coursehis fragile seedwill follow suit. she was a blossoming budbut in those daysmother knew seedswere useful.not too complacentto nurture this kernel seedswho become so invaluableand…
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the waning sun
WORDS: the yellow sun spans itself into a waning crescent/ and we are amused by its curvature/if it could lower itself down to us/ we would extract all that we could/compress its hydrogen for more metals/ find more uses for its helium / and coerce carbon to commit to our customs/ whatsoever is left of…
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we shall draw our breath
WORDS: When the dawn drew;the dark sits in its nothingness.We cannot breathe. With the sky gazing favourably;In its favour it stretches itself ;and the day becomes longer.We cannot breathe. Some question the sunshine;about its luminosity.Former days recall light beatinginto a bedazzling darkness.We cannot breathe. An incandescent void so illustrious.We’ve been saturated and soaked;on this narrow…
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wade
i. When time asks the day; what have you made of it?inhale for the seconds, minutes, hours, dayssubtract the lost seasons and add the years.disregarding the tick of the clock.Wallow in words of silence then;build chaos in chronological order. ii. When syllables grew lethal; did you think you could shawl words of titanium?Seek warnings of…
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the retraction of regret
WORDS: etching regret / on the tablet of the skin / absorb the white chalk / permeable surfaces can take no more / sullen guilt smudges / the pleading skin demands exfoliation with coarse salt / infuse lavender oil/ take the hands/ grind the mortar / rotate the pestle/ the words sinking in the bowl…
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the crossing
WORDS: Cross the borders of the sun;and let its rays grow wildflowers Cross the border of the sea;and on its waves, we walk. Cross the borders of growth;and we uproot ruthless seeds. Cross the borders of decay;and in the rot, we deracinate. Cross the border of age;and do not despise its youth. Cross the borders…
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sunset
WORDS: I stood under the evening sun,thinking of things yet to come:and everything we ever hadfloated away with the lily pad. that’s when the rain made its trailand pain shoots in form of hail.and if you ever cherish me,become something more than I hold you to be. and we breathed the air again.and its vapour…
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sunken place
WORDS: in the briny deep, a legion of horses they rode. and waves were their abode. in some distance land; histories ago, by the horizon of their growth; the platoons uprooted ruthless seeds. in the land of the decay, plagues of rot arrived, the multitude deracinate. in the exodus, the gathering didn’t concede to age.…
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strands of gold
WORDS: Rumpelstiltskin weft the hairand spun it into a commodity.then laced a curse in the strand;but fibre became adamant,it would turn into a blessing. when he was done weaving; he lacedand when he was done lacing; he weaved.his nimble hands lack courage;and his conscience lacked all things.but character was adamanthe would be pious one day.just…
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sad (sestina)
WORDS: her mouth form into weak curvatures.today she laughs as sedated smiling storm.beneath the ridge lies the docility,of her undulated tongue and its symptoms.nocuous questions shall determine her fateas she searches for unblemished answers. her beautiful mind confines its answersand tells her to study the tables curvature.she listens attentively to her symptoms and hears two forces…
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rainforest
WORDS: listen closely at the equipoise where new immerses the old, like curses softening into blessings as a scented candle infusing away the past and the prayers becoming flames. the preacher man asks you to take for the year how much your faith carries. you decipher the load and you take proclamations of what the…
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probe
WORDS: we probe the garden to recount our childhoodand retell our adventures that it once absorbed. tell us about our imagination chasing us barefootand the borders we crossed with ingenuity, confiscate our memories of this wilting world;and return reminders of the pure planets of the past.caution us of the callous cosmos that now coexist. we…
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parrallels
WORDS: affliction is a foreign exchange market.it bids iniquities and asks to sell the painremembering the rulesbid low, sell high.finding the point of arbitrage.inefficiencies fade in the exchangethe smiles are commodities hedged with tears.the laughter are equities diversified with lament.the joy is a bond contractually agreedon a date that sorrow set its yield.the ethos echoesand…
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oxymoron
WORDS: tonight, this hard shell will break soft.with its small pieces voyaging into big places.its lost ways are found in the earthed soilsno singing birds to write its wordsthey layer nests with undressed leavesapologising to the twig stating its reasons.when the dawn darkens in the horizonthe skyline looks down on the soilshades become shadows in…
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orchid
WORDS: some lost orchids search for home.that’s why they are ever reaching.absorbent lies caress impermeable truths.when they get caught is how they find their colours.layers of lushness create an emergent canopy,that blocks most light from reaching below.they create buds more than their destroying branches;they hold the apologue to be; self-watering, sufficient and still.they are becoming…
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one more sad song
WORDS: the flute was played; and we danced alongwe sang the sun one more sad song.this is the last time we’ll show our woundand let our scars play the drone untuned.tears will no longer spate our faceand its melancholy will not embracethis is the last time despondence humsto ask us to beat our saddened drums.…
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on losing thyself
WORDS:out by the shoreshe sung with the wavesand in the sun,the night escapes.she breathes, and breath againa vapour of a songcondensed into the brave and freewill you dare to remember she.the melody she gavethey took the notes.and reduced her wisdominto stillness quotesshe sang as the tune.hummed and entunedanother song will have to dowhen we danced…
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my taste for rain has changed
WORDS:my taste for rain has changedi no longer cry storms.my taste for thunder begun,when my feet vowed to return.my taste for rain on arid soil,the dawn begunand with the weather i was overi vowed my storm will return. under the faint sky,my taste for rain evolved.grew into a wildfire of monsoonsi returned with hailstones under…
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metamorphosis
WORDS: a day cradles the sun; and i hold its beams.another way to hold the colours of my dream. call out the warmth, hold it close and tight.then i may find the sun in the middle of its plight. i am a woman with yellow in my huesthough i began to settle with the darkness…
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mother
WORDS: Our mother is a radiant Sunflower;too proud to admit her waning. Our mother is a vibrant orchid;too secretive about her fading petals. Our mother is a bold bamboo;too strong to show breaking boughs. Our mother is a yellow hibiscus; too effervescent to return her radiance. Our daughters are black Roses;too bothered with blooming. Our daughter…
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map
WORDS: a map engraved on soles of the feet,landscapes etched on the mind.inklings across ankles becomes nodesof wanderlust places which now erode. neither monsoon but harmattanneither wildfire but a flood.both submerge her skinbut we call it an ‘Act of God’. purple hibiscus and sugar cane stalksgrew on acres of radiant landsbut will diasporas feed our…
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love’s fear
WORDS: after you shut the light outcry with the sun and lament at the moonlove is breaking and breath-takinglet us take back our disrespectwe will not watch the brokenness in our reverencethese flailing hearts now beat slow realising that bliss casts itself over our shadows.when the three words blow over our coffinswe died making something…
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lies the salient sycamore tree
WORDS: neither near nor far from theelies the salient sycamore treeto its right desire asks destinyto speak on faith enmity. neither near nor far from theelies the salient sycamore treeto its left life ask deaththe essence of the final breath neither near nor far from theelies the salient sycamore treein the middle pleasure asks painwhich…
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lessons
WORDS: a burial in the carcases of the heart;doesn’t always mean its broken.it sometimes contains:pain, secrets, treasures.morgue and morbid goodbyes,are weft in tears or weaved in courageand threw at graves.twine pain and throw it over the horizon.life is bleak.so everything found- keep.sometimes we weave confidence in our palms.and embroidery smiles on our faces.some days, laughter…
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language
WORDS: the indigenous mouth is colonised by a new speech,do not ask oceans to cross borders for old words.at the periphery, language is under siege.her shudders roar like a legion of hummingbirds. in agony her pain reverbs into a stolen screechwatch it weep in its etymology it shares one-thirdof reading, writing and speaking to be…
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lamentations
Under the scarlet sky silence probed sadness for seven despondent days. Self-esteem is a lining that finds itself breaking and repairing itself again. Two entities cramp till they bleed hope or fear and cry in pain about crimson nightmares. Aches and tenderness massage the nodes till it swells upheaving like a wave then ask…
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ivory song
WORDS: the lurid sun hauled the dawn across the sere plainsand the silent soil spins its dust to the other side.with the watering hole minding its business for once.a forewarning of what is and yet to come,under the mid-summer dream in the haze of the Serengeti. ancient melodies recite with tearsbringing the gusts of the…
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if i had words like a poet
WORDS: I want to write aboutthe incandescent skies;the nebulous horizons;the midsummer mists;then get lost in the skies that words;commanded to remain blue. I want to write aboutadapting the ums in my speech,metamorphosing songsmerging metaphors to become melodies I want to write aboutyou, mine, and thee.wanderlust with subjects:probe predicates:meet with metaphors. I want to write about…
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i was born
i was born by a well, and they drew me like Rachel, and Jacob waded for fourteen years. and in my lineage, we watched trees till they became branches with boughs of almonds and grew into something more than leaves. i was born by a lake, and they took me like Moses across the rivers…
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i am not geographies dream
a. temporal spaces labelled by place and space; i expel myself from without. convergent meets divergent and terrain meets new troughs; ambivalent to physicality; ordinance surveys point to keys and nodes is a just a reflection of my physical geographies. i haven’t formed yet- a mountain, valley, lake, and brook; sand dunes and wildfires; storms…
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homecoming
as the warmth of yellow basked in the summer breeze, i parch and thirsted for new beginnings. father, when thy kingdom comes and your will begins, let origins be the find i seek. mother, when thy kingdom comes and your will complete, let etymology be the song i sing. father, when thy kingdom comes and…
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healing
A bone crumbles delicately into a sand dune,with nimble flesh and sinews of delicate grains.Memories of a once picturesque sandcastle,now has trodden silver seashells dancing in its veins. In the crumbling, memories recount,how each speck becomes residues.recurring pain lullabies in the memoriesdisguising the hunger for sleep as night-time blues. Yet the world opens an ailing…
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fragile
A fragile world;pixelated dreams;we weft in thinned walls,and ecru spews the tepid truth. A night dies,bury her over the moonlit starsfor the song of day;is fervent for the horizon. A horizon uprisingas song of day, dreams onequilibrium find the world;and ache functions like breaking walls. Buy Rivers of Broken Waters here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rivers-Broken-Water-Hannah-Williams/dp/B0CR4D1L3D © 2022 Hannah Williams.…
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five rings
on the first day of the summer games,the blue ring spans like the azure skyand the nations forget their ally.borders fissure with the Olympic flames. the yellow ring radiates bright flagsclearer than the sunbeamand vivid like an athletes dreamreality and fate resist like the forces of drag. as the days progress,the black ring professes lifebut…
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for the forgotten sunflower girls, who deserved to be more
we are the sunflower girls, before the world turned us into oil. the whispers of the wind, that were there, then gone like the rain, the birds and the distant sun our autumns show the misery. effervescence burnt in the soil. our springs were distant memories, before we became sunflower oils.…
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dispersion
Our kaleidoscope skies; fragment together the sunrise. Our horizon sees wilting, then waning and eventually withering. Our questions up rise like migration; of birds flocking to find rest. I wonder; What do these birds make of us? Our exodus agapes the mouth; watching the migration in awe. they pointed as we soar with the winds…
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death
WORDS: the soil solemnly recites the namesof those whose stories live on the headstone inscription. the flowers vicariously live;forever striving to capture life’s vivacity. subdue the dim by the blaze of lightand ask not the sunrise why it beams on death. blossoming breath becomes dead shadows of those to whom we should have been our…
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coming
WORDS: coming from the womb; cradled by my mother. and she came from the sun but father was the thunder. my brothers were waves and my sisters were the storm. the sun settles and the calm stretches out the dawn. inscribed on my iris was a place where seasons explode; either winter or summer my…
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control
sometimes, hands become colonised, adept in taking things that are yours. segregate the seconds quickly when they ask to purchase time. maybe borders, maybe water maybe speech, maybe song. memories and melodies that our country is a bird. minding its business she rests in her nest, of scattered twigs and leaves. holes poked in her…
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civil war
a sharp bullet spits its venom and its hiss ricochet a reverb across the sky. the dark sky swallows the sound and the wind carries a speck of its pain. revolving in the four corners it flies nonchalantly and sinks in to pierce piously. the crimson honey drips gently onto the arid earth as the…
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black sheep
clearing out the truths in my closet i find another.amidst the chaos and the calm, there drapes the dark woollen coat. persistently promising to always be in vogue. its length smiles at my older self its warmth laughs at my latter days its style larks at the former self its size beams in my…
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black calla lilies
WORDS: someone knew the skyline was a fading hope; and painted the horizon pale. someone laid the genocide on rivers; and charred the bodies with paraffin. someone knew the children were flowers; and divested their roots to wither. someone collected memories of fathers teardrops; and threw it at the grave of sons. someone knew our…
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blessing the journey
WORDS: may barren journeys cradle you into new purpose. as the stillness of the shores, soothe and cease from upswelling. and you find serenity in stillness. as the tide now becomes subdued. may fear be arid; droughted and dearth. as an oasis of confidence upsurge around you; dousing all you seek. and the veil of…
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beginning
WORDS: in the beginning before water and land there was light. but submerged in the body of water the coastline sleeps river erodes with mangroves and the sediment surrender. and made us the debris erasure of the past billows and the shore recounts before land and water there was light and the dawn …
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arson
WORDS: at the dark red dusk, the monsoon flooded raining kerosene and paraffintrickles of oil lashed like lightningleaving imprint on wooden windowsthe flames upraising like an anthemand we asked our bloodshot eyes to stop chantingwith smoke engraved in our parched coughingwe watch the arid commodities burn with the heat.red spices and brown sugar turn to black…
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alabaster of broken cisterns
WORDS: we are our sister’s keepers/but sometimes i tell you i don’t where you are/so i hold no accountability for you/we’ve been here before/ i have watched you break and yet your embers never go out/a flame/ a fire/a sunrise/ and you hold shape/ i have watched you as a miracle, you became water/ that…
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ask
she asks herself and asks again. as her voice breaks like floral porcelains, she picks up the pieces. it hurts, and it takes time. for the little pieces perforate and sink into the hands like painful memories. there she pulls the shards and plasters the wounds. silence reminds her that she has been here before…
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ancestors
i.when the ancestors visit with their greyscale faceslook silently at their scathing scarsrefrain from asking about their fading memoriesand when they disremember royalty; forgive them.for in the oration of their tongue lies a history.silenced by one wilting lieovershadowing seven bold truths. ii.softly it cries for those to comelamenting the innocuous statefor even the soil avows…
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a songbird in london
under the curvature of the city skyline;the morning songbird spans its wings. over the silhouette of the railway stationsilence asked:i.though we feel a certain stormwe continue persevering under the city’s sun. ii.though we feel distant and away;we strive to overcome the icy days. iii.after the journey is dead and gonewho remembers the faces you saw;…
Hannah Williams 