**Honorable Mention: 2007 Islamic Writers Alliance Annual Poetry Contest
21st Century Poor
The stench of poverty lingers in the stagnant summer air, scenes from the block rain sorrow against stark red bricks. An escape from the project’s summer infernos, the sidewalks become quarters for inhabitants of the night. The city’s congregants embrace the dark as a symphony unfolds. Do Wop - Hip Hop - Dum Ditty Do soothing the souls of the concrete jungle dwellers. The dilly dally of the night becomes a dance mothers cautiously orchestrate, as toddlers play upon dirty pavement, in court yards full of broken glass and wasted paraphernalia. A deadly game for some, as fiends chase shadows through the dark only to discover devils that shoot yet bullets target the innocence of the poor. A slave to extravagance, trapped in a subculture of despair. Commercial piracy stripping children naked, dinner tables are bare. What is left but candy coated chips of paint which fall like gentle snowflakes from the old cracked windowsill, a tempting poison for a child living in the ghetto. Is this by chance, that the child can not read and becomes a man who can not be a man, who doesn’t know how. Ghosts haunt a generation that no longer believes in a dream for they are living the reality of 21st Century Slavery which knows no color but POOR!
Malika 2007
Africa Calling
When I close my eyes I see their faces,
faces aged with anguish, tortured by demons
A mother’s tear moistens the barren earth she sits upon,
where once stood mighty tribes
If you listen closely you can hear the faint laughter
laughter of the children that no longer play
The children of mother’s who cry
Their pain unheard by the majority, overlooked for profit
Who is supreme? Are we to judge?
The black hearts of some would have you believe they are.
My dear Sisters from the earth stay strong, I hear your cries
The shame is not for you to bare
The men who rape stand before the world,
a world too cold to care
Your life is not in vain, your reward yet to come
For one day we'll see the fruit they bare.
Malika 2007
Muslimah
I am a woman, an independent woman
Strong
A woman of distinction
Islam my belief, a Muslim I am
The headscarf my crown, I wear with pride
A distinguishing feature
A woman equal
Honored
My dictates are my own, not for sale or compromise
I adhere to a power far greater than my own
A doctrine which transcends time
Beauty refined, dignity prolific
My cries are not of one oppressed
I cry for the ones who do not realize their oppressors
Those who exploit their beauty for profit and pleasure
I am not the one to use my gifts and charm to move ahead
Those are not for share
I will not submit to a carnal desire
I am one of esteem, protective of my body and soul
A proud Muslim woman uncompromised!
Malika 2007
Walking Tall
Do not approach me with contempt
for I am not the one to aim your displeasure
with the worldly affairs of the oppressor
I stand with you, not amongst the shadows
The cell you fear is the one you’ve created for yourself
Read between the lines
Ignorance comes with a price
It is not I alone who seeks justice
The voice of a people unheard
Stifled by polluted media,
controlled by bureaucracy
Don’t you see the grey skies looming
Seek to understand me as I do you
Our shared futures depend on the present
Don’t dismiss me because I don’t look the same as you
Our children of tomorrow will pay the price
A price extreme
Owed for atrocities
atrocities committed in the name of freedom
One Nation under God
Or so you say
How do you walk tall
when you defeat the human race
Malika 2007
Hard to Be Easy
Why must I cry, I will cry no more
My life is where it should be, though not what I romanticized
My dreams have become pale recollections,
as the years have groomed me
I've awoken to a mysteriously foreign world,
hard and removed
Another chapter has begun, a new beginning,
more audacious than before
Yesterday no longer haunts me as I discern the lessons learned
Today I confront a life yet to be appreciated with indifference
to those adjacent to me
I am who I am no apologies
I will no longer pay a debt that is not my own
The tears I shed today are not for me but for those
who have not found the courage to be
Malika 2006
Consequence of Sophistication
A consequence of sophistication entranced in romantic euphoria
Possessed with phantasm, delusional, I sought
Regaining consciousness only to find
though one’s inspirations intensify beyond the unattainable
The passion of the mind, capable of conjuring a passion
marvelously greater than that of the heart
The way to
of your own, through this new plateau two gallantly obtain
what was once thought unattainable
Once reached is a desire far greater than a single embrace
for the mind manipulates all that we wish to encounter
Malika 2006
Triumph
How do you reach the age of mellowness yet lose the lot
Disregarded
A dream never appreciated – lost
Peripatetic from truth, suppressing reality
May I change the course
To look around I see beauty out of my reach
Laughter eludes me
How did I become the one person I tried desperately to avoid
Is it destined for us to inherit a past not our own
My eyes grow weary of a future bleak
Years of neglect weaken me
Dilapidated by faux pas
Haunted by confusion
Searching for a dramatic piece
The symphony of life plays me like an old fiddle
An old familiar tune resonates on my mind
Will I triumph over the cycle of destruction self inflicted
Malika 2006