THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.

I sat on the sand dunes of time,

With stardust of happiness rumpling my curls,

Watching the rainbow of desires smile across the heavens,

Gazing at the surging colours of life rushing by.

Life, a maelstrom of rich colours,

Overflowing from the Creator’s palette,

Diverging and melding into new hues,

Frolicking in gaiety, filling every void.

Dancing on the swirling foam

Sailed many a kindred and friend,

Their white bellowing sails filled the horizon,

I watched them move to eternity round the bend.

Their paths had crisscrossed mine,

Some with gravelly colourful pebbles

Adorned with fragrant exotic flowers,

Life’s garden of joys and sorrows filling my earthly hours.

My jars of camaraderie basting in the sun,

Pickled with spices of love and hate

Tickled my tastebuds, inviting me,

As I licked my fingers to understand their taste.

They metamorphosed my path of monotony

Into valleys of adventures and ravines of risk,

Where my fate ran into blind lanes,

With near death experiences all too brisk.

The gentle drops of rain mingled in warm tears

moistened my dust stained soul,

healing the clandestine crevices of my broken heart,

With rays of romantic hopes, filling every hole.

The unruly winds carried wisps of my moments

Over the waters of the choppy sea,

Where death overrules life,

Germinating a new life, a new me.