Poetry Suite by Saddiq Dzukogi

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“at other times I am what the cat
loves to get its paws on”

Poetry by Sadiq Dzukogi

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Prophecy 


a prophecy is a mirror
predicting a reflection

the first time I looked
it weaved a grassland
covered in mist
like an ocean of smoke

it was like a weather forecast
it was the weather

I saw
through water:
the secret is in a calabash

it wasn’t a reflection it was me
leaving another life

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You left my heart in a taxi 


I believe you are an owl
when night settles like rainwater

I feel afraid that when your eyes grow into a brook
you see me as something
on a child’s drawing board

at other times I am what the cat
loves to get its paws on

melancholy is rebounding
like the gallows is to be my bed
and the noose a pillow

my heart is what you left
in a taxi when you visited a new city

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Engrossed in the sand


I am a crag
on the riverfloor
and a sol laughs over me.
what is tender weighs
like a mountain.
each dispossession
is a stone tossed
pushing the water
to clamber a river bank.

obsecration
does not sail
does not fly;
the prayer is not wool
it is a hundred-ton metal.

each loss condiments tears
with seasalt
and a seasoned water
gets to a wound.

I wonder what last supper
may bring
a lump of pain and its eruption
or a wine worth a thirst;             a glut
when all the stones
come into the river
and earth
becomes a profusion
of water that extinguishes
the fire of the sol.

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Dave's Piano Keys


what then

seeps through

kitchen window

into the night-wind

if not a piano song.

are you not amazed

how a blind man plays his walking stick

as if it were the gum of piano

teeth.

are you not amazed

how a paralysed man

inspires a neighbourhood

by striking the keys with his useful

fingers

and reaching where his hand can't

with hums

to complete the hanging notes.

what will you say

of a boy

who learns to play the piano

in his head.

what is the difference

between a man

who is blind since birth

that has never

seen a piano

and another

who has

seen it as a cooking table.

the smoke from a burning flower

is Dave's piano keys.

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