Invisible – Choka (Reprint) – January 3, 2016

he’s invisible
just sitting there in the street
we all walk by him
and don’t really see him
from New York to Rome
homeless – living in the streets

through embarrassment
or is it indifference
now we look away
they’ve become invisible
those people no longer seen

© G.s.k. ‘15

A Story in Five Sentences – Flash Fiction – October 7, 2014

Good Fortune

Jingua was up at five thirty, had eaten her breakfast of tea and rice and was on the road to work.  She sat with other girls, sometimes younger other times older, sewing sequins on party dresses.  At noon and in the evening more tea and rice with maybe some fish or vegetables. She was asleep by nine. She knew she was lucky, as her mother always said, “At least you’ve never suffered hunger.”

 

Five Sentence Fiction – Hunger

Ghazal: Fences of Segregation

Walking down the wooded lane, a fence, man’s separation,
I pondered of our need for a form of segregation.

Myth would have it that God punished disobedient humanity,
Exiled from our birthplace, closed off, in a form of segregation.

Men created ghettos and concentration camps in Europe,
Keeping the holy from the damned, a form of segregation.

South Africa for years created “home lands” by constitution,
Keeping whites “safe” from “Bantu”, brutal, a form of segregation.

Now Bastet observes our modern age and sees that god is profit.
Subtle our enlightened age but still a form of segregation.

@)—>—>—

I tried the Ghazal again…however, it still comes out somber. So be it.  I did however find an interesting site which by clicking HERE you can see an illustrated how to in writing a Ghazal.  I discovered that the repeated phrase or word is called a radif and the last word of the first line that rhymes with the radif is called a qaafiya.  Each couplet is a stand alone poem and there’s no need to have them “tell a story”.  Each couplet has to have the same number of syllables in each line.