#bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

I am a battle axe that strikes fear / in the heart of dogs. A force // to be reckoned with. I am the bringer of the hunt, / the disrupting force of the hunt. // I am the watchful dog, / barking at the downfall of tyrants. // I am the downfall of tyrants. / I am the strength that only I, the bravest, can wield. // I am the vicious, untamed hyena, / fierce. 

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

Without your worship, / my hunger is a wildfire, // a searing light.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

What is it that a shadow is trying to say / with the borrowed tongue of silence? Here I stand, // having heard all that has been said, / and like the prolonged abundance of an olive tree // I recall only the beauty of a life, / vast and resilient.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Two, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

I must tell the secrets / burning in my gullet // to my ancestors with eyes clogged with the tongue / of silence—self-possessed with voicelessness.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Three, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

In fairness, // it was my silence that sang to him.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

But I don’t want to forgive the betrayal. // Which means I still carry my own wounds. / I still carry a folded tongue, // burnished with silence; / the sweet nectar of poetry withers.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Two, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

I am now the mother-crane, / whose wings you must give back. // I am the road that brought you here.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book One, Bakandamiya

[lifeinpoetry]

I refuse the song of hope, tethered to nothing // but more hope.

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from Book Three, Bakandamiya