Enter the wood Dragon.
Another day & beginning the cycle
That leaps into a turbulent
Transformative lunar new year.
Your lucky numbers 1, 6 & 7.
3 & 8 avoid if you can.
Lucky colors gold, yellow, silver.
Limit blue & green
Advised the sage.
& the obligatory red,
Fan Tai Sui must be appeased.
Wear red briefs, red socks,
Red knickers, anything red.
& go to church, temple,
Synagogue or mosque.
Celebrate with family
& with or friends.
If solitary is your serving
Open the window, smile!
Let us invite
Another new year in.
What can be said
About entering the Dragon.
That divine creature. Creator,
Destroyer & shapeshifter
Said to take on human form.
Identified with Jiaolong,
Not those ferocious flying
Fire breathing dinosaurs.
More benevolent,
Less malevolent,
This Dragon breathes
The clouds instead.
A composite of a head
Shaped like a camel,
Antlers of a stag,
Ears of a bull,
Body of a snake,
117 scales of a carp,
Belly of a clam,
Feet of a tiger,
Talons of an eagle
& eyes of a demon –
Ever seen a demon?
Have it as you will.
Tenacious,
Courageous,
Tianlong could lead the world.
A dominant, ambitious spirit,
Even emperors proclaimed it:
I’m a son of a Dragon –
I’m a son of Heaven.
So why in the Great Race
Did you come 5th place?
Jade Emperor bemused,
Queried why you not first?
Such a powerful being
You can fly without wings,
The Dragon took a pause
& proceeded to explain.
There was a fire blazing
In a village en route.
The people begged for water
To extinguish the danger.
The Dragon produced rain
Which took a little time.
Then flying over the forest,
& back on track,
He saw a crane to be eaten
By a fierce wild dog.
The Dragon intervened
& the vigorous fight took
Longer than expected.
Then on the last leg,
Over the swirling current,
On course to break
The finishing tape on land.
He saw the rabbit in distress,
Desperately clinging to a log.
Took pity & advanced
A helping hand.
Puffed the magic Dragon
Forfeited the glory,
Easing the grateful rabbit
Safely to shore.
Impressed Jade Emperor,
Though the Dragon came 5th,
Sanctioned it
To reside in the celestial sky.
& master the creatures
Of the bountiful seas.
& made an engineer,
Master of the rain – ordained
An immensely generous
& noble being.
Symbol of power & honor:
Though out of all in the zodiac
The only fictious character.
Lunar year starts tragic –
Raging conflicts,
Problematic elections,
Economic strife,
Seething inflation,
Job insecurity,
Some going hungry,
Double digits
Just to live in your home.
Pleading to Tianlong.
Before immersing in longwu,
We summon you to petition
Jade Emperor Yu Huang:
Calm this earthly thunder.
Work your magic
Work your wonders.
Project your reflection –
& if we make it
祝你好运:
The year of the Snake,
Slithering through.
“The dog did nothing in the night-time,” said Gregory, the Scotland Yard detective.
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
(Holmes points out that the dog’s silence reveals the true culprit.)
— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of Silver Blaze
The Dog That Hasn’t Barked
I want you to realize
that the dog that hasn’t barked,
the one who lingered in silence
at the gala’s edge,
on the private flight,
in the island’s hush —
that dog is quiet because
recent revelations expose only the outline
of esoteric secrets locked away.
He does not bark because he knows
the facts are brewing.
He feels the weight of all that’s unspoken,
the eyes that turned aside —
a fragile shield of power
believing their darkest acts were hidden.
We did not hear the bark,
but we do hear the restless human clamoring,
the magic dreams that stir after midnight,
see faces of those who scraped
their footprints from the soil,
the guests who slipped from the party
without a wave because their presence
was never meant to be seen.
I want you to realize
that truth sits quietly in the room
with all the trophies;
in the email thread marked by typos
and high importance;
in the photographs and videos
no one ever talks about?
the ones some would prefer
had never existed;
and in the memories of the wounded,
that even death cannot erase.
And when the dog finally barks,
after the long-hidden files
have come into the light,
the collective gasp will reverberate
through the decades.
And the masses who witness
will shake their heads in disbelief.
'The Dog That Hasn’t Barked' explores hidden truths, silent clues and uneasy quiet before long-buried secrets finally surface • Skendong 14
Recognition of a Palestinian state,
an act of cartography, drawing lines
on an idea that no longer corresponds.
It will take 100 trucks 21 years
to clear the poisoned debris.
The territory a geological stratum
of pulverized life, fifty million tons
of concrete, bone, and memory –
a landscape where the future is canceled,
and the past systematically erased.
The West Bank is dominated by settlers.
O’ Urushalim.
To speak of a state upon this ground
is to grant a title deed to a ghost.
A diplomatic séance, a collective agreement
hallucinating a political entity into being –
where rubble and the spectral absence
of 65,344 lives remain at the last count.
10,000 identified Hamas and Islamic Jihad,
Meaning 80 per cent of civilians killed.
The very premise is a fracture in logic:
you cannot grant a birth certificate
to a corpse on the autopsy table.
This is obscene when measured
against sanctioned legal obligations:
The state of Israel must stop the killing,
and make full reparation for the harm
and damage caused to Palestinians.
Recognition doesn’t acknowledge genocide;
it’s a smokescreen, a theatre of concern
staged by the very powers whose weapons,
whose vetoes, whose calculated inaction
manufactured the void it now pretends to fill.
The magician’s gesture. The flourish
of an empty hand that draws the eye
away from the mechanism of genocide
and the ensuing duty of humanity.
World leaders speak of a two-state solution,
while extermination operates in present tense.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s
four distribution sites in militarized zones
(open for as little as eight minutes at a time)
saw 1,373 Palestinians killed seeking food,
American contractors responsible for some –
This is not aid,
but a weaponized process of humiliation.
The recognition of a phantom state
is the perfect alibi for accomplices.
Governments pose as champions of rights
while bombs continue to complicity fall –
allies pull triggers on starving civilians,
and contracts for munitions remain in force.
It is a moral laundering operation,
washing blood from the ledger
with the ink of a diplomatic communiqué.
A firewall of plausible deniability, to say,
“Look at us! We are bold and have acted!”,
while the genocide, with its established
actus reus and mens rea, grinds forward.
The legal obligation is crystal clear:
the Genocide Convention demands prevention,
The International Court of Justice ordered
unhindered aid to the starving and
the erga omnes duty requires by all means
to stop the slaughter, secure accountability.
Recognition doesn’t appear on the list.
It’s a substitute; a placebo offered instead
of the surgery of direct action:
arms embargo, the medicine of sanctions,
and the long-term therapy of restitution.
Instead a discussion of architectural plans
for a city takes place while the city is burning,
refusing to acknowledge the foundation must
first be cleared of corpses buried in rubble.
Who needs a a phantom lever pulled
to give the illusion of hope and control
when it is connected to nothing but
the echo chamber of diplomatic self-congratulation.
For what is a state without a people
capable of self-determination
on their perceived ancestral land?
The destruction of Al Basma IVF clinic,
a direct hit and five liquid nitrogen tanks
exploded – 5,000 embryos obliterated
long before they saw the sun:
a calculated act to prevent even birth.
O’ Palestinian women, mothers of the earth.
Maternal morbidity has drastically surged,
neonatal and intrapartum death increased,
and post-trauma in impossible conditions:
no space, no medication, no equipment –
Targeted sexual and reproductive violence,
an unimaginable burden to bear:
maintaining menstrual hygiene without water,
caring for newborns without baby formula,
protecting children in circumstances
designed to exterminate life.
The West’s performative feminism
evaporates when confronted with this reality;
its concern for women’s rights proves
conditional – a privilege reserved for those
whose suffering doesn’t implicate allies.
The education system has been obliterated.
462 school buildings damaged, 80 fully destroyed,
a deliberate attack on the intellectual
and cultural reproduction of a people.
Heritage and religious sites bombed.
The Great Omari Mosque; the Anthedon Harbor –
a gateway to antiquity; the Roman cemetery;
the Al Pasha Palace Museum. More than half
of Gaza’s heritage we’ll never see again.
This is not a fog of war but clear intent.
Enabled in this vacuum of gathered evidence –
there’s no Palestinian future in this place.
The continuing invocation of Amalek states
a history erased and an unlivable land.
To recognize a state after this annihilation
is to agree to recognize a phantom idea –
a people stripped of past and future potential,
implicitly absolving the perpetrators of duty:
to stop the killing, to stop the destruction,
to provide restitution and satisfaction.
The true map of a state that doesn’t exist
is drawn by paths of two million displaced.
Its borders are the walls of a dog cage
where a mother and her four sons take shelter.
Its monuments the cohorts of child amputees.
Its archives are the records of thousands
of cancer patients left to die.
Its economy is the picking of hubeiza leaves
from contaminated soil. Its sovereignty violated
a thousand times daily by the sniper’s bullet
and the contractor’s shots, killing children
who are holding up white flags.
To recognize this state is to refuse
to call out genocide occurring in the ‘Holy Land’.
It’s the final act of complicity: to grant a name
to the silence that follows the explosion –
quadcopters killing women and children –
and to the void where a civilization once stood,
disappearing before our eyes while
the requirements of international law
are replaced by meaningless political gestures.
This is the astonishing state of Palestine.
Can You See the Astonishing State of Palestine? A powerful poem depicting genocide displacement and erasure of Palestinian life and culture
A haunting poem by Skendong about Sudan's ongoing atrocities, forgotten justice & the world's silence as history repeats itself in blood and
The Devil on Horseback
The devil on horseback gallops through the sand,
Past the rotting corpses floating in the Nile.
His dark shadow stretches the breadth of the land,
Feeding on the blood, the grief, and guile.
He rides through villages razed to ash,
Each hoofbeat a curse, each breath a flame.
Shame on the hands that fuel this fire,
On the generals feasting while Sudan burns.
Shame on the world that turned its face,
As hungry mothers beg for bread in vain.
Shame on arms traders prolonging the war,
On the silence complicit in the devil’s return.
Last week, the Blue Nile ran red with blood:
Girls dragged through dust, their chastity revoked.
Men stacked like firewood atop the roof
Of a clinic that was later bombed to dust.
“Crimes against humanity,” the UN declares,
Yet gold nuggets are smuggled out by the tons.
In Zamzam camp, the vultures dine
On children’s bellies swollen tight.
The Security Council drafts a line:
“We strongly condemn.” Then fades from sight.
Six percent of the aid they pledged
Is like a single penny flung to the dead.
Twenty-two years since Darfur’s genocide,
The same killers ride through the same sandy earth.
The same graves grieve though years have passed,
The same lies sold as peace and worth.
O Nubia, who will carve your ancient name
In the future’s mind, not history’s void?
The soccer pitches are now makeshift graves.
I’m not there but heard it on the airwaves.
The scramble for minerals, the looted gold reserves,
While Dubai brokers juggle, civilians rot in the Nile.
The traders smile while the corpses swell,
Building fortunes in this abominable hell.
Raise an embargo! Starve the guns!
Let the warlords choke on air.
Flood the camps with medicine and care,
Not with terror and manufactured fear.
But the devil laughs, his path is clear:
Onward to Urušalim. The end is near.
Gaza Sonnet: Starving, Staggering from Life to Death
A harrowing Gaza sonnet: Starvation, drones, and shattered hope. ‘Staggering through life into death.’ Read the full poem by Skendong • 27 J
Gaza Sonnet
Unarmed, unfed, unprotected, they tread,
For food parcels dealt by cold, ruthless hands.
A death trap masked as mercy, cloaked in dread,
Gunmen scout the crowd, the UN banned.
They risk the crush of death within their land,
No lullabies or baby milk remain.
Pounding animal feed to make a sort of flour –
Leaves become food that dulls the hunger pain.
The drones above hum like a ghostly choir,
Their watchful eyes extend the catastrophe.
The Holy Land consumed in unbelievable fire,
Sacred blood spilled beneath the cross’s glare.
This nightmare lives; no refuge to be found,
Hope seems buried under children’s bones.
The Safety of Rwanda Act 2024.
I scratch my head while reading.
Soon enacted by an ailing King,
The muse hit me.
I’m free versing.
I was born in England,
My mother from Jamaica.
After World War 2,
She’s deemed a saviour.
British streets paved
With Wagadugu gold?
As she arrived, they cried
“Go back home!”
But she was strong,
The wind rushed through.
Whose hands and minerals
Built Empires of the West?
Mancunian accent,
A grown man now –
I’m the epitomy of English,
Deterred but not a guest.
So, hey Rishi Sunak,
You can send me to Rwanda,
Home of my ancestors
Kidnapped from Africa.
I’ve been to Touba,
And Jufureh, The Gambia,
But wouldn’t mind chilling
With a mountain gorilla,
Or the golden monkeys
Living in Virunga.
But when I looked it up
It would cost five grand.
The deportation scheme,
Half a billion pounds.
How many British
Could that employ?
Jobs for the people,
Forget this ploy.
Home Office workers
Processing claims and
After horror stories
Most migrants should remain –
In this colourful nation
Which I’m a part of.
The Government is crooked,
But some people I do love.
I’m scratching my head
At this small tetchy brown man.
First Asian Prime Minister
Micro-managing this plan.
He’s there by default
Because disgraced Liz Truss,
And because his parents
Were given grace –
Just like my parents,
It’s not about race,
But he’s racing to the top,
He has no face.
Trying to leave a legacy,
The troubling thing is:
The world eyeing his policy
We, the cost of living.
Through the grapevine,
America might decree –
Southern border migrants
Sent to Haiti.
Or Israel might designate
Palestinian refugees,
Bombed to smithereens
But soon Lebanese.
Denmark plotted initially
This Rwanda plan.
They’re tied up by Europe,
Apparently humane.
From the lord to the commons,
From the commons to the lords,
From the lords to the commons.
Now the policy is here.
If I was ever the first
Black Prime Minister
My declaration would be –
On the cold cobbled stones
Of Number 10, holding
To the sky my assegai spear,
Before the clicks and microphones
Justice is laid bare:
“All who survived that perilous journey –
You’re most welcome here.”
What?
“All who survived that perilous journey –
You’re most welcome here.”
