How Bodies Are Used as Storage Units in Sudan (a series of twelve haiku)
Sugar plum fairies –
Empty as a holy drum.
Information age.
Cloak. Rainfall. Ancient –
No history of sequoia.
Face cold as snow.
The Stoic child has veins –
Fangs in my Roman nightmares.
Their bones taste like fudge.
Mad dance for food. Swamp –
The pen haunts the journalist.
Rilke’s sea shivers.
Blanket that itches –
A moon as thin as eggshells.
The cold when it comes
Despair. Milkless war –
There’s no money. No funding.
I read the Scriptures.
Verses don’t make sense –
Only the sight of blood’s door.
Emergency trucks.
Absence of sunscreen –
Sleeping child out of sight.
Pizza moon. Black foot.
No strawberries. Just
the despair of this struggle.
Children go hungry.
Babies have no milk –
Have no film. No camera.
Only memory.
Malnourished river –
The shell of a mind reader.
Bodies of famine.
The guide, the Elder –
This camp, this refugee.
American aid.
Convenience (a series of thirteen haiku)
Wombs have stories too –
Milkless-ex. No moral compass. Caved.
We need the police.
The disappearance –
Don’t know what happened to her.
Call the police now.
Mould in the kitchen –
Child calls grandmother mama.
Dishes are waiting.
Polony sandwich –
Uber driver overcharges.
Checkers Sixty.
Retro orange tiles –
Driftwood in the bathroom morgue.
Bladder cancer smells.
Throne room. Big TV. –
The child looks at her pink toes.
Worships Halloween.
Sunday. Church. Drama –
The mother is a no show.
The roses withered.
Bitter grapes. Cold beer –
End of the month. Maintenance.
She wants the child grant.
The child screams. Concern –
grows. Perplexed adults hover.
Prairie dust yonder.
Mother doesn’t phone –
Child plasters sunscreen on face.
Arms. Trees. Dappled legs.
No marriage. Yonder –
Sunflowers picture on wall.
Lone yearning. Tragic.
Blue silence. Wrists knead –
Dough snake in child’s hands. Flour clock.
Stale loaf. Salt roses.
Egrets in Bic pen –
Spinach. Rice priority.
Sister babysits.
Matthew Wong (a series of twelve haiku)
Blue skin. Orange skies –
This feeling, pure-snow, like flowers.
Lost inside paintings.
The observer, sad. Grave –
Daisies. Mountains. Hills –
Luminosity.
Bounty. Bitter thunder –
Ocean in the canvas. Fight.
Circles of rain. Rein.
Like sun candle burns –
This black paint has a tongue. Shield.
Death military.
Schizoid interior –
Bad brain. A bit of madness.
I keep finding toys.
Apples nourish. Tea –
Green peas go gentle on me.
God. Grey days. Shrapnel.
Rainfall go away –
Dutch English rollercoaster.
I need life. Save me?
Skin of rein. Of grief –
Tell me, did your grief free you?
Melancholia.
Amtrak gives me fruit –
Must research souvenirs. Shard.
Canada, you’re gold.
Antlers in the headlights –
Bone density crushing me.
Toy deer map shoreline.
Rice grains, miracles –
Plate of darkness. Sausage. Fork.
Breakfast drippings eyed.
Crude oil in the light –
I keep finding myself there.
Love, with energy.
Abigail George is an award-winning poet. Her writing has appeared in The Herald, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Neologism, Synchronized Chaos, The Selkie in Wales and Ofi Press in Mexico. She was shortlisted for the Writing Ukraine Prize. Her poetry on Gaza has been anthologised, and appeared internationally and in Critical Muslim.