poetry

Old Age (in a foreign land)
by Yaqoob Ghaznavi

1 I have seen, what I have seen I will not bear false witness

2 exile starts with the first train

3 melancholy without you

4 twenty long years I dream of the petrified forest a river that flows backward

5 I was there but once only

6 everyday I inhale more lonesome darkness dust of shadows

7 a hawk appears above my sightline sparrows finches scatter in panic leave behind distilled terror

8 tsunami seeks the feeble body call of ocean now louder

9 it is not dark in the belly of fish

10 I plant roses move the lavender to a spot more favored by the sun

11 I am ready to journey

12 of late I think constantly of cemeteries and organizing the never-sent letters that all end with I miss you I love you

13 spirits of night be my witness I am not afraid (sad, sorry)

Yaqoob Ghaznavi has been published in Big Pond Rumours, Street#6, Tower Poetry, Carousel, Garden Variety Anthology, Renaissance Reloaded Anthology, and a number of publications by The Ontario Poetry Society. In his sixties, Yaqoob was bitten by the twin passions of writing poetry and long-distance running.