Shameless

Your not-so-subtle fake smiles,
Your heart-wrenching guiles;
Your kindness, superficial;
Your calculations, all racial.
Egomaniac competitors,
Always ready to devour;
Manipulating all your way,
Through the echelons of power.

From Khartoum with Love

Dusty big city with untold stories,
Three sprawls under one dome,
Home to miskin people with the kindest hearts,
Living in constant fear and unfreedom;
Side by side with the arrogance of power-
Among hypocrites in an ivory tower!-
O, Khartoum, the melting pot for all,
That calls Sudan a home, I find,
You equally welcome the corrupt soul,
And the beautifulest souls of humankind.
From the "raqshas" in Ummdurman,
To the "sheya beyts" in Bahri,
And the beautiful beaches of mighty Nile,
In Naji's "own country";
From the bureaucracies of Khartoum proper,
To the hearty smiles of friends and kin,
Old and new, in solidarity of hope,
For the distressed and the miskin;
I loved living with you in fears,
And now I bid you "so long!" in tears.

No, it's not me!

I gave it a second round,
Of deeper reflecting,
And 'twas abundantly clear,
The fault was your own making.
It's your tribalist, broken, soul,
In quasi-eternal slumber,
And not the melanin in my skin,
So far as I can remember,
That's wrong and unqualified;
But if being what I am’s crime,
I'm a proud felon, it does seem,
Serving my precious time,
In your stupid dream.

I do care...

Though the truth be you're my life,

I made you feel I did not care,

But how, my love, care I don't?

You're that life without a spare!

You're that life, so precious,

That I cherish for all my days,

You're the air to my lungs,

The priceless gem to my eyes!

You're the smell of my morning air,

And the heat of my midday sun,
My raison d'être you are,
And the meaning of my life's fun.
In other words, this selfish me,
I can't afford to never care,
For my life without you,
Is fragile and bare.

Is It Me?

I have noticed of this for aeons of ages,
I have asked of this from the start,
 Is it me or your distorted view of reality
 That’s keeping us worlds apart?
Does the sight of me repel you,
Or is my mind too shallow?
Or is my taste of life too primitive,
For your ’fancy’ mind to swallow?
Is my background too inferior
To the world of yours and kind,
That no matter what I do now
You never bother, never mind?
Is it true that you think
 No matter how I excel in what I do,
You would rather have that mediocre,
Or even simpleton, kind of you?
Well, of course, I know your answers,
 Petty justifications for wicked deeds;
 And why you think you’re entitled
 To agonize me till my heart bleeds.

Glitter and Gold

This life of ours, this precious a thing,

Always fleeting and always old,

This monstrous beauty,

Glitter and gold.

This taken-for-granted transience,

Of our earthly presence.

Our only chance at existence,

In the vastness of the cosmos,

Our blink of glitter in the eternity of time;

The last redemption of a guiltless crime!

Childish Old Man

Childish old man with a vindictive heart,

What have you learnt from your past?

Where is the wisdom that comes with age,

Or was it all waste from the start?

Shame, childish old man, out for spite,

Year in year out but you never learn:

As your li'l pretentious mind rots,

So will your vicious heart always burn.