Notes on Ending 2024 and Entering 2025…

By Abrahim Harb

Employment…

Lay off after lay off after bankruptcy filings throws job security into a frenzy in the United States

Trump re-elected…
The only one to have non-consecutive presidential terms since 1892

Palestine…
Protest because the BDS movement works, so continue to boycott and push for divestment and sanctions to defund ongoing genocide in Gaza

Luigi Mangione…
Proverbs 28.6 allegedly inspired Luigi to fix the broken healthcare system

From Coast to Coast

By Abrahim Harb

Trading in subway rides for bike rides –
Trading in a 4th floor apartment without an elevator for something more manageable –
Trading in life without needing a car for life most likely needing a car –
Trading in snow worn concrete for sun soaked concrete –
Trading in a short season for sweater weather for a longer season of sweater weather –
          (Trading their cold weather heavy wardrobe for lighter layers, if you’re asking me…) 

To All the African-American Women of the Past, Present, and Future…

By Abrahim Harb

I have been daydreaming about history again.

Later that night, I found a pen and paper –
At first, I go off memory, but quickly expand to web research.

To Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Angela Davis, and Marsha P. Johnson…
For teaching us that we are not powerless in the face of uncertain political landscape–

To Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Dr. Christine Darden…
For teaching us about patience and understanding our value because hidden figures are eventually revealed–

A house built in 1955 was her childhood home

By Abrahim Harb

44 years are uncounted for out of the 64 year history of this building.

There must be some be a box packed away in a storage unit with the history of the unaccounted years.

From the street, you can see the front door, stairs, porch and 3 front windows;

(She has a flashback to the one evening where her dog was perched at the top of the stairs like a gargoyle guarding a castle during a summer hangout.)

No Light, No Light

By Abrahim Harb

If something feels off,
it is -

The lamp bulb smashed as I stare off into the distance -

And I walk across the sparsely lit bridge to clean the mess.

One piece of glass wedges in my big toe.
I lunged forward in pain -
And another piece wedges in my heart.
I fall backwards, grasping my chest, only to have a bigger shard of glass stab my backside.

Raise Your Voice in Poetry

By Abrahim Harb

Raise your voice in poetry.
Within a seed, a shooting tree.
A tingling universe you'll see.
Verses coursing one, two, three.

I wish I may, I wish I might
See you shining bright tonight.
A shooting tree is infinite.
From just a seed—you know, I’m right!

Ignite the brilliance from within a seed.
Briskly corral the words you’ll need.
Change the syntax. Will this word precede
that one? Trust the word flow, indeed.

Miss. Gilbert

By Abrahim Harb

From the start, it was no love affair—
all we do now is make love anytime I’m free:
in the basement,
on the couch,
in the bathroom,
and occasionally before class.

A Young Woman

SEEDS Literary & Visual Arts Journal (Spring 2015)

Bouquet of Flowers

 

SEEDS Literary & Visual Arts Journal (Fall 2014)

Scream Never Heard

By Abrahim Harb

Dear your lost soul,
let me help you,
and your dear old soul.
snap back, back
I still hear the echo, echo
come back, back

A Rose

The Wright Side Literary Magazine (2014)

I Must Decree

 

SEEDS Literary & Visual Arts Journal (Fall 2013)

 

Ode to Maya (And Caged Birds)

By Abrahim Harb

I believe I know why the caged bird sings with a fearless trill—
She finds beauty in imprisonment—
The free bird thinks of another breeze
And she names the sky her own.
Her wings are clipped and her feet are tied—

Fine Dining

By Abrahim Harb
 
I.
France:
a bottle of sweet bordeaux
& hunk of brie,
or perhaps
merlot
& a rare steak;
instead I choose,
a prepackaged salad

Twenty-One Years

Almost twenty-one years,
and what have I done?

Twenty-one whole years—
of memories surge through my mind,
like electricity, draining my energy: