Sunday, 15 August 2021

Manisha Bennett, Poetry 2021 Shortlist

 St. Dunghill

She awoke again to the scorching sun

Looking up to the Gods, searching for a face

Giving up hope, as the sun-rays elope

In this battle of life, only the lucky ones won.

 

With her eyes closed, she imagines a life

Filled with freedom inside her chest

Where her mind was at peace and her body at rest

Hallucinating in hunger, she asks her God, will she survive?

 

She awoke again to the cloudy sky

The clouds were white but her tears were brown

Covered in mud, covered in dust, the princess of St. Dunghill with her tinfoil crown

As her hunger burned her chest and thirst still not quenched, she would rather live a lie.

 

She awoke again screaming to the clear skies

Have you forgotten? Are you there? Are my screams still too feeble for you to care?

Surrounded by disgust, surrounded by misfortune, the pain was her only  heir

She was drained, she was ready with dejection so she said the boxes her final goodbyes.

 

Awoken with raindrops, awoken with a loudness from the sky

Is this how water tastes, will this quench my thirst?

The earthen tattoos glide away, revealing her olive skin, so beautiful yet cursed

With calmness all around, she looks up to the rain, with a bloody lip she smiles...

" even with nothing, my faith will never die".

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