By Ahmad Al-Khatat
IMMIGRANT DREAM My father was once an immigrant dream, he often struggled to buy bottled water for us. He taught me not to be a slave to privileged people, he trained me to be fierce and speak about our country. I attempted to whisper through his deafness, “O father some people are racists in exile.” “O father some people are the reason for the misery of immigrants and ply humans with a curse.” I closed my eyes and my father faded away, went missing, and absent for a lifetime. After they pulled on their trigger mercilessly. DISTANCE BURNT After the drab rain, the taste of honey dims into a midnight cigarette. Like the money we earn from distance burnt. She says that she loves me, yet she asks what’s my death date? As if my heart is a forsaken bullet, above the lifeless flower in the lighthouse. Let’s face my depression, or whatever your noisy educated brain desires to call it. I drank because I can't strangle my crying-soul inside the leaking roofs of mental issues. SIMPLE ORDER For me to be confident I must adopt to my heart’s strength. For me to admire the blue sky, I must displace the warplanes from the dove’s wings of peace. For me to smile to your face, I must open my lyrical mouth and kiss your rhyming lips.
Ahmad Al-Khatat was born in Baghdad, Iraq. His work has appeared in print and online journals globally. He has poems translated into several languages such as Farsi, Chinese, Spanish, Albanian, Romanian. He has published some poetry chapbooks, and a collection of short stories.
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