ILA Magazine
Where Culture Meets Creativity
Poetry of Mandour Saleh Hikel
February 2021 Escape...To Eternal Void Restrained... in my solitude And terrible eternal void
Reeling randomly...
Between waves of expansion...
And contradiction
Leaving my dismembered body
Shaking in my wings
Shackling my poems...
In a gloomy silence
Streaming flows of chill
Into my feelings...
My thoughts
Balking my pen...
In a suspicious breakdown
As if to collude
With my solitude
And that eternal void
God
What can I do
When feeling lost
In the labyrinth of
The monotonous rhythm of boredom...
What weird time
Where we live like stupid machines
Or...
As walking-dead
We carry names
Or numbers
Or hold
Large fat titles
But the
But...
Forever we remain
UNIDENTIFIED.
© Mandour Saleh Hikel ENGRAVING ON WALLS OF SILENCE
Engraving on walls of silence
Echoed with war drums
Dressed in the blood of oldsters,
Bereaved mothers and children
While stench of death is kissing children's laughter
And innocent children buried under the wall of shame.
Shame of politicians...shame of trafficking
With idiotic words and sick verses.
Engraving on walls of silence...silence of grave
Silence of fear...in Women and children's hearts
Night and day...praying to die
While still wondering...is it inevitable?
There is no escape
Except for...escaping from death to death
Death by war killing machines
Death by stings of cold...in forgotten refuges
Death in the depth of dark oceans and seas
Or
To lay down
Embraced by the darkness of a grave
Grave of silence...
SILENCE OF THE GRAVE
© Mandour Saleh Hikel Poet, Mandour Saleh Hikel hails from Egypt. He started as a lyrics writer, in the early 80's, for Egyptian rock band, No! (1982-1984). Later, he stopped for quite some time, before resuming his writing in 1999, until now. He gives his highest priority to Anti-war, Anti-violence poems that are always evocative and moving, and with great messages. He published two books and is now working on a third, released in 2021.