Frank Bana Poems

Twice a week in break of dawn
While the stars are outstanding
I screw the plastic lids on tight
Moles and chipmunks might get in
...

I saw myself lonely, abandoned, foresaken
My scars ripped wide open, my self-belief shaken
I asked for a dollar, they gave me a token
I called for my justice, the scales were all broken
...

And now my love the terror
Is surrounding everything
Even the red wheelbarrow
The trembling of the sky
...

The modest homes of the Borough of Queens
Are sturdy in their contrast to high Manhattan
Across which I saw drifting
The ashen smoke of the fallen towers
...

Those with healthy limbs and years of school
Those sheltered under plastic sheets and tin:
Life starts with heartbeats, really nothing more -
Apartheid of the wealthy and the poor.
...

Sunrise, discarding New York magazine
poems not of city, even could
have written them myself, it seems
...

Sunrise, and I read the New Yorker magazine
its poems not of the city, even might
have written them myself, it seems
...

Streets resound to Pinochet's demise
The murderous Dictator lies
Interred with all the multitudes
Of innocent young lives in bloom
...

I have neglected sacred duties
The future punishment of my soul
May yet be more severe
There were too many days
...

'You are very young for hip replacements'. I've heard this several times. Reminds me
How I was too young for Botswana and Uni
And for the girls I wanted badly then
I was always travelling a little ways ahead
...