Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
Why do you avert the gaze of my people
when you can still hear them breathing?
Do you not breathe the same air?
Think of the air between the pleading mouth
and the unreceptive ear
The air that tickles the eyelid before the blink–
and the trickling tear
The air between the firm handshake
and the limp one
The air sucked in and blown out
as a sigh, a grunt, a snort
The air in an intentional cough
Think of the airs you put on:
apathetic, arrogant, condescending
Do you not breathe the same air?
Think of the air swallowed in shallower
and shallower breaths just before sleep
that never comes
Air now compressed in white-knuckled grips
Air cut off in choke-holds of stolen breaths
The air of despair: stagnant, stale, stricken
as strife
See the air swirl between foe and friend
The churn of blowback dust on children’s faces after
the bomb: air so still in the fallout shelter
Do you not breathe the same air?
Air once so sweet on that shining hill
Air that smelled of olives and jasmine
Air fresh, effervescent, life-giving
Air that wriggles out from bloodied, clasped hands
as incense, incantation
Air as winged messenger of freedom missives
Air that whispers from the universe’s unpursed lips
to humanity’s tone-deaf ear: Cease
Please, cease
First published in Rowayat, a literary journal based in Montreal, Canada.
