homeless

he is en route to the halls of his ancestors
sleep anchors his spirit to the movement all

around. a spinning earth. a jostling subway car

here in new york it is eons to the halls of the ancestors. here
the buried dead are dirges sung in reverse, slaves to modern his( )story:

clothes and stolen homes of the bound People recast in plastics of
dyed turkey feathers. approximate alters, garlands of commerce displace

ceremony: a floor without earth to cradle cerebrums
pushed from wombs; in past times greeted by all lips singing

anthems worded in jubilance. today ire here people are
criminal when their homes and ancestors are living ghosts

in the museum on 81st street.

this train is no substitute for a spirit
journey; this train is not bound for glory

for one nursed on lullabies and familiar earth, home as
the smell of the smoking hearth of conception.

and how the mta conductor squawks irascible metallic
about feigning dignity, sitting in one seat with head up to the man of lost

tribe as he remembers what honor there was when
he dawned a benin warrior helmet and a people he

now must keep folded neatly tucked in
a plastic bag under his train car seat. lest

this last home, though dusty with
the amnesia of a generation, be stolen too.

______________________________________________________________________________ reasons i don't smoke anymore after 10 years

there were things that were sacred and whole
to travel from this world to the under
on wings of beings that have journeyed there before
that have grasped the profundity of the fires and brought them to the surface

and we could trace our origins in smoke and holy
snakes curving towards cloud and sky

there was a time that "forward thinking" almost claimed my
voice
as we were captured and transatlantic
pussing blisters the only water to cool our bubbled backs
as we hoed the earth and churned green crop for
the betterment of what was deemed human.

avarice is carcinogenic
the need to buy to consume is as natural to us as breath
and we cannot see the sky
and this is not incense on the alter of divinity
but a vortex gaining diameter gaining velocity
we are addicts being sucked into a realm where we cannot exist

to create a hole in our throats to silence us once and for all.

we are kept addicts because they know that we were once holy
we are kept addicts because they know what will happen when we begin to remember this.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Rajiv Mohabir is a fifth grade ESL teacher in Queens, New York and is being published in Brown Souls: South Asian (North) American Voices due to come out later this year. Rajiv has performed poetry from NYC to Orlando and is currently applying to MFA programs on the east coast.