IBRAHIM HONJO

IBRAHIM HONJO

Recognition

I become lost in a poem early in the morning

stars extinguish spontaneously in my eyes

darkness hides in its secret chambers

I become a stranger to myself

and my sleeping shadow

no one reaches me, except the night silence

cradled in flashes of stars from my eyes

and the dreamy chant of night butterflies

enigmatic horizons curl up in my eyes

in the mirrors of the planet Gamajata

I do not like mirrors

they show me someone else in my image

It is very easy to recognize a man by his words

and his endeavor

in a triangle between heaven, earth, and me

everything is hidden in view

I am deciphering the stability of everything

and nothing

my first-morning coffee cooled down

a long time ago

I am silent and listening to the silence

in my stillness and in peace

Nirvana

About Man And Philanthropy

The light of dust fell from humankind

poor man, where are you going now

so exposed

so impeccably naked

the Universe laments

shooting stars, wailing, kill themselves

man

repent  before you and inside of you

because there is no other God

but the one you carry inside yourself

and your ignorance

the bells of heaven ring alert

brightened stars are mourning

birds are nesting into me

on branches of words

and wailing in me the realization

that the end is coming

I'm sorry for you, man

I'm sorry you so naively suffer

alone in yourself, alone in me

nowhere to find soil to kneel in

nowhere to find the sky to pray for mercy

nowhere to find hard ground underfoot

not a soft thought

not a sharp word

there's no place

for the love, I'm singing about

we really live in vain

This is the Armageddon

a classical disease of civilization

self-destruction without a cause

in ignorance drowned in knowledge

people, hold your hands tightly

and love the ones close to you

and the ones far from you

it's a formula for survival

in one's own madness

now you are in your own hands

empty like your hearts

and abandoned by your own souls

not a  drop of blood remains in you

you look like a broken spear after a cannonade

from which the rain-washed blood long ago

man, nobody and nothing can wash you

everlasting blood will be on you

man, you've all lost even tears of repentance

under the invasion of billions

my love protected me from evil

Autumn Night In Me

Night butterflies land on my shoulders

stars like fireflies setting their soft light

on my sleepy eyes

autumn is sunny and endlessly colorful

salmon going to hatcheries

clouds are wearily flying from east to west

and from north to south

leaves secretly falling from branches

in the rhythm of the Argentine tango

An evening smell of roasted chestnuts

imprisoned in the nose

and a rush of saliva in the mouth

The voice of an owl

is breaking the silence of the night

in me, everything is sealed

as the greatest secret

some new disquietude ravages my soul

and some new unusual thought

is breaking my soul

the autumn sprinkled my soul

I sigh feeling the beauty of the landscape

Survival

You come down to the spring

to fetch water

I send doves of peace all over the world

with my right hand

a ladybug is flying towards you

it will be a wedding party or they say it looks like one

someone out there is planning a new war

behind thick scenes

someone is making a movie

give me a sip of water to come back to life

walk by me proudly

with your head inclined slightly to the right

I swallow the last drop of saliva

to slake my dry throat

it seems to me

that everyone looks after himself

How To Survive This Day

Last night you forgot about me, and my poem

but now you can feel

the kind of torment a poem disintegrates into

where words and letters are incomplete

and the meaning of everything collapses

into the curve of your name

Ana, the poem is a way out of the tunnel

whose end cannot be seen in the distance

and nobody knows anything

your oblivion is blind

all my hopes and dreams are gone

so now I will invent a new poem

that no one will ever split into factions

I'm trying to find a poem that will restore sight

and find a way out of this unseen and unremembered tunnel

maybe it’s hidden in your eyes the color of olives

or in your mind and dreams and you do not realize it

the night has already set in and nobody sees anymore

I will wait for a new morning

to show me

a way out of this unknown dark

IBRAHIM HONJO

IBRAHIM HONJO was born on April 16, 1948, in the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Since January 1995, he has lived in Canada. Honjo is a poet-writer, sculptor, painter, photographer, and property manager who writes in his native language and in English. His work has appeared in many magazines, newspapers in Yugoslavia, Canada, and the USA. He is the author of 30 published books; 21 in Serbo-Croatian and 9 in the English language. He is a co-author in two poetry books with Serbian poet Vesna Kerecki and Tatjana Debeljacki. His poems have been published in more than 30 anthologies, and some poems have been translated into Italian, Korean, Spanish, Slovenian, Polish, Mongolian, German and Bahasa (Malaysia) language. Honjo has participated in many literary events, international festivals, and two literary conferences. He awarded several times for his poetry. Honjo has an unpublished book of Aphorisms, a book of short stories and novel “On the Edges of Nightmares.” He is currently writing the novel “Capitalism Yes, But…” and a new poetry collection “From me to me”.