What are you doing in this dark evening
While you are praying
While you are serving him
While you are lying to us
While you are accusing us
And while you are judging us

What you are doing in this wretched evening
While you are praying
While you are uttering
Kill
Hate
Destroy
Set on fire
Cut somebody’s throat
Rape
Rob

What are you doing in this poor evening
While you are pray
And utter all these destructive words
And glorify his name
Not fearing his judgment

I listen and see
And I don’t know what that means
Where everything leads
I know the innocent will suffer
They will pay for who knows how many times
Because you need new billions
You need to build your new world
You build and the people pay, pay, pay
And building and paying never end
Because you need more, more and more

I know all your wishes and all your vices
I know all your plans and dreams and prophets
I know all about your greed and curse
I know all about your ignorance
And I am asking myself each day
Oh God, what are they doing
With my heart in your name

The sphinx of life never answered
The words sank into the walls of silence

I pray in my knowledge and ignorance
Oh God, stop them
Show them the path of love
And tell them that there are no “their” people
There are only people
All people are equal before you
Please God tell them the truth
And show them your ways
Rescue them and free them of greed and madness

I prayed and I am still praying
Does anybody hear my prayer?
Stone silence is echoing in my ears
Emptiness is settling in my look and soul
The worry for human beings is coming back as an unhappy thought
While the sphinx of life in me is asking again
People, what you doing to people in this dark evening
While you are praying to him
Uttering all these destructive words
What you are doing in my heart
On this planet soaked with blood for centuries
What you are doing in my heart and in his name.

Ibrahim Honjo, from book “Enigma from the Stone”

TIME SLEPT THROUGH

You slept through that time
When we should have been growing up
When I offered you the universe on the palm of my hand
Decorated with stars and play of breeze

At night, I dressed you in moonlight
At daytime, I bathed you in sunshine
And I sprinkled the scent of wild flowers on you
There was something fascinating in your figure
In your step and your voice
Everything danced and sang in me
Everything was ringing like sleigh bells

You pretended to be inexperienced
You defied with each part of your body
I cherished each movement you made
Nothing unusual was happening
All remained in the twinkle of the day
In trembling nights and yearning mornings
You simply surrounded me
I was enslaved with thoughts about you
And then you disappeared into the sunset
I searched for you with my long exhausted look

You existed somewhere in another circle
While I was turning around dizzily in my astonishment
You simply slept through that time
When you woke up in the kingdom of your mottled lies
Nothing was left
Not me
Not you
Not us
You destroyed everything with your dream about the impossible
You slept through that fascinating time
In which we were able to build
Right know
I am not here
You are not here
Nothing is here
Only the husk of unrealized dreams remains.

Ibrahim Honjo, from book “Enigma from the Stone”

IF WE BECOME WISE

Will we become wiser one day
and find ourselves in memories
of the future that we dreamed of

If we become wiser one day
we will look for ourselves
in dim pictures of childhood
that left a weak flash
on unfulfilled wishes
and they have nothing in common with the future

only then we will understand
how much we are lost and alone
in our own reality
in which even she does not look like herself

we will remember all our loves
and we will not know whether they remember us
will they carefully preserve memories
of our youthful springs
in which we discovered the secrets of life

do you know
how many unwritten books about your life
remained buried in the past
how many pages turned yellow with unwritten memories
how many undiscovered secrets
much love desecrated and unsaid
remained in your turbulent past

imagine
if it all could be revived and revealed
what wisdom we would still need
to bow to those we loved
and those we love
how much wisdom we would need
to win ourselves
and to take it all, including winning
as the most valuable asset
to the eternal resting place
one day that will come silently
in its light
take away our memories turned yellow

and our yellow dreams
about which we never knew much
we will not even think about the perfection of wisdom
which we could have but never figured out
because we did not have time
either for ourselves or for others
we had no time for wisdom
we raced with ourselves
not knowing anything about the futility
without knowing anything about the cruelty
with which we were destroying ourselves

all that was passed in ignorance
we did not become smart
did not learn the alphabet of wisdom
did not learn the alphabet of time
and there is less and less time
there will be less and less time
and our ignorance will increasingly consolidate
and we will leave in ignorance
never learning how little we knew
about knowledge.

IBRAHIM HONJO, FROM MY BOOK ‘POEMS I DIDN’T WANT TO WRITE, SOME OTHER DREAMS” 2011