As Blue as Blue Used to Be

A poem by Antoine Cassar

Collage by the IotL Magazine

 

 

Bonġu, alarm clock, thanks,

might as well slide out of bed,

rinse the night from my mouth,

cast my net to the morning,

will hope turn a corner

and startle me today, at any time?

¿Qué está pasando en Chile?

Are they still sharing merciful

comedy memes

of that orange-faced fool?

How many adverts

will colonise my subconscious

on the way to work?

Any little spark of opposition

on our forsaken island,

where the drummer of

“Malta Not for Sale”

now follows a businessman like a poodle

down the aisles of a supermarket?

Will the Mediterranean be visible today

from the hills of Jenin?

 

Alarm clock, do not despise me,

should I press snooze a seventh time

forcing you to scream once more

into the late, late darkness…

 

For another five minutes, I beg you,

leave me to go on dreaming of a sea

as blue as blue used to be.

 

Antoine Cassar is a poet, translator, map freak, and peddler of universal passports. Raised between East London, Qrendi and Madrid, though he tends to feel more at home within the pages of an atlas. Erbgħin Jum (Forty Days, EDE), a book-length poem on domestic violence, childhood trauma and walking as self-therapy, was awarded the National Book Prize in 2018.