A Story in Taman Topi

Pengunjung Taman Topi berfoto dengan pocong-pocongan. | Foto: tribunnews.com

a pair of old birds, a bunch of rain, and
dull evening eyes write your story:
hats like never houses
loved, crowded but silent

we write poems at Bogor Station
then throws unused diction
out the window: floating in a puddle of rain,
crashed by train wheels

keep your eyes wet even though your lips are like snow
You ask about a happy morning
clouds follow the dancing sun
on the park benches, on the street berpaving block

aha, we have become poets oversleep
washed myself after the shower was pegged chicken
You incarnate a pigeon who tirelessly jumps
from branch to branch

is there something cooler than the rain on your feet
lulled with tree singing and wind from the hills
You locked the sun away from the east
in order for your poems to be longer

but at the train station repeatedly blew the sparrow
saying: O old birds
I have prepared a patch of wetlands and goose droppings
where you plant rice and crops
the trees still leave screams
people with necks hanging in the hands of the Company
because they burn the hair of the singers.

Bogor, September 23, 2017
MUSTAFA ISMAIL

*) Taman Topi is one of the parks in Bogor City, West Java. Its location near the Bogor train station.