“Wax and Ashes” – Works by A. Tarawneh

Adam Tarawneh is an American who was born on March 25, 1987. He traveled to Jordan in 1999, the country of his origins. He majored in English Literature for his bachelor’s degree. After he graduated, he moved to work in the Gulf as an English teacher for several years until he pursued his dreams and continued his Master’s degree in literature from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK. Now, he is an Adjunct Instructor teaching literature throughout several colleges and universities across the United States.

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A Black Rose

A black rose stood among the lands of grace,
Petals of black death, yet unacquainted with fate.
Lifeless it seemed, petrified in its place,
Though, in its darkness, its heart lives to wait.

The black rose dragged to the edge of a shore,
Holding on the ground against the tides’ waves,
Belligerent for hope in a ceaseless war,
To raise its shattered heart from its coy grave.

Hope doesn’t exist on the shores of the dead,
Yet the wind shall blow to carry off your fate,
To further places where roses die red.
Places where hope is never going to wait.

Black rose! Let your petals fade away,
Let the wind blow your life as they may.

At Fate’s End

I raised a gun to the left side of my head
And took one last glimpse of life.
I gazed upon where my blood will scatter
And took a deep breath of relaxation,
Resting my eyes to an eternal slumber.

A chill assailed down my spine
Shaking the garrisons of my bones.
Soon thumped the blue broken mouth
As a rhythm of a pertaining ritual.
Awaiting the clash of waves to nothing.

Beyond the locked doors of my eyes,
A flash of red illuminates then fades.
Confusing the pupil to wonder as an infant at birth.
I paused at fate’s end to ponder…
Of a dancing flame over a candle.

As fate awaits me, I stared and stared
To such a little flame.
As the wind pillaged and ravaged over it,
Shrinking it to its demise fate,
Thus, it so weak, resisted…

To grow back with all its might
And await bravely the next barrage.
On and on went the Battle,
For the weak flame would never surrender,
And in defiance, it served.

The Other

Different I am…
And different they call me.
Human, thus not the same,
Only oppositional traits…,
Yet always differing.
I am several stems over the roots…

I walk the path of exceptions,
As I am shaped by the display
And forced to approval.
Never to be understood,
But understanding…
Obviously, I am the opposite.

I educate along
And represent their education,
As I carry the past
Of this dynamic age.
I be the other
In every single fraction…

Like an experimental rat
In a maze with no end,
As there was never a rightful start
And no one to follow.
I be a shadow with no body to claim,
Lost in the shades of certain others.

I be forced to desire
Isolation and peace
Or to embrace the whispers.
For no nation would accept
A reject to one trait,
That has been granted, but unachieved…

So be I in pride…
Deaf to their words
And obliged to their ways.
An illusion within their eyes,
As I am the other…

The Ugly Truth

I am thee repulsive figure
Of deformed shape,
Never existing only to myself
Unless I be forced, or force myself.
I thee chorus to others,
Either minority or majority,
But never the lead.
Though the king of my own world.

I shelter beneath aspect
Or broad earned authority,
Elsewhere, I’d be hidden.
Allow I, to rephrase,
Avoided or perhaps, invisible,
If I am not anything of importance
Then I am a saddest story, if told.
I, only humble to I.

I am thee desperate thought,
Which soon fades along to rage.
It’s difficult to seek love…
Whence attraction distorts my path
Conveying fruitless regression.
Calamity chummed with callous love
In a state of ferocity.
Thus, I am loved by the greatest.
I be at peace, far from sin’s lust.

The Front Liners

Imagine the courage that you would need
To wake up knowing that this may be your last day
As you take on the fight that so many fear
And walk right into the gates of your own humble fate.
To battle on behalf of those struggling and in need.
Marching bravely against the inevitable unwilling to concede.

With so many fronts to be fought
And so little willing to take the lead,
Heroes take their stand without a second thought.
To hold their ground as the rest recedes,
Against all odds and recognition, they stand.
Like a mountain, so majestically grand.

These are the heroes that fall silently
Or battle to their very last breath unseen
As they wither for their cause so valiantly.
So that the rest of us could sprout and preen.
The sun will one day shine on us once again
And they will be the ones lifting it from now until then.

At Corona’s Peak

In such a time of speed and materialistic fantasies,
Who would have thought that a global threat
Would unite all regardless of borders, streamers and dynasties?
Irrespective to modernized conquest and economies built on debt.
We stand globally on one line against an invisible foe.
A foe of many forms that like us, seeks to grow.

It sparked out, spread and devoured.
All of us stranded alone fighting in solitude.
As the grim reaper strikes by the hour,
We bravely reside into our own fortitude.
In isolation, we fight to live and learn
As the pages of history tear and turn.

We are led to the edge of our pockets
And we are told to wait and wither
As our governments poorly plan their dockets.
Like mice in a cage seeing it come by with a slither.
Time will unfold and the truth will break free,
So will the corrupted with each false promise and plea.

Here we stand proudly holding shoulder to shoulder
As the first vaccines is produced from the tears of one to another
The darkness has come to an end, yet the world became colder.
We put a price tag on life and instantly forgot each other.
We now bare witness to our own glorious one-sided history
Partially being told while the rest of it is left to mystery.

Did they really solve our modernized black death?
Are we lucky to be on the other end of a politician’s promise?
Or are we desperate for anything to keep our last breath?
Even though we hear it coming with a hiss.
Like a sheep that found refuge in a wolf’s den,
Our hope lies in the grasp of a few greedy men.

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