GAS Featured Poet: Iwan Setiawan

Iwan Setiawan was born in Kotabumi, North Lampung, on 23 August 1980. He has pursued the path of poetry with a Sufistic and melancholic sensibility. His poems move through silent territories between divine love, loss, and inner contemplation. His work has appeared in various online and print media, often blending lyrical and symbolic language with meaningful silences, making poetry not merely an expression but a space for contemplation.

Iwan Setiawan is the author of the poetry collection Sang Pencari Cinta (The Seeker of Love), as well as Kitab Puisi Melankolia (The Book of Melancholy Poems), co-written with Silvia Ikhsan. In 2017, he received the Littera Magazine Literary Award. 

THE PRAYER THAT EATS ITS OWN SHADOW

I walk into God

like a wound forgetting its blood

the night teaches me a new alphabet

where silence is the only vowel

my name rots gently in Your mouth

I do not resist

I become the hunger You never confess

angels turn their faces away

not from sin

but from how deeply I kneel

faith is an animal

licking its own shadow

until darkness says amen

West sumatera, 2026

LESSON FROM A DEAD SAINT

the saint died

still holding Your silence

between his ribs

they said he was holy

but holiness is only

how long one survives without answers

I pressed my ear to his chest

heard worms chanting

the most honest prayer

teach me this decay

teach me to disappear

without leaving heaven homeless

West sumatera, 2026

GOD WRITES ME AS A MISTAKE

You write my life

with a trembling hand

ink made of doubt

every breath crosses out

the sentence before it

I am revised by suffering

do not correct me

let me remain wrong

inside Your book

because even errors

are a way

of being remembered

West sumatera, 2026

THE MIRROR WHERE GOD REFUSES TO APPEAR

I break every mirror

yet You remain

breathing behind my eyes

the heart is a ruined mosque

no door

no direction

only dust reciting dust

I pray with borrowed bones

my soul trembling

like a candle afraid of light

if You are not here

why does absence bleed

why does nothing

know my name

West sumatera, 2026

THE BODY THAT FORGOT HOW TO BELIEVE

My body kneels

Before my faith understands why

Bones argue with prayer

Blood hesitates at the word God

I fast from certainty

Drink only doubt

Until hunger becomes a teacher

Inside my chest

A ruined altar breathes

Asking nothing

Yet taking everything

If belief returns

Let it come wounded

Let it limp

So I know it is real

West sumatera, 2026

I TRIED TO LEAVE GOD UNFINISHED

I tried to leave You unfinished

Like a sentence without mercy

But every silence chased me

Wearing Your face

I hid inside sleep

Inside flesh

Inside the future

Yet You kept happening

Now I sit among the ruins

Holding what is left of my name

If this is union

Let it hurt

If this is loss

Let it be Yours

West sumatera, 2026