Wars rage across the globe Black tender weaponized, legalized, expedited Back into western folds Pockets lined with silver and gold
And the rain falls
Billionaires wearing t-shirts and jeans Their assets splitting at the seams Go to the moon To float around in zero gravity With their mugs of civet coffee
And the rain falls
Priests and rabbis and the clergy Preach from pulpits blood-streaked With people sacrificed, ostracized, cast aside As God is their witness, we all see
And the rain falls
A woman takes in an elder drenched In torrents that wrenched The next meal and rent From his shaking hands He cries without a sound His tears surge into the floods Rolling down Crimson-hued carrying blood From the mountains to the sea As the country drowns.
How long has it gone on for? I have lost count of the days and the months And the number of times Facts and fiction have been combined Made to stand hand in hand By the gentiles that stain these lands Caricaturizing, miming scenes Of zealotry and genocide
I have lost count Of the number of hospitals bombed Ruins atop tunnels where the Khamas abound And the aid workers killed Unidentified dangrerous women and men And the journalists sniped With their arsenal of 1984 daggers and knives And the doctors shot With nitroglycerin bombs hidden in their surgical gowns And the men raped in prisons With propagandist lore stuffed up their intestines And the women maimed Their bellies heavy with terrorist babes And the children killed Starved and stilled Their sinful blood spilled On the promised land
How long before this evil doth cease How long before the chosen ones can finally live in peace?
Blamed again and again for massacres We have no clue of, our proxy war Of 40 years ago is still biting us in the bum ‘Fo-Fum - this beast at least Does not have the bite of the ‘other-man’ With its depraved ideology Hijacking faith and humanity Bankrolling them into human bombs Boom! There goes another one Creating martyrs of civilians We protest, we didn’t do it They say we did, you see Another ethos, dark and evil has floated in upon the sea And so they insist it is us Nurturing terrorists underground and above Guns blazing, egos inflating Up up to the constellation Of ISRO satellites
But what is this?
3, 4, 5, 6 jets down - not ours We shook them right out of their stars - their 5 out of 5 on Amazon Now they’re raging like bulls in a ring We’re meme-ing and gif-ing like comedy kings I’m laughing at both A little harder at the misplaced ire Full of apocalyptic brimstone and fire
But here it is
War is not what any of us need Good sense, forebearance, lucidity Is the need of the hour and I want to believe In this ideology even as I Pin a little pin of green and white Crescent moon and star shining bright Onto my beating heart full of pride
Because when all’s said and done
Between neighbours who live side by side Sharing a culture old as time Huddled albeit over our nuclear buttons War really is just not an option.
She stands there in her thrift store threads Clean and scrubbed one can tell Despite her modest, well-used clothes And her holey, well-worn shoes She used to know happier times (Hope still huddles in her eyes) Her three children, wide-eyed surround Her
They all gape at the golden car A Lamborghini custom made For a Sheikh (Imported to the United States,for a holiday) Oil fields gush in his backyard Petrodollars in his bank Harvest hedged on the newest tank of War
“Her. War”. They sit together in this poem Teased, cajoled to conjoin To form a hallowed, blessed tie They claim the union to be right
Celestis, Infinitus, Divine.
But is it “her War”? She can’t tell If she can’t tell, neither will I.
Birthed from the soul haunting paintings and videos of Palestinian artists and vloggers.
You want to know If I sleep? I don’t anymore, not normally But when I do When my eyeballs roll back in my head From exhaustion and from dread I dream I’m splayed across Broken stones And clay begotten slivered bricks Shattered bones And severed heads Skin like parchment Bomb-buoyed, paper-thin Every pore missile-singed Flying in the wind Up, up into the sky I send a prayer with my eyes I lift a leg and scrutinise The other one It lies unsprung, unsung, wrung From its muscles and ligaments It lies in the dust The dust is whipped into a storm It brings along The smell of death Of rocket-burnt flesh Bloody, fear-soaked it’s a mesh It clings to me I can hear Each howling soul As it holds me close I let it grip me as it curls Into my ears as they bleed Quietly so silently Tenderly, bedecking me My lobes dripping in rubies There is no sound anymore My wings unfurl I float away As they gently gently weep The tired lifeblood out of me.
I draw so you remember What happened in October Of 2023 And November and December and January and February And on and on in 2024 and 2025 I draw because I’m still alive
I stand where the stricken Lie dead or dying in the rocks Once homes and hospitals I stand And I draw so you remember
And should I lose my hands I will still paint The ravaged spaces that I see I’ll paint them with my feet I’ll sit With my reds and greys amid Strewn limbs and death debris A paintbrush in my toes
And should I lose my legs One of them or both And if I can draw a breath I’ll still draw the faces Of the living and the dead I’ll etch them with my eyes Into the watching skies
I’ll engrave them in the heavens Where angels wait to greet All of me and mine We, the flowers of Palestine
I’ll draw, I’ll paint, I’ll etch Until my dying breath So that you can always see So that you don’t forget.
She’s caught in the rush of hurrying feet Snippets of conversations Of laughter, exclamations She’s caught in a tidal wave Of teeming, streaming life She’s caught in the swell Of people of voices, of sights and smells Riding the vital wave Pushing ahead Her silk scarf catches the breeze Of swelling, surging humanity She feels it pull Floating just a little in front of her She quickens her step Her feet instinctively keeping up With the urgency of life She feels something In her gut, the pit of her stomach A ripple, almost a laugh! She inhales deeply, she can’t place This sudden lightness of being It feels out of place This morning, mourning She had felt like lead Now like vapor she rises up Colourless, clean In that moment she’s someone else Propelling her body like a comet Lighter, brighter almost serene
She arrives at her gate 8A The same number, the place Where this very morning She had buried them She had forgotten For a few moments Who she was She was desolation and grief itself Wearing the bruises of loss Mourning only this morning It all came back dawning As she came to herself As her blood remembered And curdled inside A freezing, heaving cauldron of chills She sank into the depths of her seat 9B There was a sequence Monumental, compelling To her agony She had to remember She couldn’t forget Her world had ended When she had buried her dead.
I see her sitting under the tree Dignified and serene even as she is encircled In the cumbersome arms of poverty. Destitution has cloaked her for many years From head to toe it has persevered. But still There are nuances of grace and light; Of a decorum that has bested the blight.
Sparse hair is pulled back into a little knot Threadbare clothes are mended and clean Calloused feet wear leather sandals Thousands of steps etched into their seams. She sits there solitary and separate Her expression is one of learned abjection As she labours on in her enterprise To live another day, to go on, to survive.
But every so often, when there is a lull In the cresting and falling human swell Where she sits, under the leafy canopy The wretchedness leaves her face And in its place Shines a serene and quiet majesty A poise, a stateliness Quietly they still linger in her being. Even as she sits under the tree To beseech, to plead, to request I can still see the queen.
It’s Strange How some people call all the shots For you and me; on what’s right and what’s not On how we should all live our lives On what we should want to grow and to thrive And we follow them like so many mice The Pied Piper surely leaves us no choice
It’s Strange How some nations are on top of their game And others continually parry insults and blame Some swirl around in their blood, sweat and tears While others race on winds of good cheer And yet we stand by like so many sheep The First World Dream will not let us be
It’s Strange How the spirit of our humanity Has gone into permanent servitude For the battle of egos of the few Losing our grip on what’s right and true And we circle around like so many moths Burning our wings in the flames of their wrath
It’s Strange How hard it has become of late To step out of the comfort of the bell curve Created to kill off the being that’s you Teaching you how you must hate and love And we fight on like so many soldiers sore Thinking one more battle will win us the war
It’s Strange Even as I write these lines A question skips on the edge of my mind No, there are two for misery loves company Who’ll tell me the answers that I seek to find - When did the glow inside me cease to exist? When did Instinct and Courage let go of my wrists?
I wake up, my mind numb, my legs feeling Like 10 kg bags of wet cement Have been tied to my ankles, weighting Me down, ripping a dent With my name in the fabric of the universe I think briefly of yesterday, it was the reverse Of the state of my mind, as it ties and it binds Me today as if to remind Me that nothing ever is permanent - No Nothing stays forever, it isn’t meant to Charmed luck, joy, good health and peace Hardship, tragedy, anxiety and disease They come, they take their turns at the wheel Some lasting longer, some just touch you and flee I wake up, my mind numb, my body feeling like lead But tomorrow I’m hoping I won’t feel so dead.
To those who are blissfully wed, may no ones words or odes tear you asunder; to those who are still unshackled, forewarned is forearmed; to those who are in blissless contractual unions, here’s more food to ruminate, ponder and fret over 🤓
Someone asked me why we love, the way we love; Someone asked me, self-consciously, hesitantly of Traditional bonds of loving; of contracts galore, Of inviting in the government to tamper and explore That which is so personal; the workings of the heart; Of sanctioned forces barging in and prying it all apart.
I listened with a quickening of my own protesting heart I too had felt these candid rumblings from the very start; I had also walked down the same traditionalistic aisle; I too had been a part of its teeming rank and file; I too had signed on dotted lines, confirming legalese, That made a mockery of the love, respect and dignity.
It’s almost like Humanity is bound to slip and fall; To devolve into barbarity; to sputter and to stall. The only way to save us is to firmly bind us down In sacrosanct bondage; in virginal robes and gowns. Genuine love, self respect, honesty and choice Are not the sounds of virtue; nor the devotional Voice Of all the great faiths that in their wisdom divine Have instructed us exactly on how to walk the blessed line.
Someone asked me why we love the way in which we do So bound in ceremony; counter-intuitive to the truth. Someone asked me why we could not just trust Our own sense of right and wrong; our own moral compass. Marriage - I too wondered about this absurd and quirky norm That duly institutionalises us before we can be with someone. Is it well intentioned business that has sadly gone awry? Or is it another patriarchal construct; a powerful, pervasive lie? I’m still trying to discern its gameplan; its true wherefore and why But the enigma continues to survive; and we continue to comply.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 