I couldn’t. Everywhere I looked, it was there, looming like a mountain, shivering with the bones and moans of people gone. Rattling its presence constantly. I felt it reach desperate fingers through my veins, slowing my blood to a cold, desolate crawl. Then, roaring through my ears in floods that threatened to rip through the corners of my eyes. My parched eyeballs burned until I couldn’t see.
See me …. Feel me
I couldn’t let myself feel its broken form. Jagged and sharp, it would cut through my flesh everytime I looked at it. No matter how fast I fled, it caught up and gripped me around my chest. So tight, I couldnt breathe. I gasped for air, taking in big choking gulps. And then I ran again. I ran and ran until I couldn’t feel.
Feel me … Hold me
I couldn’t let it engulf my senses, to stir up memories that howled in my head. Its own throbbing soul pitched wretchedly inside its quivering tortured layers. Layers upon layers of purple-grey. Like bruises that just don’t heal. It kept hitting itself bruise upon bruise against the walls of my ribcage until every seam was tattooed with wounding inks. Until it lay prone, ragged and torn. I couldn’t look at it, I couldnt hold it.
Look at me … See me … Feel me … Hold me
Hold me … Feel me … See me … Look at me
I looked at it then, and saw a face there, distorted with pain. So much pain. It was mine. I saw it then, fold up its battered layers and quietly crawl into my heart I felt it then, as it tenderly claimed my body, seeping into every atom of my being I held it at last as it became whole, unbroken, divine. My grief finally belonged to me.
O blue blue sky How often have you seen Grown men cry And children console Kneeling, hand on a ravaged knee Balled inside grieving bones Sunk deep within fractured tombs Their bare stares full of wonder Rare, untouched by such things As sense or consequence Or contrivance or pretense Guileless they just gaze and gaze Eyes wide and bright and beautiful No little cups brimmeth over No tears spill They just watch, they take their fill There is no shock, there is no awe Just the truest bluest won-der One that you may have felt once O blue blue sky When for the very first time You saw all of creation, heaven And earth perfect, unsullied, pure From eyes that were of the bluest azure.
Live in the moment, write a verse Sing a song for better or worse For those that are still around Still aground, that still abound Purrs New Zen in dulcet tones Cease to scruple, seize this time This time, say it out To the ones whose breath still vaults On quickening wings still topside Of the cosmic vault up high
But En-meshed and-mashed in So many things still intertwine Seethe and sizzle, yours and mine In gleaming lips and blistered minds O’er crowds of marigolds and mines In perfect storms come rain or shine In eggshell treads, blessings and all Around the holes within our whole Where things leak out, eke out, grow cold
Love poems can’t fit in, flit in To spaces filled with oxygen Rushing in and then out In bouts, in routs, in-halations Love in poetry is pos-thu-mous Past-the-mists of life’s bliss
Waiting pages like watching sages Stay pristine, unscripted. Cleaned By life-sodden exhalations While lungs and wrists and hearts replete With forgotten dyes wait to spill Nostalgic ink in clots and things In what-if meanderings, when No more breath is left to draw Shrinking wraiths on windowpanes When the dearth of death is overcome They sink their teeth into the sheets That flutter for their odes of love.
Dirk: A bayonet or a knife. A generally cut-throaty thing.
She can either be an axe-wielding shrew Or a damsel in distress The rainbow between The two states of being Is ephemeral, the stuff of delusions Mirages and wild fantasy She can only be one of those things That nebulous, pearlescent intervening realm Rests in the shadows, forgotten Un-remembered, un-loved It sits in between The shrinking violet and she who staggers Hands full of daggers In the precipitous crags Of no-man’s land
The woman, that grande dame Living in the iridiscent silver sweep Of grace, softness and strength Connecting to the very cosmos itself Reposing in the upraised hand Of Mother Nature, she has a plan She’s not distressed and she’s not a man She’s all woman, passionate, warm She can move mountains She can whip up storms She’s also gentle and wise She’s the one who ties Fathers and daughters and sons In shimmering forever bonds She defines The very ethos of humankind
But she is a fairy, she’s unreal She lives in this other realm So close yet out of reach, and in this Our world she can either be A timorous tea rose or a mannish gal And so she has picked a side The flinty hoyden resides In her everyday garb She charges into streets She advances down corridors of corporate intrigue She launches strategic assaults Against her womanhood, her essence Her femininity To keep her wellbeing even-keeled
Sometimes … sometimes When the primordial instinct kicks in She yearns For her softness, her bliss For the profoundness Of being a woman But that fleeting notion Scatters with the burgeoning of the day Burdening her day She severs the thread, casts it aside She becomes, for the thousandth time A spiny, dirking porcupine And that is how she will stay.
I saw a tree lean in the wind Its leaves tearing, bolting ahead To sate the squalls that pulled at them I thought of you Of my blood careening in my head My limbs convulsing for release My lips struggling to appease The ego that would sunder me I saw the tree lean and lean I heard its leaf-tortured scream My insides churned with the memory I turned away I couldn’t stay And watch nature take my dismal tale Rinse it, recycle and repeat.
I can wake up on the wrong side Of the bed today I can let gravity pull at all my happy curves My smile, my feet that skip My stoical nerves I can despair today I can stare At myself in the mirror for an hour today I can have conversations with her today Openly, honestly Or maybe not I can look away while I sit In front of her looking at me It’s that kind of a paradoxical day Full of contrariness, of rights and lefts Downs and ups, shakes and nods Of sunny dawns and 8am thundery skies Of bewildering vibes and double negatives Of not being entirely unhappy with things Not unstill … but still, not entirely still
The kind of day that hugs you tight Holding you in the hollow of her hands And the next moment thrusts you away With a flick of her wrist. You’re stranded. Alone I look in the mirror trying to decide Whether I want to fret or if I want to fight Stew in my head or go at it The daedalean knot loosens bit by bit
F-i-s-t-i-c-u-f-f-s, a k—ick to the ribs Right-into-the-leathery-heart-of-things
I wage it out in a phantasmal bout Unfailing precision, all contact bulls-eyed Unfettering, releasing with every strike I’m Bruce Lee and Catwoman rolled into one Nothing’s enough. I go all out Riding the bracing rush of my blood Piercing through the eye of the storm
It’s Over, It’s All Done The Battle Within Has Been Won
I take in a breath Deep. Freeing. An all-organ sweep Another breath, reviving, serene The contrariety for today Has been washed away or dry-cleaned Either way By machinations of the mind On battlefronts designed On psychogenic frontlines Or laundromats for bruises and stains Either way, one way or another On the inside, the rumble is done I look into the mirror again Into the quiet depths of her eyes The morning rain has played its song The world is a patchwork of dappled sunshine The lingering clouds are peaceful, unrushed Like the gentle pulse of her bloodstream For a few moments in the mirror today Her tranquillity was in disarray But she can’t despair, not today While the universe around her winks and gleams.
Putting my children’s-book-writer hat on for a bit to introduce my third book in the Curious Animals & Quirky Creatures series: QUIRKY CREATURES, AN EGG, A FRUIT AND A STAR. From the little bee with the huge head, to the mischievous dragonfly trying to steal ladybird’s spots, to the extra bright little firefly, there are ten little stories in this collectible about delightful and funny creatures. Every poem tells of a little act of courage, humour and kindness as each of the little creatures saves the day in its own little way.
IN SRI LANKA: The book is available at Sarasavi, Pendi, Expographics, Seyln, Barefoot and The Jam Fruit Tree bookstores.
IN PAKISTAN: It should be on the shelves in Liberty Books and Readings at the end of July 2023. It will also be available with my aunt Mrs. Nayyar Liaqat.
IN DUBAI: July onwards, you can get your copy from my sister Zarmina by sending her a WhatsApp message.
A big thank you to my illustrator, Chrish Vindhy for the beautiful artwork of the book.
It’s been a fabulous journey with my children’s literature over the last 2 years with over 700 books sold. So thank you to all who have bought, read and gifted them 💕 Here’s to #raisingreaders
Had to share this bit of a silver lining in my tropical monsoon sky – my poem, “Veins” got longlisted in THE PLOUGH 2023 POETRY COMPETITION out of over 2000 entries. Launched my writing career such as it is, two years ago and this is the first formal accolade that has found its meandering way to me, so I’m quite chuffed. Here’s to creating more shimmering scraps of poetry and prose, and to occasionally finding the universe conspiring, encouraging and smiling down too🙏🏼🌸
I know we haven’t talked in a while I know I haven’t seen you wear your soft smile We’ve said things to each other we didn’t mean Tearing and splitting the vital seams Of the fabric of our togetherness I know that I have felt desolate, helpless We have sat in silence, cold as frost The glow of our closeness long since lost Somewhere along life’s bewildering way I let your warm hand slip away
I know we haven’t talked in a while I know I haven’t seen you wear your gentle smile
Through the years we have journeyed on Along the same path but each on our own Forged by our children, we treaded their dreams Only seeing shadows of you and me Still together we walked into middle age But it’s been a while since I really saw your face It’s been a few years since the air around Was filled with your familiar scent and your sound Somewhere, somehow I lost the quickening string That bound us together through thick and through thin
I know we haven’t talked in a while I know I haven’t seen you wear your lovely smile
But I know you’re still here, your pulse still beats warm Even as we’ve both whipped up raging storms They’ve whirled inside, while we’ve pulled away The terrible loneliness adding to the fray I know that we are distances apart But I can still feel you in the depths of my heart Let me find you once again in the mists Of sepia memories, reminiscences Let me hold your hand as I once did before Let us walk together, in step once more
I lost sight of you, dearest for a while Let me love you again, let me make you smile.
I see my shadow lengthen With the ebbing of the day I feel it suck up all the sadness From the bowels of the earth With its purple, glistening hoard Of melancholia and hopelessness I move ceaselessly, restlessly I will my never-stopping feet To sever the tortured bond That my swelling shade has formed With the darkening world around But my shadow just spreads out Ever further on the ground It suckles at night’s dreary breast Absorbing all her suffering So that nothing should remain In earth’s mighty store of pain With its ravening tentacles My twilight shadow reaches in Never faltering in its aim It will not stop it will not rest Until it has gorged itself On a sorrow that is infinite It’s bloated edges Endlessly dredge The gloom from earth’s wounded veins My shadow ripples and it writhes Waning only when daylight Breaks the tragic coupling Of the shades and sadness of nighttime.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 