Category: satire

VERSE | LET’S BLAME IT ON THE RAIN

On By Mahvash K. M.In Faith, hope, Humanity, Pakistan, Politics, satire, thereset, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
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.

Image: generated via illustration software

VERSE | I FEEL OUT OF TOUCH

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment

For all the times when writer’s block has dammed the flow of words. Like a beaver it plugs the essence, but like a force of nature, the floods of creativity bring those dams crashing down. Again and again, hope shimmers at the end of every one of those bottlenecks.

I feel out of touch 
A tad bit rusty 
Cranky and creaky
Tinny and such 
The words clump together 
With a grind and a grate
I wonder if a month away 
Has dulled my tapestry of verse 
Shimmering skeins that advance and traverse 
Embroidering and stitching 
Notions and qualms
Into billowing storms 
Into rippling, sashaying ribbons of calm 
Bewildering phrases that make me guffaw 
Festering sentences painful and raw 
In bobbing waves with lacy edges
In crashing, lashing, tearing deluges 
In twinkling stardust upon my page 
My blinking cursor running away 
With the train of my thoughts to the drum of my heart 
Laughing, singing, assuaging an ache 
Grieving, weeping, caught in the wake 
I wonder if my keyboard, unstirred, unscathed
For two score nights and forty days 
Has borne my quickening string away.
Image: The New York Times

VERSE | THE CONUNDRUM OF BOOK NO. 8

On By Mahvash K. M.In bookworm, newbook, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
7 books down, and I was told
By well meaning friends of the heart
Start
Writing a novel.  Now that would be novel
For someone like me
A lover of the short story
Genre. Honour-ing the demigods
Of the craft
Like Munshi Premchand and Kurt Vonnegut 
Poe, Manto, Chughtai and a glut
Of others
Revered for the grace and form
They built into their pithy tomes
These brothers
And a sister to bring them all home

I also dabbled in poetry
A bit of whimsy, some contrariety
A ravaged spirit or blithe wings
Made my poems weep and sing
But the short story
And flash fiction 
Is where my heart lay 
For 6 of the books
Where my pen strayed
Where the typed word
Lay bare its humming core
To hold words of wisdom
Emotions galore
(Let me disclaim these to be mine
Not of the larger space and time)

7 books like an epoch of weeks
Must of change rustle and speak
But a no-vel, well-no … that’s not for me
Or my pen or my sensibility
William Faulkner that sage divine 
Said it best when he wrote his lines
I paraphrase, this verse to fit:
“A failed short story writer is a novelist
And a short story writer is a failed poet”.

Images: Hamama Tul Bushra

VERSE | DI-STRAW-T

On By Mahvash K. M.In Foot in the Mouth, poetry, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
She puts it down in front of me
A bottle of water and a glass
With a straw
(Not plastic - Greta T.
Would probably be somewhat happy)
I especially ask for it, I know
It reeks of faux gentility
To sip one’s water from a glass
With a rim, sculpted for your lips
To gently settle on it and draw
Up The water. But the straw
Has replaced that intimacy 
Between the aqua glass and me
It wasn’t always like this
This distancing of my lips
But unending hopelessness
Pandemics of malaise 
Scrooched time and again
Upon the rim, insidious and grim
Where there should have been
Pure bevel, clean, pristine 
Or at the very least
Conclaves of mellow disease
That didn’t bleed dry and deplete 
The very life blood out of me
So now you know
Why I use uncoupling straws
Indifferent, cool, gappy
(Paper-made, eco-friendly)
An arms-length defense strategy 
To keep myself malady free.

Image: Jean-Antoine Watteau

VERSE | FOR WHAT IT’S (W)EARTH

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, Politics, satire, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Some say our earth is splitting in two
Shifting off its axis in directions anew
Parallel worlds, a rift at the core
One is wrought with strife and war
Contentions and conflicts and hate galore
This land is mine!
They thunder and roar
I was here 3000 years before!
Decrees keep pelting like acid rain
From the sacramental mouths of men
Sitting in legislative dominion 
Your bodies, our choice say all those
Born in the spitting image of god
The owners, the stoners, the masters, the lords

The other earth … well that is a mystery
Wrapped in illusions, visions and dreams
Aspirations so secret
They lie buried beneath
Lungsful of air 
Every stalwart heartbeat
Where Biology is a factual thing
Not contorted into statutes and bills
Where connections are made
Forged by the soul
Where language and lore
And race and skin
Are just rainbows that arch 
Over our beautiful earth

They say the split is cleaving in two
Our world of bloodied green and blue
I want to be with the ephemeral lot
The one that’s poetic, as yet unbegot
Even if that means that I will cease
To have and to hold, to breathe and to be
At least I’ll be done with our broken world
Be a star in the sky
An autumn-blown leaf
And that dear friend is all that I want
When I introspect
When I really delve deep.
Image: Vincent Van Gogh

VERSE | RIGHTING BLOCKS OR BITER’S ROCK

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
The cursor blinks expectantly
Compellingly, unyieldingly
Something stirs my inner calm
With tongs charged with electricity
I see them bare their tungsten teeth
Serrated, set and bite-ready
They start to pick at the soft glow
That cloaks my core delicately
The zen shades come quickly undone
One by one efficiently, unerringly
Until the luminosity 
Of the buzzing pliers hits
My chakras humming quietly
The glow transforms to garish light
I’m overtaken, panic strikes
My heart leaps up, it’s on the run
Blood rushing, pitching oxygen
To my eyes and my extremities 
I blink once, twice and then again
As the cursor straight and stark
Marks its time ominously
I tap-tap-delete-tap feverishly 
Fingers on the dread-locked keys
But there is no hidden gem 
That flows from this cataclysm 
On the page in front of me
I look up, I take a breath
The screen retreats into its depths 
Some days it really is just best
To give the grim cursor a rest.

Image: Mary Marin

VERSE | QUENCHLESS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
The streets cook in the yeasty sun 
The concrete melting in little mirages 
In the corner of my eye, I see
The vegetation sizzle on the sidewalks
The tops are over-done, burnt
The undersides stick to the earth 
In a grotesque masquerade
Of some now forgotten vital bond 
Roots and soil cling together 
Like dogged carcasses to the bone 
The street dogs lie half dead
Parched tongues loll out now and then 
A sluggish scrape against the grit 
And they escape
Back into the desert caverns of their mouths
I pick my way along the street 
Shimmer-sharpened by the heat
I feel it reach
Hellish fingers through my soles
Heat-divining for my soul
I hurry on but Hades’ torrid lick
Is already on my swollen lips 
His hoary sizzle has found its mark 
My tar-seared feet slow to a crawl
My essence drips out in burns 
Upon oil-scorched temples and brows 
Down my thighs and my neck 
I cannot move another step
I sit on a steaming bench 
To drench the rest of me 
In the quenchless, wrenching sun.
Image: Kasimir De Dalmau Oriol

VERSE | I THOUGHT I’D GET A KINDLE

On By Mahvash K. M.In funny, poetry, satire, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment

A bit of a humorous jab at AI snoop-iness and how we’re all slowly but surely slipping and sliding towards that destination one and all.

I thought I’d get a kindle
Get on the tech bandwagon 
So off I went exploring 
The retail world of Amazon 

The user friendly tablet arrived 
Gleaming and spanking new
I undid the strings, savored the unboxing 
It was a serene and calming blue 

I set it up, easy as pie 
No I’m not a gadget beast 
But I laid my trust in wise old words 
Find you shall, what you seek 

I downloaded my first book 
Orwell’s dystopia galore 
A perennial favourite of mine 
His truth-telling “1984”

As I perused in paper white  
The old lines that I had read 
Someone said in New speak 
Thoughtcrime bytes. You dead 

I looked in horror as the words 
Came skittering off the screen 
They grew teeth, gnashed them at me 
I rent the air with my Old Speak scream 

I woke up with a start the pad
Lay innocently charging away 
I unplugged it, boxed it back in 
To the pack from whence it came 

I picked up its paper bound twin
from the shelf, I held my breath 
The words there safe, 2 dimensional 
Stayed in their realm of width and length 

And so I have resolved that
Poking around in a digital brain 
Isn’t for me, the glue bound leaves  
Is where my read-ventures shall remain.
Image: Malcolm Liepke

VERSE | LITTLE SECRETS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, satire, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I sought you out, you seek I did 
Your sort I ardently sought out 
In movies on my Netflix screen 
Your type I read in pages typed 
And bound in pale lilac string 
Lying deep beneath secret things 
Amid beloved, unpublished things 
Your form I conjured in my dreams 
From lovely, daytime fantasies 
You lived in my gleaming realm 
Of poignant impossibilities 
Your mold I formed in my head 
Gently the mould spread and spread 
Amid beautiful, decaying things 
Covered in gossamery what-ifs
In golden morns and velvet nights
I looked for you, I sought you out

Until yesterday 

When I saw you clear as day
You looked through me and then away 
The likes of me you didn’t like 
You sought a whole new other sort
I was no part of your reality 
But I looked and looked silently 
Seek you still, I do sometimes 
I still urge for your bewitching kind 
But now doubts riddle that enterprise 
Few are the days when I look for you 
Fret-free, with stars in my eyes 
Those days are still the most sublime
But sublimity is not for me
Its glittering garb is too profound 
Peace is now what I seek out 
Still, old habits of the heart 
Are damnably hard to put down
So keen for you my secret love
And seek you still, I do sometimes.
Image: John William Waterhouse

VERSE | EYES WIDE SHUT

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment

This is an unlovely ode to bad relationships. It is also for all those still tempted to give toxic relationships chance number 2 and 3 and God forbid even more. May you keep moving ahead, above, beyond.

That gaze was just too intense 
My head felt like a beaten egg
Yolks and white all combined 
To give me wishy-washy legs 

I was usually in control 
My heart never rested on my sleeve 
But that stare, your yen laid bare 
Made my ribs into a sieve 

And so my sage old heart popped out 
Of its latticed bulwarked den 
It leaped gaily down my arm
And upon my sleeve I wore it then 

It leaped and skipped all the while 
That you sat to my left 
I tried to brush it off my arm 
But my heart dodged me, it was deft 

By and by it took up the song 
Of new love, brazen and bold 
My thrumming blood picked up the tune 
As it danced in its venous folds

I felt my eyes light up like stars 
My face catch on wild fire 
As you cast your eerie spell 
Of infatuation and desire 

The rest as they say is history 
It doesn’t behoove my gentle pen
To transcribe and eternalize
Chapters closed with an amen! 

Like loaded missiles, your eyes today
Once again bore into me
That day I was the prey you sought
But today I am armed to my teeth

That gaze is just deception cold
It’s so clear, now I can see
As back it kicks and ricochets 
Into the desert of your being.
Image: A.J. Palmer

VERSE | DAS KATHARSIS*

On By Mahvash K. M.In mentalhealth, poetry, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment

This is an unlovely ode to drudgery of all kinds: professional, domestic, emotional and mental. This is also a bit of a kick to the steaming underbelly of corporatocracy or political capitalism. For those still in its grips, tomorrow is another day, and then another, and another …. This is to deep breaths, cathartic vocalization and despite it all, inner peace ☮️

I sit here with my tea
It is past dusk, nighttime has come
My day is done, the drudgery
For now, has been overcome
I know I should call it living
A productive life, goal-driven
One that should give me belly warmth
The kind that you find
In food that hugs your soul 
While it slowly dissolves
Into dreams and hopes and 
Forging on; wanting more; 
The bar always moving up
There are no rests, there are no stops

But Drudgery O Drudgery!
When I call you out for thee
That word becomes cathartic 
As it washes off the aches
The tiredness, the ire
The fresh and dutiful daily inks
Of brimstone and hellfire
It’s like a song, a one word air
It fills the air with daring
A momentary “damn it all!” 
No fear of anything 
Celestial, terrestrial or alien

Drudgery oh drudgery!
I have been taught to revere thee
In your sugar-coated entirety 
But to speak of you 
Honestly
In all your tri-syllabic impiety
Is to seek out fate 
When she should be
Left alone
Picking at her murphied* bones

And yet Drudgery Och Drudgery
There are days when I acknowledge thee
For what you are:
A stinging thorn in my soul 
A worldly curse, a profanity
And that is when I perceive
An adroit lightness of my being.
When I call you out, I feel
A joyful whoosh of relief 
My hapless spirit is airborne
Again, and I am fortified 
For another day spent in your arms
Ceaseless, easeless Drudgery
With a name that’s yet a purging charm.
Image: Jacqueline Fahey
Image: Douglas Arthur
* The title of the poem is an adaptation of Karl Marx’s critique of political economy - Das Kapital

* Murphied: The word is derived from Murphy's Law (Whatever can go wrong will go wrong). Victim of bad luck and circumstance.