I had a dream last night You were in it Fuzzy, unclear But the hook was there That had plucked you from somewhere Inside my head or maybe From some deserted place in my heart It wasn’t an act Of which I was aware I had no say In the furtive way You appeared around me again Even if you were phantasmic, chimerical In that time, you were real A swaying, decaying bridge coupling The physical and the figmental
It left a bitter aftertaste In my mouth when I awoke I brushed my teeth With renewed vitality (My dentist would be happy at least) I spent the day going over the locks I had put around certain memories These escapes Even in my dreams Made me restless, agitated me When I was awake Tonight I will have my dose Of vitamins and minerals (They promise all sorts of well-being) So that when I dream The bolted doors inside of me Keep holding their integrity
But even if they lose their might Releasing spectres of the night I know that in my waking hours In dissecting and determining The cryptic whys and wherefores Of night-garish visages Invading, distressing me These dreams, these unbidden images Have already lost their sting They have shed their whipping wings To fly at me when I’m asleep Through all of my monster-proofing And so deep down inside Something tells me that tonight I will dream of other things.
There’s something in the air In the way it moves around The living and the dead It carries a new sound Alien and profound It bleeds in and it seeps Reaching further than skin deep
There’s something in the breeze It has much to say In mystifying whispers The strange leaning of the trees In the writhing of the leaves Detaching from their seams By off-season guillotines Shimmer-sharpened by the breeze It moans against the skin In tongues we now don’t speak In tormented suffering But all that we can see Is the stirring of the leaves In their swaying canopies
There’s something in the air A blinding glitter everywhere But the motes of light are still While a cosmic storm prepares A million miles away Thickening, darkening Marking time until It comes crashing, smashing in Sweeping us all in Its alpha and omega waves In beginnings and endings Lips everywhere Spilling the same prayers As with our souls bared We fuse, we unify With something new in the air.
I wish this verse was more wholesome and whimsical like Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, but that it is not. This is about women determinedly forging on across streets, bazaars, workplaces, government offices, neighbourhoods and communities. This verse is also not so much about the woman hopeful of change (God knows that’s going to take its time in our blessed homeland), but the woman who is stoic and steadfast. It is the woman who goes about her day despite the odds that pull at her body, spirit and soul. It is the woman who dares to bare her true self despite and in fact because society expects otherwise. It is the woman who walks in her neighborhood afraid yet brave. May you find your grit and your grace for the rest of the days of your life.
A resolute, meaningful Women’s Day to all my friends and family 🌺
I wear my track pants And a pink shirt, long It says “Life is a song” I wonder if it’s too loud Stoking thoughts like a gong A shout To the world of men that teams about The streets Eyes peeled For glimpses of variously clad Women that are mad Enough to sidle into the periphery of their sight And special leery gazes Trained like full-throttled tasers On women who dare To bare More than the hand wrist down Or a smidgeon of a toe around Which sits an uncomfortable sandal A Soleful reminder To walk cautiously To always look behind her To shrink as small as she is able So she might pass With a warning glance From the men sitting around Jenetic Judges of right and wrong
For the women who dare To bare There’s a special gaze For their fall from grace From the fraternity that mills about The corners of streets Superior, upright Pissing in plain sight Marking their territories For the women who dare to bare More than the eyes Downcast, demure Vacuous and pure For them there’s the death stare Cutting them down to size I’m one of those Who - Dares - To - Bare The woman within The whole human being Self assured, aware She sits in my eyes Unfaltering, dignified Even as her heart drums inside As she traverses that den Of wolves, dressed as men.
There’s a shop down the street Where you can buy consciences Gentle pin pricks around your heart For when you want to sense something For when you want to feel A tiny paper cut, a delicate weal Most times you buy a numbness though Cloaked in velvety greys and yellows They’re tailor-made to fit around Your never-racing, constant heart And your ever-racing, chasing mind The greater you can muster Put down on the counter The finer the swaddle To enshroud your qualms To feel the vaguest of twinges Of right and wrong When to see and when to be Sightless, without sound Unconscious, uncurious, asleep In the thick, creamy fabric Numbingly, comfortingly bound Gut-driven compass buried deep Six feet below the ice and the snow The tsunamis, the floods and the hurricanes The droughts, the disease, the misery Interred in darkness, entombed underground In the meantime there’s a shop that sells Custom-built, free-of-guilt scruples in town.
She sat there selling bangles Set up in a wicker basket Some laid down on the grass Every now and then she gently Swept off the dust that spread thinly From teeming feet that hurried past Barely slowing near the woman Sitting on her haunches hoping For someone to slow down, to pause Her concave belly almost touching The basket that was tugging The life blood from her womb Every time that she moved Spilling it in little driblets Onto its precious load
The maternal bond of glass and blood Unremitting, never enough As she sat car-caressing Sometimes fretting, sometimes fussing Rearranging, caring, loving Always loving, always loving A tender smile hov-hovering Around her tired mouth She was umbilical-corded To her treasures Resting in their bed of wicker Willing them to cleave their way Into the hearts of passersby Willing them to shine so bright That it brought tears to her eyes The boundless world of plenty In those bangles by her side
Behind her lay two little heads Heat-numbed and stupefied Little thumbs in little mouths Doing their best to pacify The endless hunger in their bellies Matured and rarefied Over lifetimes spent behind Their mother as she hummed Little songs of gentle rain On golden fields of wheat and rye Watching their little sisters Take all their mother’s time Resting in their basket They tinkled and they winked They watched their little sisters Gleaming, laughing in delight Suckling on the joyfulness That streamed from their mother’s eyes.
NB: Image is from the World Wide Web. Artist was not mentioned.
When I look inside of you Into the very depths of you Do you know what I see? Two stormy mushroom clouds Looming wetly in your eyes Grey harbingers of doom They roil and linger in the room I’m afraid; I’m mesmerized Then Boom! Everything is gone In the ferocity Of your atom bomb Atomic, Anatomic, Catatonic The fearsome stillness after the storm Your atoms ravaged out of form
When I look inside of you I see vanquished fields beneath The clouds of smoke and acid rain I see the skeletons of trees The mucid ashes of flowers and bees They were rustling, bustling, hustling Their atoms dancing merrily You plucked each atom from its orbit In the fierceness Of your tragedy Calamity, Catastrophe You heaved your mighty weight upon it Smote your world beneath your feet
When I look inside of you I see the heaving cosmos Suns and planets whirling, swirling In the vast blue-blackness Meteors like fireworks Blazing exultant trails Shimmering tails, Star-burnished sails The firmament a holy grail You crush the heavens in your fist You flick your angry blue-bruised wrist The sky comes crashing down Molten lava on the ground Seismic vapor all around I can taste it in my mouth
But when I look at you from here You sit there statue-still Not an eyelash moves at all You are transparent, mystical Ethereal, Apparitional But within Clandestine, Hidden There are raging storms Carrying sand and ice alike I feel a chill in my bones And all of hell’s feverous might And all the while you look at me Your skin shrouded in serenity While in a loop, relentlessly You break and shatter on the inside.
My thoughts sometimes Become like rebellious kids They dart about my head Swarm into my hippocampus Making me sweat I race after them Calling to them But they don’t heed me They’re chimerical beings Elves and pixies and aliens Coins and marbles and peeling paint A stubbed toe, a tired saint A fierce cupid on a fountain Rose bushes that run riot And then I just lose sight Of them at all I hear the silence Numbing, thrumming, sometimes strumming Through my brain
Then I see them again They’re out on the streets They’ve run free, leaving me behind They’ve escaped the prison of my mind I watch them from afar Tumbling around Laughing, skipping, rumbling around Moaning, groaning, fumbling around Far away from me I’m featherlight now I float above them Like I’m dead The leaden weight of life Has dropped I watch it tumble with my thoughts Rumble, tumble, sometimes stumble In its frantic vitality
I’m timeless, sadless, gladless now E m p t y I float away In a silent conspiracy Of air and nothingness.
She looks at the leaf Its serrated edges holding together A cosmos of possibilities Of alternate realities Of burgeoning opportunities She looks at a vein A cholorophyllated pathway of dreams A vital, verdant, emerald seam Running like a stream From the heart of the leaf to one serrated edge
Nearest To her wrist
Where her own veins have seared a path Specific, stark Chiseled from the magma of predestined fate Pre-blessed, pre-set, per-fected Once a rolling ocean of fluid dreams Now quiet, grief-stained, shadowy seams Of still water that never skips Never dances; it stays gripped Even as it drips In the finite space of one blue-purple vein
My temples throb Like the devil has set up shop In their wefts of flesh and bone There he threshes His wheat and corn Brimstoned and fire shorn Screaming out his brutal song I’m enmeshed Tied inside my throbbing head Forced to see, ingest and feel The devilry Making me curse Making me keen In time to the pounding drum And the terrifying never-ending hum Of the devil’s threshing machine
I try to think Break out of the infernal links That tie me down inside my head My raging, aching, splitting head But the devil sings His strangely hypnotizing song And I stop Trying to slip Into my veins Away, away from the devil’s shop From that wretched, that exhausting pain And I stay The convulsions hold me in their sway Aaaa-gonizing me Beating, pulverizing me Crescendoing with my memories And I sit with my pounding head As the throb in my temples counts the dead.
My book SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS is a collection of poems and essays, rumblings of the heart about the joys, the truths, the pain, the controversies, the funniness and the wonder that criss cross all our lives in one way or another.
The book is divided into five sections: Joy, Foot-in-the-mouth, Truth, Hope and Serenity. The Truth and Foot-in-the-Mouth categories are especially brazen and raw. As with most such uninhibited writing, the objective is to assail the sensibilities and even if just for a while, to look the truth right in its jaundiced eye. The other three sections are largely whimsical and uplifting very much like walking through a zen corridor, which I’m hoping, will also soften the sensory assault of the former two segments.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, to protest against the Rowlatt Act and arrest of pro-independence activists. In response to the public gathering, the temporary Brigadier general, R. E. H. Dyer, surrounded the protesters with his troops. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire until their ammunition was exhausted. Estimates of those killed vary between 379 and 1500+ people.
I’m wearing my yellow chunri today I look at my reflection in the mirror And I see a girl in front of me Her face is shining, her smile wide I look into her eyes and laugh I’m the happy lass today. That’s me! It was going to be a lovely week Of friends and melas and cream sodas Baljeet and I were going to fly Up, up into the sky On rose-festooned jhoolas*
I waited at the bagh* with bhai Jan* His friend was organizing something They were busy but I was busier still Absorbing everything From the smells in the air to the sights and sounds I bought a set of bangles Red, gold and brown For myself and some for Baljeet Emerald green with silver trim They would play on our wrists, tinkling
Mohammad Bashir bought me some moongphalli* He was bhaijan’s friend Organizing something at the bagh The sugary pinkness melted in my mouth I got kissed by a little breeze blowing in from the south I turned the other cheek Laughingly and waited for Baljeet For kulfa falooda* and gajar ka halwa* For nimboo mirch wali garam, garam challi* My heart soared at the thought I looked at the kites gliding above I closed my eyes imagining I was One of those magical things Floating, flitting on currents of air I felt the breeze play with my hair
Baljeet didn’t come that day Bhai Jan forever went away In front of me, while in my arms Bleeding, gasping for air There were screams and sobs There were gun shots I’d lost my voice; but inside me something broke piece by piece There was no comforting, caressing breeze To sweep the stabbing bits away
Silently I looked around My bangles were broken, there was no sound From there either There was a wildness of colour on the ground The red of blood spilling fountain-like The wet brown earth where life And breath congealed in the grass There in the April sun’s golden glare I saw fallen angels everywhere At the Jhallianwala bagh.
* Chunri: fabric pattern with little white specks on colourful backgrounds
* Jhoola: Swing in Urdu
* Bagh: Park in Urdu
* Bhai Jan: affectionate term for Brother in Urdu
* Buria ke baal: Literally meaning “old woman’s hair”. Colloquialism used for cotton candy/ candy floss in Urdu.
* Kulfa falooda: A rich summer dessert very much like ice cream.
* Mongphalli: Peanuts in Urdu
* Gajar ka halwa: A traditional sweet made from carrots
* Nimboo mirch wali garam, garam challi: salt and chilli powder doused hot roasted corn on the cob
Mahvash Mohtadullah - The Roaming Desi 