Category: truth

VERSE | THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF SAFE SPACES

On By Mahvash K. M.In socialissues, travel, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I sit here, open my laptop 
Look out at the sea
From the terrace of an iconic hotel 
My work venue as a freelancer, a digital nomad
I write, what does that make me?
The titles meander endlessly
Senselessly

This little bit of serenity
This deliberate grasping of nature’s stillness 
Has become a habit now
Preserving my sanity 
My emotional equilibrium if you will
Before I dive into my world of responsibilities 
And regulations that keep changing
Anew with ever more creative indignities

It’s time to reapply for the visa
The one bestowing a residency - some permanency
Is still ephemeral, a dream
So I keep doing my tawaf
Perambulating around the aspiration
Denied to me
Meanwhile I look for other little oft-trodden paths
Like visit visas that are stark
And tie and bind me into a cell
Purgatorial, ‘twixt heaven and hell

I can’t put down roots
I cant roam free
That is for the other folks
The ones with passports
Thin as wafers, pristine
Devoid of stamps and seals
That pull you into parentheses 
An afterthought, you’re one of the horde 
Picked out from discord, erratically
For a while allowed to be
A part of regular humanity 
That throngs its shores 
In NY caps and Bermuda shorts
Dollars and dollars 
Lining their seams
Blissful, unaware of what runs in the veins
Of those who smile and smile and gleam
Who enthrall and beguile
For a while before going back 
To the crumbling shacks
That once were homes
Pulverized by landslides and floods
Now pulled together by mud and stones

How do I know?
Because behind the smile I’ve seen the pain
Heavy and sodden like monsoon rain
Of the tuktuk drivers, the servers, the valets
Whose three-wheelers bear me week after week - ceaselessly
Whose lattes I sip while they look out at the sea - pensively
Who stand there smiling, ready to greet - endlessly
Their eyes have welled 
With tears, with fears; so have mine
I know, I know and I understand
Pariahs all of us in this land
That is meant to be our home
That has since become a tomb.

Image: Julia Cameron 

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 | FAR AWAY FROM HERE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, truth, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I want to walk into the sunset
Far, far away from here
Find a portal for myself, whisk away to somewhere else
Far away from here
But my dear what then?
What will become of you I think
I’m the crutch that you lean on
The weathered plank that you pace on 
Ironically your prop so hardy
Has grown a rift, become foolhardy
A fissure sprung in my core
Where it must mature into rings
Of mellow age and other things
But the cleft, a secret break
Hidden away has slowly swelled
With snaggy splinters, spiny edged
Letting in light that I had lost
Golden- yellow, shimmering, quiet
And it has cleaved the crack some more
More and more clearly I see the door
Where the gleam keeps pulling me
Towards the sunset thrilling me
Far, far away from here.

Image: Lucia Verdejo

VERSE | THE CITY WITH NO SEASONS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, Sadness, Spirituality, truth, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Autumn’s here, the leaves they fall
As they do when summer drifts away
Slowly leaf by leaf, butterflies and bees 
All whisk away to other places where nippy winds 
Frost-nibbled grass and bare trees
Have had their day. They change places 
For a spell, the cities wear new faces 
Borrowed for a while
They smile, they sleep, they laugh, they dream
Hand in hand with the people passing by

Autumn’s here, the leaves should fall
As they do when summer slips away
But the seasons can’t find their way
Into this city, its leaves, butterflies and bees 
Have ceased to be. Permanently. Their carcasses one
With those of their humans that once 
Lived in this place.  They can’t change places 
Even for a while
They cannot sit and weep and weep and weep
Where mothers are slain and children are left to die.
Image: Helena

VERSE | THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, Humanity, poetry, Sadness, truth, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I wish sometimes that I could 
Pause this mad, sad world of ours
Just make it static, less erratic 
For a few peaceful hours

I wish sometimes that I could
Travel to 1945
Put a spanner in-genius things 
That now maim and unalive

I wish sometimes that I could 
Get into the minds of men
To fathom whence the ego-angst
Comes seething, storming in

I wish sometimes that I could 
Put my arms around the babes
As ceilings and beams are pulverised 
Sealing off all escape

I wish that I could look into 
The eyes of the “chosen” hoard
As they rape, ruin and raze
In the name of a furious god 

I wish that I could for a while
Wield the zen of the universe
To open up her veins, to let 
Her essence truly gush forth 

I wish that I could make our world 
A softer place to be
Cotton-balled for a little haul
A pearl-feathered reprieve

I wish that I could wish and sometimes
Wishes indeed came true
But every time I open my eyes
Reality flogs anew.

Image: Lakshay Jakhar

VERSE | THE APPLE OF HIS EYE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
He looks at him, his son-in-law
Blinking, not recognizing him
It has been over half a year 
Since this son was last here 
Half a lifetime in his existence 
Scrambled by dementia. Aasiya
The daughter he’s barely spoken to
Given in marriage at 22
He now remembers crystal clear 
As she sits with him, ministering 
Talking to him now without fear
Ungrudgingly for all the years
She was not enough. Arif
Her husband with the business
The opinions and the maleness
Was the apple of her father’s eyes
But now all he sees in the clouds of time 
Is this angel with her beautiful smile
As she soothes him, and she feeds him
Her gentle touch calming the storms 
Of confusion and disquietude
That rage through him so often now
All he sees, all he has eyes for
Is his daughter, his beloved Aasiya.

Image: Blackbirdkoyel

VERSE | WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writing3 Comments 
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.
Image: Trish Wade

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 | PERIOD PIECE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments

(This piece is about limitations, both physical and mental on women. It is about a woman dealing with the biology of her own body in an environment that has disgraced and stigmatized it.

This piece has also been accepted as part of the 2024 Women Scream anthology, a platform that unites voices for violence against women and is celebrated on international women’s day across a number of countries).

Give me something to sleep 
Just for a while, a few hours maybe 

What’s bothering you?
This thing, this ungodly thing 
I’m sullied, impure again

Impure again?
My insides are bleeding anew

Why are you whispering? 
Because it’s this dirty secret bound to me 
It keeps violating, assaulting me 
With such ravening regularity
I have to beg my sister to visit
(She has that freedom, that liberty)
So she can come bearing these 
Brazen packs of sordid things
The stigma! the cruel savagery 
Of having my womb constantly
Bleed and weep and shame and sting 

I see the look on my husband’s face 
When I can’t make his meals
In Ramzan, or on eid 
(I can’t even iron his prayerful shalwar kameez*)
I still recall - I cringe and I cry at the memory
I couldn’t attend my little one’s very first Ameen* 
I had taught him his Alif Laam Meem*
I couldn’t say 
I couldn’t tell them to move the day 
How could I! 
I hid in the shadows while my mother-in-law 
Did everything 
Hugging my child 
Lavishing him all the while 
With maternal love, where my love should have been 
Mine I had put away, hidden, unclean 
Until I was done with this bane 
But the occasion has gone like so many others 
When I was stripped of the soul of a mother 
That precious moment passed me by 
Even my father-in-law watched from jaundiced eyes 
His expression… such disappointment - such contempt 
The embarrassment! The torment! 
I wanted to die

The first fast is tomorrow and I bleed again
I’m wretched, repulsive, tainted 
But I’m tired of hiding, melting away 
In the darkest recesses of the house 
I’m tired of playing cat and mouse 
With my dignity, my sense of self 
I’m tired of becoming invisible 
For a week every month, ceasing to be 
A mother, a wife, a human being 
I’m tired of fading, becoming a wraith
I’m tired… I’m tired of this unholy plague
 
Give me something, something to sleep 
Give me something to fly me away
On the quiet wings of eternal release.
Image: April Mansilla
*Shalwar kameez: tunic and pants worn by men and women across the greater Indian subcontinent.

*Ameen: term used to signify the event/ celebration when a child has finished reading the whole Quran.

*Alif, Laam, Meem: Alphabets that occur in the Quran. In this context, teaching the Quran with all its semantics.

VERSE | WINTER WITHIN

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, mentalhealth, poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Life goes on wrapped up in days 
Amd months and years 
And then something small, inconsequential 
Peeps out of a grainy abyss 
It emerges unshrouded, unexpected 
And the fragility 
That is also life, folds up 
The soft blanket about us 
And we feel the chill 
Of new news, the icicles
Of probabilities, plausibilities 
Pierce benumbed flesh 
The fragility of life
Touches us with light fingers, it tries 
But our hearts beat like the delicate wings 
Of butterflies at the end of spring 
We feel, we reel we come undone 
For a while or longer and then 
The chill settles into our bones
Wistful companion for a season 
That somehow takes root 
While summer and autumn 
flit past in their time 
Winter settles into our boots
In the lines of our palms 
And behind our eyelids like iodex balm 
Tearing now and then at flesh and veins 
Amid the dead quietness it brings 
Of endings, a resting in the dirges it sings 
Winter becomes our climate within
And we toughen our skins 
With hope, nostalgia and other things 
And somehow we survive, we go on 
Wrapped in hours and days and years 
Until it happens all over again.
Stephanie Weaver

VERSE | THE FLOWER MASSACRE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, Politics, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I heard it on the news 
Not the mainstream kind, no 
Their stories unravel to a sepulchral beat
Where the truth lies buried under bones and teeth
This was another source 
I read the caption and my heart 
Burst again 
Those men, women and children
Were shot, sniped to the floor 
Because they’d gathered to collect 
Food, that had been plentiful before
Growing in their fields and in their groves
Now razed into cavernous holes
Bleeding crimson into bare soles
Into bare souls 
Bearing souls of loved ones gone
On hearts and shoulders cut and torn
Holding on to hope for one more hour
Budding gently like a flower 
Reaching for a little flour 
For loved ones that still breathed amid
The glowing flitter of their dead
They reached for hope spattered in red
They reached for hope pockmarked with lead
They reached for hope among their dead
They reached and were shot in their heads

Vermillion petals drift again in the wind
Blooming in the ether of Palestine.
Image: Shereen Audi