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 Squatted 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.
O Beauteous one This is for you For all the times that you have bloomed When all around have burrowed deep Into the coolness of earth’s breast Hiding away, biding their time Until gentler, lighter climes Bestir them in their loamy beds But you, O Intrepid one You have always overcome You have worn your gem-like garb In ways that made me catch my breath Racing, chasing to my heart Wondering if you’d shimmer on Or if your time here too was done But you wore your jeweled crown Glittering in the scorching sun I looked at you, O Enchanting one As you cavorted with the breeze Those molten gusts upon my skin I gulped in then, the oxygen That sat timorously in the air But I was pulled By the oasis that surrounded you Perfect, paradisiacal Unsundered by the elements There you danced so full of joy I came to you pulled by the spell Of your vividness, O Alluring one You swayed your head Spangled whorls overspread Across the fretwork of your boughs Mesmerized I reached out Into your magic latticed web You pricked me then, O Bewitching one Your thorns were invisible, hidden I knew then that your glittering grace Your wild gumption to face the sun Aren’t just in the softness of your blooms But in the armor you have chiseled from The tempests - stormy and searing I looked at the ruby that had sprung On my fingertip that you had stung It dazzled on my glistening skin Its precious seams filling my lungs My essence and throb, O Wondrous one I found that day in the scorching sun.
Spring turns to autumn which moults Into winter. The winds blow cold And the skies are a myriad shades Of grey. The trees in their glades Stand stark and naked. Their leaves Now mottled, dying underneath Trampling feet. Hurrying feet across Paths well trodden and paths that are lost In the gloom. Winter’s dirge Fills the spaces in between to merge With the mist. She throws a blanket On the quiet world. And then she touches My cheek. I turn my face away and she spreads Her arms. I’m enveloped from toes to head From right hand to left. I stand still And let her feel. She takes her fill And then undoes her vapory hold. I finally see The path stretching clear ahead of me
Dedicated to the memory of all those young people who struggled to fit into the norms dictated by their communities and who lost that battle. May the second wind in your sails be glorious and joyful.
I’m going to tell you a little story Of a girl who loved too much Lived too much, hoped too much They said, she was too much! She was a queen, a young one But she had that zest for life That is so rare and beautiful That is also so ominous and direful
The story goes that she was born In the wrong place at the wrong time Nothing seemed to feel right in fact She was told to be someone that She wasn’t. She was taught, against her will To be the clone of a fantasy That had persisted for centuries
And so the queen crumbled Atom by atom, bit by bit, little by little She fell apart like a young sapling That has been buffeted and knocked about By righteous winds whipped up By those who were afraid of her Of our queen getting out of the box That they had so faithfully built for her
She finally broke into a million pieces And she plummeted She had once known how to fly like an eagle To soar up to the top of the world But that memory was gone, pounded out And so she fell Hitting the ground six feet deep And that is where she now sleeps.
Note: This poem was long-listed in the 2023 Plough Poetry Competition
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
Literal and Satirical definition: defective sight in which objects/ other opinions/ other people cannot be properly seen if not close to the centre of the field of one’s view.
It grips me in its narrowness Blurring out everything else The serrated edges of my self Fade, become invisible I only get to feel One urgent, solitary reel Of fickle life at a time Drenched as it is in endless Waters of love or rage Seas with no horizons No frontiers, no boundary lines These swells take over me In my entirety I can barely breathe The deluge almost drowning me My heart and mind My tears and smiles In that moment are replete There can be no more In my stores Of pain and joy They are empty, hollow, done The universe too Knows when it’s enough And that is why I then see Only a sliver and no more Of life’s excess, its extremity Its climax, its nth degree Through the narrowed and diminished lens Of my shielding, sheltering tunnel vision.
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.
Do you remember that autumn day The day you came upon me in the park? I stood in the shadows of the banyan tree Preparing for a final flight of the heart You swept along so light and so true ‘Hello’ you said ‘this October sky is so blue!’
I was taken aback, I was agitated I stood there awkward, uncertainly You didn’t walk on, you stood there rooted Like an interfering angel on a samaritan spree I didn’t want to hear what you had to say I wished you’d sprout wings and just fly away
So I looked through you, hoping that you’d go on But you just ambled around my space The one I had for hours thought upon Where I’d finally leave this wretched place This life, this strife, this gnawing misery This heart that keened so relentlessly
But you stayed and then you held my hand All this while I had not said a word to you You had looked into the depths of my soul And you knew … my friend, you just knew! I remember the withered grass you sat with me on The sun was hidden, but your own light shone
We sat and we sat, you by my side An angel, a friend, a beautiful stranger You parried with such elegant ease My monsters of desperation and danger Your warmth enveloped my aching heart That day you pulled me out of my abysmal dark
Now here you lie in a white satin bed Shrouded in scents of final farewells I touch your hand, it lies cold and inert Your eyes are closed, your breath is still I couldn’t save you dear friend, from final cessations But then you always were the angel in our equation.
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.
Such a beautiful thing this imperfection This little bit that you have sprinkled Into your soul The laugh that doesn’t tinkle, it echoes From the walls like a summer storm It doesn’t hold me in a trance It takes me along in its wholesomeness Making my atoms dance
Your smile that doesn’t dress itself In perfect pearls of evenness Instead it reaches for your eyes Hugging the lines etched there By all your joy and your good cheer It doesn’t enchant, it makes me grin There are no beguiling starry skies Your smile makes my blood glide warm within
Your body that wears its comfortable cloak Of comfort food and late night snacks It doesn’t pack 6-pack abs, instead It carries an inner anchoring That special thing that comes From going through thick and thin And still walking on, striding, taking Others along whose light has fallen dim
Your spirit that lark of joy that resides Inside your big big heart, it deploys Like an 8-watt bulb of gentle sunlight When you walk into a room and smile And crinkle your twinkling, mirthful eyes I see it then, the beautiful imperfection That makes me catch my breath Every now and then. I feel a tenderness A quiet joy and I know that I have found the one Whose angels and demons play well with mine.
The rubber grove is wintering Bare branches raised in quiet prayer The trees in meditation Their copse a little haven From the chill that’s spreading everywhere They sit together in the grove Yet solitude wraps each one In arms soothing, slumbersome And there resting they will remain Until earth wakens them again
The fallen leaves have long since ceased To sit lightly on the ground They have sunk into their beds Laid down their tawny-russet heads Hidden away, they will not be found The trees remain skeletal, upright Waiting for spring to arrive But until then they will not sing Stirring songs of vital things For now the grove is wintering
Something deep inside of me Keens for this state of rest To step out of life’s lusty choir For a while to quietly retire From her spring-loaded behest I want to hide, to lie low Take each hour nice and slow Hibernate in my little den Until I can smile at life again Like the grove I will be wintering.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 