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.
The winter mist is rolling in Tracing umbras and penumbras On liquid walls conjuring Illusions of nostalgic things Like tapestries of sunny hills And shadowlands where valleys stretch Into soft concaves Of velvety days shimmering At their edges, glimmering In the halos of lit up orbs Glittering, pulsating Watching and observing all Like eager sentries making sure The invading mist Covets no more Than the silver kiss That it bestows On each doorway As it tiptoes In and then away Into the darkness further along All the while As it glides Whispering its vapory song.
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.
She stands there in her thrift store threads Clean and scrubbed one can tell Despite her modest, well-used clothes And her holey, well-worn shoes She used to know happier times (Hope still huddles in her eyes) Her three children, wide-eyed surround Her
They all gape at the golden car A Lamborghini custom made For a Sheikh (Imported to the United States,for a holiday) Oil fields gush in his backyard Petrodollars in his bank Harvest hedged on the newest tank of War
“Her. War”. They sit together in this poem Teased, cajoled to conjoin To form a hallowed, blessed tie They claim the union to be right
Celestis, Infinitus, Divine.
But is it “her War”? She can’t tell If she can’t tell, neither will I.
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.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 