KIDS BOOKS | FROM DAD, WITH LOVE

On By Mahvash K. M.In bookworm, childrensbooks, kidlit, Kidsbooks, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments

Theme: Dealing with parents’ divorce

Sarah woke up from her sleep at night 
She’d had another dream 
Where she was falling through the clouds 
Down, down into the trees 

She was scared like she had once been 
From monsters under her bed 
But now she was a big girl 
Why was she afraid like that again?

In her heart she knew the new
Monster that had come to life:
Her parents were always sad-angry
There was always a new fight 

Sarah wanted to hide away
She wanted to close her eyes 
She wished that when she woke again 
Everything would be alright
 
But that didn’t happen and one day
Her dad he sat her down 
He kissed her on her forehead 
He had a worried frown 

He said “sometimes moms and dads
Go through moody times 
And because they’re Big-People moods 
It turns them into frankensteins! 

If they stay together they’ll chomp-chomp
Off each other’s heads 
So they both start living in separate homes
So that they can keep being friends

And that is why Mom and I 
With our fights and with our moods
Will live apart but in our hearts 
Our love will never change for you 

Look at it as a new adventure 
New things to do with each one 
With Dad you can go fishing 
With Mom to the space museum 

We will always keep you close 
Just not in the same way 
Some days you will be with Mom
Some days with me you’ll stay 

Change sometimes is a good thing 
So cheer up my darling child 
No more fights and no more frowns
Just happy hearts and happy smiles 

And know that even if a thousand miles 
Separate you from me sometimes 
We’ll never let you be sad or scared 
We’re your Forever-Team, your Mom and I.
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KIDS BOOKS | FORGET-ME-NOTS

On By Mahvash K. M.In kidlit, Kidsbooks, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments

Theme: Dealing with the death of a parent

Once upon a time there were two best friends
A little boy and an elephant
Finn and Ele spent their days
Playing in the shade of the greenwood trees
And among the bright forget-me-nots by the lake

Finn’s mama had planted the ‘nots
When Finn was just a baby in his cot
They grew into bunches of beautiful flowers
Like puffs of blue clouds on the ground
Ele and Finn would run through them for hours 

Finn and Ele shared everything
Taking turns swinging from the vines
That dropped like ropes from the great big trees
They shared their gummy bears and their ice cream
And raced each other through their carrots and peas 

They got up to all sorts of exciting games
Among the trees and the forget me nots
The foxes, squirrels and chameleons 
Watched them from afar with shining eyes 
As the friends played together under the sun

One day little Finn did not come to play
The woods were quiet as a sleeping mouse 
Ele the elephant tried to play on his own
He chased his tail and tried to stand on his trunk
But try as he might, it just was no fun

One, two, three, four, five days passed
Then six, seven, eight and nine days too
But Little Finn was nowhere to be seen
Ele walked alone through the quiet woods
He even saw his friend in his elephant dreams 

Then on the morning of the tenth day
He saw little Finn from far away
In a cloud of swaying forget me nots
He was sitting at the very edge of the lake
Ele went bounding as fast as he could 

“Hello Finn, where have you been?”
Finn didn’t reply, he just looked away
Ele had never seen Finn look so sad
He did not say more, but sat close to his friend
With his trunk he gently touched his hand

After a while little Finn spoke
He said his mama had gone away
“Where did she go?” Ele asked looking at him
“To heaven. It’s a place far away 
There are no cars and no special planes 
Or super speedy bullet trains
That can take you on that trip
You have to get a special invitation 
Mostly when you’re very grown up 
But sometimes also when you’re not so big”

“No one really knows how it works 
But everyone gets to go sometime 
And meet all those who have gone before
Some have grown wings there, they can fly
Some can turn somersaults ten feet high 
Grandmas and grandpas and even pets
And sometimes even mums and dads
Ele nodded, he understood 
And so he held his best friends’s hand 
As they both sat among the forget-me-nots 

And then little Finn remembered again
His mama’s familiar, sweet smell
Every time that she hugged him close 
He cried a little as he sat with his friend
And then for a while he cried a lot …
But by and by he felt a little better 
He blinked and looked across at Ele
Finn’s eyes were red as strawberries 
But he had a little smile now too 
He had begun to feel better in Ele’s company 

Half of Finn’s tears had turned to mist
Up into the sky they had flown 
For his mama a dewy little kiss
The rest of his tears had gone into the roots 
Of the smiling, bobbing forget-me-nots
Next spring they’d grow again
Reminding Finn and Ele too
Of Finn’s beautiful mama, full of love
Finn closed his eyes, he could now feel again
The forever-happy warmth of his mama’s hug.

VERSE | SIT WITH ME

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, Kindness, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Sit with me today my love 
We don’t have to talk 
I just want to know you’re here
So I can feel your warmth 

The day’s been difficult and sad
My body throbs with pain that’s new 
There are little jagged holes 
In my desolate heart now too 

I thought that I would go to bed
Lie with my grief a while 
But that kind of lonesomeness 
In its visceral rank and file 

Is not what my aching heart yearns for
While in its darkened nook it weeps
So sit with me for a bit my love
Let your tenderness cloak me.
Image: Fine Art America

VERSE | TUNNEL VISION

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writing4 Comments

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.
Image: Kay Adonna
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VERSE | THE STRINGS THAT PULL

On By Mahvash K. M.In Faith, Family, poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments

For my beloved sister who is swept in the constant tides of farewells and then meeting-again-for-too-short-a-while. And for all the other parents whose fledglings have taken wing, may you continue to find your joy and serenity.

They are the quickening parts of you
That you bestow upon the world 
Beings that become other people
Independent. Adult. 
Then there’s the anxiety and tumult 
Of letting them go 
From the safe radius of the home
From the proximity of your everyday touch
From the protective circle of your sinewy arms
Each muscle a testament 
To years of being superhuman 
A perpetual hero, a champion  
And now you also have 
Your own growing pains to bear
Of them not being there 
As they make their start
In places you can’t be
Coming back to rest
To lay down tired heads
On other pillows, other beds
Their childhood rooms
Stirring softly with their scents
But my dearest, don’t despair
These aches pass, they morph
They bloom into other things
A kinship deep as all the seas
A bond of care that is more even-keeled 
Conversations, confidences, the sharing of dreams 

They are out there now
Let them live and love 
With all their might 
You’ve done your part
They know the tree
The orchard, the seeds
That they’ve sprung from
Now let them go
Let your fluttering, bursting heart 
Give them wings to fly
Fly, fly, up, up high 
Into the vastness of the sky
Let them whoop with joy
Let them go 
Where the soul moves them
Out into the brilliant world
To take a little bit of it 
Make it their own
Let them imprint it
With their hearts and their minds
Let them be quirky, let them be kind
Let them be funny, let them be full
Of passion, of hope, of tenderness 
Let them roar and cheer and also tear up
At life’s beauty, excitement, its bruises and cuts
Let them show all their own shades of loveliness 
Let them add to the shimmering throng
Of all that’s vital, new and strong

And you, dear beloved 
With your empty nest 
Now filled with books 
Or paints or pets
You who have begotten them 
Stand fast and true and wise
Behind them. Cheer them on 
As they sing their own songs 
In the great choir of life.

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 | THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE AIR

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments 
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.
Image: DB Waterman

VERSE | SMILE

On By Mahvash K. M.In Joy, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
A smile is such a magical thing
Like a rainbow that has sprouted wings
Its pots of gold shimmering 
In a dimpled firmament 
Lifting the day
In its 180 degree euphoria 
It is that precious loop
That adorns the mouth 
In latitudes of joyfulness 
Its bearings somewhere between 
The heart and hypothalamus
A smile is a small piece
Of heart that is pulled out
Of its latticed, multi-ribbed house
A little boon of bliss
A bit of love set free
Into the ether of the world 
That beautiful upturned arch
Of rapture and release 
Stirring the organs and the feet
Defying the pull of gravity 
I see your smile 
Framing your face
I don’t know you but my heart lifts 
Drawing its own curve on my lips
A gift bestowed for one received
A smile is that magical thing.
Image: Mike Savad

VERSE | LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

On By Mahvash K. M.In Faith, hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments 
Life is like a box of chocolates
Someone once said 
Sometimes you get 
The caramel-drenched centres
That melt in the mouth
Like liquid satin, swishing on your tongue
In silky, sweet tones
Caressing your taste buds until
Languidly, unhurriedly 
They lavish one last nectarous kiss
Before disappearing 
In ambrosial bliss
Down the tunnel of your throat

At others it’s the bitterness of a centre
That’s dark - 90% cacao
That unleashes on your tongue
Spearing, laughing, spearing again
Inflicting a bitter-sweet pain
Just enough for you to stop and think 
To wonder if this is good
A revelation 
Of taste, an experience 
That’s bold, distinct
To recall, to remember when 
You’re short on inspiration
Or whether in fact 
It is an assault no less
On the mundaneness 
The safeness 
On your everydayness
Plodding on your tongue
Like a thug that’s sold
His essence, his soul 
To the gods of gastronomic 
Absurdity and virulence

I look back, the rhyme is longer 
For the bitterness that lingers
In the mouth; but I have also realized 
That my taste buds have conspired 
With my mind to bind
Most of the time
To memories that are wholesome
Sugared, caramelised 
So even when I pick 
A chocolate from life’s mix
I hope for the sweetness 
The toffiness, the bliss
But I also sit in readiness
For the wave of bitterness 
That sometimes takes me in its grip
But always itinerant
Shifting, moving on
And so I too go on 
Savouring
Every piece, never wavering
From the cholocate box of life.
Image: Steven Willis
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VERSE | YOU ARE

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writing4 Comments 
You Are
  Too different 
    Too controversial 
              Too weird 
  Too quiet
     Too absent 

You Are
  Too passionate 
Too frigid 
      Too pushy
           Too gregarious 
Too reserved 

You Are
    Too opinionated 
       Too invested
 Too indifferent, disinterested 

You Are
Too much but
You Are
Also not enough

These arrows used to fly 
East and west
Between the bazaars and the mosques 
Down and up
From my beating heart 
To my silent mouth, forging
Right angles containing me 
In burnished boxes glittering bright 
But in the moorings 
Of all these paradoxes writhing out 
Like strident dirges from treacherous lyres
Howling of brimstone and hellfire
Now I hear only one thing 
I only hear that one constant thing

YOU ARE!

In the refrains that ring
Thunder and break 
I hear it sing:

YOU ARE!

In all that cacophony 
In the clarion calls of propriety 
Pounding, rounding endlessly 
From the steeples of society 
That is all I ever hear now 

🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸 YOU ARE!  🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸

Yes I am! I finally am! This is me
And that is all I ever need to be.
Image: Fine Art America

VERSE | THE PASSION FLOWER VINE

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Outside in the garden
There’s a Passion flower vine
Its little green tendrils
Have curled here and there
Where the shoots are fullest
Lushest, most verdant 
They burgeon and grow
Weaving circles of rapture
Until they’ve spun around
Seven times
Lighting up the chakras of life
And then just like that
Their work done
Of dancing in the sun
They fall

Inside the house
There’s a woman
Her hair
Is tied up in a bun 
She’s on the run
With little tendrils escaping 
At the nape of her neck
She’s rushing upstairs
There’s a toddler emergency 
And then she races like the wind 
Into the kitchen
To make breakfast 
And then she’s on the run again
Appointments, to-do lists, errands 
To complete 
And then back to cook and clean 
To feed and coddle, kiss a bruised knee

The hours weave their set design
Finite, regimented, organized  
But she has no sense 
Of its texture or lines
The day is done and finally 
She sits down for a while 
Soft tendrils forming 
At the nape - one, two, three
I hold my breath 
I count the whorls in the curls 
The longest one has six
I look away 
A little thought flits up to me 
Unexpectedly, a sign
Whispering secrets I don’t want to hear 
Of endings on the whorl-bearing vine

She smiles at me tiredly 
I wish, I wish fervently 
That the curls that gather
Loosely around her neck 
Is just hair soaked in sweat 
In the labour of love 
I pray, I pray silently
Into the depths of whatever’s out there 
God, the universe, ethereal energy
For the moisture laden curls to weave 
Their mystical circles for a few more years
Until they attest
To a life well-lived, joyfully 
Until they wear their silver-grey majesty 
Before they finally
Unspool in eternal rest.
Image: YourStory

VERSE | WALKING ACROSS THE STREET TO THE PARK

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

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.
Image: Ramona Pintea