Tag: drawing

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VERSE | DON’T FORGET

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, Humanity, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writing2 Comments 
I draw so you remember 
What happened in October
Of 2023
And November and December 
and January and February 
And on and on in 2024 and 2025
I draw because I’m still alive 

I stand where the stricken
Lie dead or dying in the rocks 
Once homes and hospitals 
I stand 
And I draw so you remember 

And should I lose my hands
I will still paint
The ravaged spaces that I see
I’ll paint them with my feet 
I’ll sit 
With my reds and greys amid 
Strewn limbs and death debris
A paintbrush in my toes 

And should I lose my legs 
One of them or both 
And if I can draw a breath 
I’ll still draw the faces 
Of the living and the dead 
I’ll etch them with my eyes 
Into the watching skies
 
I’ll engrave them in the heavens 
Where angels wait to greet 
All of me and mine 
We, the flowers of Palestine 

I’ll draw, I’ll paint, I’ll etch 
Until my dying breath 
So that you can always see
So that you don’t forget.
Image: Imad Abu Shtayyah

VERSE | HEALING

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
She looks down at the empty page 
Something is on her mind 
A plot, a verse for better or worse 
For the rest, a pithy line 

But nothing stirs into rank and file 
For her to string together 
The words and phrases spin like crazy 
She just can’t find the tether 

“I looked at him in puzzlement…”
No today she couldn’t go there 
“She sat serene and beautiful
With a magnolia in her hair…”

She felt herself choke a little 
She couldn’t walk there either 
In sepia-toned dreams is where
She felt happiest seeing her 

A cup of tea, a pastry 
That sublime combination
Surely she could muster up 
Something for that occasion 

But her thoughts were far away 
They were looking at something else 
The woman poised upon her page 
Needed healing herself 

So they had set up a little storm 
In the space of her tearing mind 
Whirling, swirling round and round 
Until the pain was left behind 

Then to her blue-stung heart they went 
To gently numb the precious space
Odes to life’s ripple and swell 
Could wait for another day.

VERSE | c-ART-arsis

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
It was one of those treacherous days 
That squats in front of you
Exhausting and depleting
It drains you through and through

I was overcome with listlessness
A pall lay all around
I sat staring into space 
Completely stupor-bound

I needed to break the torpor 
I needed to feel alive
I recalled some pithy words I’d heard
Of drawing to revitalise 

Sketch anything on a blank page
The sage had thus advised
So out I got my notebook
The blank one, without lines

I looked at my set of markers
They were the watercolour sort
Liquid-lovely for colouring in
Already drawn out art

I picked out a green one
The black just seemed too staid
I then sat staring into the creamy
Depths of my blank page

It was said that if you then find
Yourself in a conundrum 
Imagination hiding away
No muse, no inspiration 

Then just write something positive
And let your mind roam free
The words will inspire by and by
A masterpiece of imagery 

“CHOOSE the world you WANT” I wrote
Feeling a wry smile om my lips
So many empty words they seemed
Skepticism had me in its grip

I drew dancing confetti to bring
Some joy to the lifeless leaf
Adding comet-like tails to the C and T
Shedding some existential grief

Then I added whorls and twirls 
To the words I’d written down
In reds and blues and oranges
Purples, violets and browns

The sentence glimmered on the page
In colourful celebration
In all the rainbow hues and more 
An uplifting declaration

I smiled, the sluggish spell now gone
Every flourish had set me free
Enshrined in my mood uplifting art
The words now also surrounded me.