I feel out of touch A tad bit rusty Cranky and creaky Tinny and such The words clump together With a grind and a grate I wonder if a month away Has dulled my tapestry of verse Shimmering skeins that advance and traverse Embroidering and stitching Notions and qualms Into billowing storms Into rippling, sashaying ribbons of calm Bewildering phrases that make me guffaw Festering sentences painful and raw In bobbing waves with lacy edges In crashing, lashing, tearing deluges In twinkling stardust upon my page My blinking cursor running away With the train of my thoughts to the drum of my heart Laughing, singing, assuaging an ache Grieving, weeping, caught in the wake I wonder if my keyboard, unstirred, unscathed For two score nights and forty days Has borne my quickening string away.
Day breaks and I’m asleep But I can tell it’s dawn again The light touches my retina Through the barrier of my skin It gently feels its way around The darkness behind my shuttered lids Then it sits itself down Waiting for me to let it in To start its morning ritual of Dancing with my rods and cones The caper sometimes morphs into A red hot duel that is fought Electro-impulsively in my brain Where the battleground is wrought Or we break into a marathon run Away, away from every one Flowing with the adrenaline Out of the arteries, into the veins I lead it where it needs to go Some days we waltz, and on some We antelope it out the door Day breaks, I open my eyes to see I’m wafting, floating into infinity
He says they’re a bunch Of thieves and thugs Who have looted the nation Of its tea and its mugs They took the dregs of the Earl grey too! Those boot-polishing, lily-livered brutes!
They say he’s a nut job with lunatic illusions Of grandeur and psuedo-pious, Dipped-in-angel-dust delusions He’s not a statesman, he’s an unbridled curse! Our friends across the pond agree that’s what he is This has-been sportsman with his peerni* and tawiz*!
The citizens bewildered and confused Are wondering with whom they should side The saga plays out again, sly and crude Where the nation is taken for a frenzied ride The horse has long since become a lame ass Feeding on national common sense with a side of grass
The Paya* and Diesel Management says a lot The Dharna* Skipper flourishes his “Absolutely Not”! The repartee continues in savage tones We watch from the relative safety of our homes Then the power goes out and all is dark The slate is wiped clean, we are back at the start
* Peerni: A Muslim holy woman
* Tawiz: An amulet worn for good luck and protection
* Paya: A specialty dish in the subcontinent, the main ingredients are trotters cooked in various spices
I Laugh Out Loud as I hear him tell the joke Of the 12 inch pianist who was quite the coincidental bloke She Twittered delightedly out loud and on her phone
We were out and about, having coffee and conversation About Freedom of Religion and Marijuana regulation Facebook also heard it all through her joyful proclamation
The waiter brought our food in style, ‘here you are madam!’ He and I had pizza, she had salad with J. Statham*, (The pleasure of his photo presence she could only fathom!) But Instagram was hit with #handsomeboy and #foodgasm
We were done with lunch now, chatting over cherry flan When there was a bustle and in walked Fawad Khan* Of course she put the video on Snapchat for all her fans
Three hours later, satiated, our day updated digitally While saying goodbye, he tripped outside and fell on the concrete TikTok later showed us all how hilarious tragedy can be.
And there you have it, dear friends and frenemies Our lives on a platter for all the world to see A Schizo-polar history for our bedevilled progeny.
* Jason Statham: An English actor and producer. Typecast as an antihero, he is known for action-thriller films and portraying tough, irredeemable, and machiavellian characters.
* Fawad Khan: a popular Pakistani drama and film star.
Written amidst the mind-numbing perils of never ending curfew lockdowns. Read at your own mental risk 🤓
Tak taka tak - Tak Tak Kaun hai bhai bata ab tak
CHINA!
CHAI NA girana babu Bari tarpay tarpay tarpay Meri leg not so halkay halkay
Knock knockity! Knock Knock Who’s there, before I click back the lock
ZEBRA!
ZE BRA in France is black or white Practical and just hugging one right And if you feel the added zeal Add some colour, like lilac and teal.
Tap ti tap tap - Tap Tap Who is it? That was a fine rap
LIZARD!
LIZ ‘EARD you call her “mighty stout” You really put your foot in your mouth! She may be big but she’s got style She’ll make you eat your words for a mile
Ding da ding ding- Ding Dong Who is it? Come sing us a song
RHINO! O-O! O…OOOO!
Mr. RAI, NO we will not do this Mrs Rai yes it’s all the craze Rainbow coloured hair for you And I will go for baby blue
Clap de clap clap - Clap Clap Who goes there? Who gives my door a thwack?
‘Tis me MAYNA!
MAY NA bhoolonga MAIN NA bhoolongi My nemesis is bharta de cauliflower And mine is garbanzo beans!
Open the door for salvation Open the door for your soul Who … who’s there? ‘Tis me your moral sense, Call me your conscience No punning, rhyming words here No weighty equations. Just you and me and clarity That’s been lost too long at sea
I’m deaf! I’m deaf! I can’t hear you Ps. I’ve not seen any clarinet either! (Hehe!) So the door stays closed, barred and locked Not opening any windows neither! Go elsewhere, go where you can be heard The (h)earless are quite rampant here Don’t come knockity knocking upon my door Amd I’ll pretend as if you were never here - dear!
A satirical take on some of the fairy tales we’ve grown up with. Can you guess each of the four Scary Tales? 🤓
You know I kind of hate you With your magic and your spells Always trying to help folks Always being so swell My father’s on his own trip Marrying yet again I wanted all his attention Now of my existence you’re the bane So I’m going to show you up as The evil step mom in the wings Going to booze and then I’ll snooze And await my Prince Charming
I’ll do you better with my step fam A mother and her progeny! I curse the day I met them The entire simpering family! I’m irked by their sweet faces These step sisters of mine Always minding their Ps and Qs, Dimpling their saccharine smiles. I’ll raise a big fake scandal Of their meanness and their pride Pater will have no choice But to have them thrown outside.
I’m a bit of a peculiar one I loved my solitude Until father brought in New Mom My lonesomeness to loot Always laughing, always nice So gleeful and alive I’d been cringing night and day At her effusive vibe So I plotted insidiously and By and by got myself out I now have my own tower For my tresses and my gout.
You’ve all taken so long to weave Yourselves into this rhyme We got rid of our step mom One bread crumb at a time. She insisted on healthy food And also bushels of love Ugh! No! We wanted none of that So we arranged for witchy stuff Old Dame Crone opened her home To us to live with her Ice cream and pizza off the doors In bed, Twix and Ferrero Rocher!
The old wives tales of mean step moms Are a riot and a half But we are not complaining; No! We’re having the last laugh Princesses and Cinder-gals We’ve all got our own quirks And truth be told, we oft unfold Into audacious jerks These scary tales are the flip side Of the happy ever after Sometimes the cackle that you hear Is our malificent laughter.
A random (cheeky!) ramble about all the “Saas – Bahu*” relationships out there. Attempting to encapsulate the thinking of both, the usually entitled South Asian mother-in-law and the mostly afflicted SA daughter-in-law.
Mahvash Mohtadullah - The Roaming Desi 