Tag: hope

VERSE| THE WOODEN BENCH

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

We have all, at some time or another been overwhelmed, overpowered, bested by our grief, anxiety and wretchedness. At those times, some of us have also been lucky enough to have that one place where we have, for a while, found some degree of quietude and peace. This is a tribute to those secret little places and spaces of comfort and healing in our lives.

There is this wooden bench I like
It’s not fancy, quite the common type
Cloaked in by the dappled canopy
Of a gracefully pirouetting Mara tree
It sits in the park like a dear old friend
Its well-worn embrace ever welcoming
A young couple walks up, caught in the grips of wrath 
Love is lost, it’s the wretched aftermath
Words are exchanged until the fury’s spent 
Frustration - Anxiety - Sadness - Silence
Then they sit down on the wooden bench …
Slowly muscles relax and nerves untense
Even if it is a passing interlude
Loads are lightened, hearts are soothed.

Wild flowers grow lushly around its feet 
Bobbing bright heads to earth’s vital beat
The bench sits there like a quiet friend 
It’s well-worn seat ever welcoming
A man sits down in a state of unease 
Holding on to his hat in an errant breeze
He picks up his phone and looks at the screen
The unlit glass reflects the tranquil scene …
He looks up and around him his brow somewhat eased
Fleeting albeit, he’s found his moment of peace. 

Songful birds and their terrestrial friends
Roam warbling and chittering around the bench
Hoping for a serendipitously fallen treat 
They browse busily around the seat
A wheelchair-bound man looks up at an overcast sky
His female companion already has water in her eyes
They sit side by side in worlds of their own 
Reminiscence weighs heavy of days that are gone
A mynah trills as a light drizzle falls
And a sweet petrichor briefly dispels the pall …
The man looks at her, takes her hand and she smiles 
For now they’re alright, tomorrow is still a while. 

I too have sat in nature’s restoring arms 
On that bench where she weaves her alchemical charms
I too have unburdened my hopes and my fears 
I too have laid my bursting heart bare
And I have heard her soothing murmurs 
That have quietened my deepest despair
I’ve looked into her soft eyes from that corner in the park
For a time, my soul too has emerged from the dark …
The clouds have parted, the sun has shone through 
And I’ve breathed more easily, sitting on that wooden pew.

Image generated vis illustration software

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 | 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

VERSE | THE BOUGAINVILLEA

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, plants, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
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.
Image: Fine Art America
Featured

VERSE | I SEE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writingLeave a comment 
LISTEN TO THE POEM BEING READ HERE:  https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSeoMPHkF/
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

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 | SEPIA STORMS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I hear the leaves rustle in the breeze
The gust picks up slowly, gradually
I hear the rattle of a window 
The one that lies loosely in its frame 
Like a watchful sentry 
Announcing the entry 
Of a wayward breeze 
That rolls in through its screen
To knock upon the door
At the end of the corridor

I walk out of my bedroom into the lounge 
The sentinel window 
Is now trembling, recoiling
Rattling its pane 
Warning of rain 
That will soon moisten  
Its face; gushing
Rushing, tearing
The dust off old memories
Renewing the pain 

I see the first flash of lightning and then 
The thunder breaks
The storm has arrived 
I look at it through the window 
Now lying quietly in its frame 
Soon the glisten of its pane
Swells into a stream flowing 
Down silently as I sit quietly 
With the sweet ache 
Of old memories again.

VERSE | PALMS OF LIFE

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
My palm in the flower pot 
Has grown tall
Each frond strong 
A testament to nurture 
Mine, I like to believe 
And the perfection 
Of where she lives in our home
Hers and mine 
Our spaces combined 
She sits across from me 
Diagonally 
In the warmth of the floor lamp 
An IKEA purchase 
A capitalist ploy gone right 
She sits light in her loamy soil 
In the soft glow 
From the 6 watt trio of bulbs
Sometimes of a late evening 
My day done, when I’m thinking
Of nothing in particular, she
Waves a grand green frond at me
In a little conversation 
A whisper in the quietness 
A reminder maybe
That we’re still here 
In our little eden of serenity
I smile at her my mouth lifting up
My spirits in its curve
She rustles happily
Lightening in that moment
Also the lines on my palms
Sweetening destiny
My palm in the flower pot
In that mystical little moment 
Stirs the whole cosmos around me.
Image: Lara Meintjes