Tag: peace

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 | A DROP OF STILLNESS

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
My peace is like morning dew
Perched on a blade of grass
It sits there in sublime solitude
While teeming, streaming life goes past

Some days ago that pearlescent drop
Dropped off its subtle peak
Down into the earth it went 
Into the soil it weeped

Since then I have been on edge
Where my dewdrop used to be
Filing life’s sharpness away
Filling me with serenity

My gut, my spine and my heart
Now beat confused paths within
Searching for the quietude
My drop of stillness used to bring 

While it balanced on the silken beam
Of nature in sweet repose
Soothing from the inside out
Blooming gently like a rose

My pearl is lost, now anxiety
Has taken its tender place
I’m agitated, overwrought
There are new lines upon my face

But like the ceaseless quest
Of the moon for the furthest star
I’ll keep looking for my peace until
It’s poised again on a blade of grass.

VERSE | CONTRARIETY AND CATHARSIS

On By Mahvash K. M.In creativity, poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writing3 Comments 
I can wake up on the wrong side 
Of the bed today
I can let gravity pull at all my happy curves
My smile, my feet that skip
My stoical nerves
I can despair today
I can stare
At myself in the mirror for an hour today
I can have conversations with her today
Openly, honestly
Or maybe not
I can look away while I sit
In front of her looking at me                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
It’s that kind of a paradoxical day 
Full of contrariness, of rights and lefts 
Downs and ups, shakes and nods
Of sunny dawns and 8am thundery skies
Of bewildering vibes and double negatives 
Of not being entirely unhappy with things 
Not unstill … but still, not entirely still

The kind of day that hugs you tight
Holding you in the hollow of her hands 
And the next moment thrusts you away 
With a flick of her wrist. You’re stranded. 
Alone 
I look in the mirror trying to decide 
Whether I want to fret or if I want to fight 
Stew in my head or go at it
The daedalean knot loosens bit by bit

F-i-s-t-i-c-u-f-f-s, a k—ick to the ribs 
Right-into-the-leathery-heart-of-things 

I wage it out in a phantasmal bout
Unfailing precision, all contact bulls-eyed
Unfettering, releasing with every strike
I’m Bruce Lee and Catwoman rolled into one
Nothing’s enough. I go all out
Riding the bracing rush of my blood
Piercing through the eye of the storm

It’s Over, It’s All Done
The Battle Within Has Been Won

I take in a breath
Deep. Freeing. An all-organ sweep 
Another breath, reviving, serene
The contrariety for today 
Has been washed away or dry-cleaned
Either way
By machinations of the mind 
On battlefronts designed 
On psychogenic frontlines 
Or laundromats for bruises and stains
Either way, one way or another 
On the inside, the rumble is done 
I look into the mirror again 
Into the quiet depths of her eyes 
The morning rain has played its song 
The world is a patchwork of dappled sunshine
The lingering clouds are peaceful, unrushed
Like the gentle pulse of her bloodstream
For a few moments in the mirror today
Her tranquillity was in disarray
But she can’t despair, not today 
While the universe around her winks and gleams.
Image: Jay Massey

VERSE | A DOVE SHE’S NOT

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

NOTE: a flock of doves is variously called a cote, dole, dule, bevy, flight, and piteousness.

If my peace was like a dove 
A wooing, cooing ball of fluff 
I’d catch a little flight of them 
And find serenity again 

But every time that I have tried 
To visualize, to catch some sight 
Of the piteousness said to stop wars
Assuage wounds, bruises and sores 

It flutters out of my mind’s eye
I’m left gazing at an empty sky
And so I looked for something else
To calm my inner sweeps and swells 

And then one day it came tiptoeing 
Into my quietest imaginings 
The vision of a tranquil lake 
A gentle, shimmering, blue-green slate

Now when my hurrying-scurrying world without 
Seems like it’s turning upside down 
I close my eyes and I transport 
Myself to that peaceful spot 

I’m far away from everything 
My troubles bolt, they take wing
My core gleams softly in the place 
Where I sit by the lapping lake 

My inner peace, a dove she’s not 
But all the stillness I have sought
Is by a lake, without its birds
They await me in my outside world.
Images: Zeenath K. D. Wood (my sister!)

VERSE | SADLESS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
My thoughts sometimes
Become like rebellious kids
They dart about my head
Swarm into my hippocampus 
Making me sweat 
I race after them 
Calling to them 
But they don’t heed me
They’re chimerical beings 
Elves and pixies and aliens 
Coins and marbles and peeling paint 
A stubbed toe, a tired saint
A fierce cupid on a fountain
Rose bushes that run riot 
And then I just lose sight 
Of them at all 
I hear the silence
Numbing, thrumming, sometimes strumming
Through my brain

Then I see them again
They’re out on the streets 
They’ve run free, leaving me behind 
They’ve escaped the prison of my mind 
I watch them from afar 
Tumbling around
Laughing, skipping, rumbling around
Moaning, groaning, fumbling around
Far away from me
I’m featherlight now 
I float above them 
Like I’m dead 
The leaden weight of life 
Has dropped 
I watch it tumble with my thoughts 
Rumble, tumble, sometimes stumble 
In its frantic vitality 

I’m timeless, sadless, gladless now
E m p t y
I float away 
In a silent conspiracy 
Of air and nothingness.

NEW BOOK RELEASE | SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS

On By Mahvash K. M.In Foot in the Mouth, Joy, newbook, poetry, serenity, truth, verse, womenwriters, writing3 Comments

Dear friends and family,

It is with great excitement and pleasure that I introduce my second book for the grownups – my book of poetry and essays titled SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS. The book will be available across bookstores in Pakistan and Sri Lanka at the end of December 2022. Friends in SL can currently order it from the Jam Fruit Tree bookstore on Galle Road via call/WhatsApp to 072-7268078.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

This is a collection of poems and essays, humble opinions, rumblings of the heart about the joys, the truths, the pain, the controversies, the funniness and the wonder that criss cross all our lives in one way or another. I have compiled them here because too many times, we are witnesses to profound beauty, love, dreams, desolation, prejudice and injustice and yet, we forget.

The contents of these pages range from the sublime to the ridiculous; from soaring on the wings of ecstacy to struggling with overwhelming despair; from the capricious joys of matrimony to the dubious delights of singledom; from the profound ecstasy in a mug of steaming latte to the ardent disappointment in a less than perfectly brewed cup of tea; from the comedic to the somber and from the customary to the controversial, this collection of poems and features encompasses them all.

Scraps of Poetry and Madness is a phrase borrowed from that literary Wonder Woman, Virginia Woolfe. For in this collection too, there is a stream of raw and strident, passive and ruminative, joyous and grief-bound, mad and glad thoughts that run like a melody through the entirety of its spine; and like a sore-throated bulbul (who also has some good-voice days) I have sung them all for my readers.

Featured

VERSE | JOY

On By Mahvash K. M.In Joy, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
When morning shakes out her dress
Of blue and gold and green 
I hope that you can smile at her
Beauty as she preens

I hope that you’ve fulfilled some things 
That you’d planned out for the day 
As noon time jogs along your path 
In his radiant array 

As the tender blush of evening
Bids farewell to the sun 
I hope you found joy in the tasks
That needed to get done 

When at last night drops her cloak
Around the world and you 
I hope that in your heart there’s peace 
And the spirit to start anew 

When morning sings her new-day song
And wafts in once again  
I hope that you will dance with her 
Heart to heart and hand in hand.

VERSE | THE FACE IN THE MIRROR

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writingLeave a comment 
I look in the mirror at the face 
That looks back at me 
Silent, still, waiting for something 
An acknowledgment maybe 

I need to see that she’s alive, I blink 
She blinks back at me 
I let her know that I’ve seen her 
She does the same for me 

I look into the dark brown eyes 
Her gaze is focused and serene 
I blink again to understand 
To read that look, to glean

She smiles a little smile then 
The pleasantries out of the way
She and I are closer now 
Than we were yesterday 

I notice the lines that now hug 
The corners of her eyes 
They tell tales of highs and lows 
Of when she fell and when she thrived

My glance slips down to the smiling mouth 
Lines embrace that feature too 
Telling both in prose and verse 
Of times both cheery and blue 

I look again into the eyes
I see a twinkle in them now
Still room for grace and joyfulness 
Before life’s final bow

VERSE | PERPETUAL (M)OCEAN

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writing1 Comment 
LISTEN TO THE POEM BEING READ HERE: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSddMfkHV/?k=1
There is a ship that’s out to sea
Her cargo is my dreams
When I feel them slipping away 
She drops anchor close to me 

There is a ship that’s voyaging on 
She carries bushels of hope 
When life throws curve balls one too many 
She drifts in sure and close 

There is a ship out in the swells 
She carries stores of peace 
When chaos threatens my inner calm 
She glides in gracious and serene  

There is a ship, she’s the harbinger 
Of all that’s tender and true 
When my day is raw, sunless and sad
She sails in out of azure blues 

That ship she is my spirit 
My soul is in her sails 
As she journeys through life’s fickle tides  
She’s my alchemist within.

VERSE | JOY STORY

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, poetry, verse, writingLeave a comment 
I woke up this morning, what a fabulous day!
I glanced in the mirror, smiling away.
I made my bed, brushed my teeth, did my hair
I got myself ready, humming away.
I picked up my bag, looked out at the world
It was glimmering and dancing, shining away
I walked down the street towards my cafe
The Magnolia and Bougainville were blooming away.
I sat at a table in the veranda outside
All the feathered creatures were chirping away.
I wrapped my hands around my latte 
As the mid morning breeze whispered away 
I then went about my usual day 
The hours peacefully ticking away 
Then came evening as I sat in my lounge 
The shadows of dusk lightly stretching away
I woke up this morning, with hope in my heart
The universe too gently embraced me today.

VERSE| A Conversation with the Universe

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, writing2 Comments 
I ask you if you’re Happy
You say that you ALMOST are ...
But for that deal still stuck in the pipeline
The car you’ve had your eye on
Of someday getting into the privileged fold 
With a house in a gated neighbourhood

I ask you if you’re Hopeful 
You say that you ALMOST are ...
But for the country’s socio-economic situation
The children’s future, their education
And oh your eternally dismal luck! 
Your lottery ticket is always a dud

I ask you if you’re at Peace 
You say that you ALMOST are ...
But for the fear of contracting a dire disease
Of neighboring countries planning a seige
And that infernal noisy discord
From the red duplex across the road

I ask you if you’re Alive
You say that of course you are! 
You’re breathing, you’re living
You’re thinking, you’re worrying
You’re working, you’re hurrying
You’re planning and hedging
Against what might be coming...

Stop!     Breathe ....      Listen ....

Open up your mind and your heart
Cast off the spell of your self-doubting trance
Quit just living, come gloriously ALIVE!
Be happy and be hopeful even as you strive
Face the sun, take control of this time, seize the day
The magic is NOW, not in your ‘morrows or yesterdays.