My book SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS is a collection of poems and essays, 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.
The book is divided into five sections: Joy, Foot-in-the-mouth, Truth, Hope and Serenity. The Truth and Foot-in-the-Mouth categories are especially brazen and raw. As with most such uninhibited writing, the objective is to assail the sensibilities and even if just for a while, to look the truth right in its jaundiced eye. The other three sections are largely whimsical and uplifting very much like walking through a zen corridor, which I’m hoping, will also soften the sensory assault of the former two segments.
My book of poetry and essays SHIMMERING SCRAPS OF POETRY AND MADNESS will be available in bookstores across Pakistan and Sri Lanka at the end of December 2022.
FRIENDS IN SL can get their copies TODAY from the Jam Fruit Tree bookstore on Galle road in Colombo via call/ WhatsApp to 072-7268078.
Shimmering Scraps is a collection of poems and essays, 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.
The book is divided into five sections: Joy, Foot-in-the-mouth, Truth, Hope and Serenity. The Truth and Foot-in-the-Mouth categories are especially brazen and raw. As with most such uninhibited writing, the objective is to assail the sensibilities and even if just for a while, to look the truth right in its jaundiced eye. The other three sections are largely whimsical and uplifting very much like walking through a zen corridor, which I’m hoping, will also soften the sensory assault of the former two segments.
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.
She carried a little bouquet Of golden-hearted nargis* Her face flushed, her eyes bright She was going to make a gift of them To someone special. The bus stop was empty Save the woman with the flowers And me. I had my phone in my hand She sat on the bench waiting Clutching her bouquet I stood nearby, holding my phone Watching her secretly Trying not to spook her But she was mesmerizing In the tender enchantment That surrounded her
The bus was late She sat there almost motionlessly, quietly But the thrum of her joyful energy Was taken up by the gay bouquet As it danced gently in the breeze She wore yellow shalwar kameez* With little white flowers Or were they stars? They were tiny, almost imperceptible So small I was sure even she wouldn’t know But they shimmered in her gaiety She smiled as she adjusted the stems The flowers bobbed back happily She sat there like a painting Full of joy and anticipation
The bus rolled in Carrying its load of passengers I lingered a while to see The recipient of this picture of love That waited brightly on the seat Together we watched people alight People go left and right Until the last passenger stepped down I climbed on, slowly, hesitantly I sat down near a window and looked out The bouquet now lay inertly on the bench Its sunny heart wrenched Where it had been clenched In the ardent embrace of a pair of hands Drenching it in the liquid warmth of love
They were stars, not flowers On her kameez, five-pronged tridents Piercing, lancing, shattering The perfection of beautiful things Hidden, Unbeknownst to her The fault, I was sure, lay in the stars.
* Nargis: Daffodil
* Shalwar kameez: the long shirt and trousers worn by women in Pakistan and India
For all the women and the men supporting them; for all those who get up every morning and despite all odds make it through the day surviving, shining, rising. For the friends and families of Sara, Mahsa, Noor, Qurat Ul Ain and of the countless nameless others like them: your grit is everything.
When it’s been tormenting Day after day. With no respite And I just don’t have it in me to fight To battle on When I’m war-weary When there is no end in sight And all I want to do Is sit in a dark room And let its coolness shroud me Until I can feel the hair Stand on my skin. There Is suddenly more to the day Than the heaviness in my heart And the endlessness of the grey That has been flowing, gripping choking me Keeping me doubled down on my knees There’s more beyond that malevolent mien Images, memories driving me insane
Now -
Now there is also something On the outside of me A little chill A little photo on the window sill Both pull at me in different ways One makes icicles To sear through The magma that has congealed Inside of me The other makes my blood flow warm Streaming, coursing through my veins Reminding me that I’m not alone My spirit and my fortitude Still cloak my shoulders Strong and true I sit up straight As they reverberate Through every atom of my being And they chant An age old song Of others like me Who’ve fought on Their hearts fused forever With the loved ones they’ve lost And I know That I’m not wielding my sword alone
I look at the book Have I read it before? It’s a throng of short stories My favourite genre I took it from the shelf In my own home So it has to be one of the For-sure-read tomes Still, as I glanced At the back cover blurb Nothing jumped out Not a line, not a word I looked at its front Multi shades of grey The image glimmered In its dusky array
I opened the book I had to recall A story, a plot twist A mystery resolved In the 267 pages I held in my hand So I started reading Page one, it began: That day Alisha Looked up at the sky The purples and blues Looked terribly awry … The rest of the story Unwrapped itself As I glanced through page two Of the book from my shelf Yes I had read it The memory crept in Of ETs and UFOs And otherworldly things
Of skittering creatures That had huge heads Full of insidious plans To make us all dead Or not! Even in fiction They were polite Giving us choices Being forthright Choices! Forthrightness! Now those are things That are as alien now as Well … human beings! Laughing, I put The Sci-Fi away Our own lives were stranger Than fiction these days
I feel like cobwebs have grown in places Where once there were gleaming surfaces In the sunshiny spaces of my mind It’s getting harder and harder to find The memory of that warm glow I felt when I went about my day It had lived on the side table Near the vase of poppies and the picture frames Now it’s gone, lost somewhere I can’t find it in the haze in there
I can’t find the memory of the eagerness That cloaked my every enterprise That memory sat near the poppy vase Now fractured, broken over time
I can’t find the memory of loving so hard That my heart felt like it would burst I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face The cosmos would thrum in my chest and my throat
I can’t find the dream where I ran down a hill And then went soaring up into the sky On wings of quick-silvery lightness Laughing, whooping with pure joy
Now that room of memories in my mind Is shabby, desolate, decayed I sometimes squint beyond the haze Looking for reminders of earlier times But the cobwebs grow in thick wedges Around empty frames with cracked edges.
Why? She asks me why do I Not get to do the things that he Does so freely, so independently Cavorting with opportunities Expanding his experience of the world That we both live in, why just he?
Why? She asks me why am I Held back by you and the others The elders of the family The uncles and the brothers For my own good I’m told Walled in like Rapunzel, from the world?
Why? She asks me why can’t I Go out on my own. Why can’t I Even stay alone at home? Why have I been singled out Among my siblings as the burdensome one The ill-fated sister among the men?
Why? She asks me have you built These rules to limit my existence Holding me back, making me doubt Myself, my being, my purpose in life Strangling my dreams to always stand Centuries behind a boy or a man?
Why? She asks me why are you Complicit in this chauvinistic ruse? Why did you learn to become small To deliberately set yourself up for a fall? You were better than everyone A hero …. No a heroine!
You my mother, the architect Of dreams, of hopes and even homes Why did you let it all go? Why are you expecting me to do The same, be a wraith of myself A fragile decoration on the shelf
Until I become someone’s wife Until you can pass on the keys of my life To someone else … to some man else Why? She asks me as the tears well In eyes that see the truth of the world That see the expanse of her wretched road
That is why they killed them all off The babies, the girls born centuries ago There was divine justice in that Saving them from a world that sat In Judgement, in anger, in self pride Over girls that survived the infanticide
Tell me mother, why was I Born a woman into this life? Why was I born into this home My dignity defaced, my wings shorn? Why do I feel like to get a fair try At life, another life, I first must die?
Cannons boom, bombs explode The world is the home of war Lieutenants give crisp commands To their soldiers, weary and sore
The tribunal sits in their gilded halls Drinking their whisky tea The senior most is ninety years old The youngest is seventy three
They take pride in stoking this war ‘Tis the battle of righteous men Sending sons and daughters to fight While they cackle in unison
There’s chaos and killing; a dread that is stilling The conflict they’ve wrought makes no sense The old men don’t care, as war trumpets blare Charged by the flourish of their pens
Soon the booming cannons and the bombs Will end their brutal repartee Of slashing and slaying - their bloody tribute paid To their masters across the seas
The dead will be many, they’ll lie in the mud Young soldiers from both sides, together The grief and the pain will be the same In the broken hearts of all the mothers
War is Jang* is война* is Guerre* There is no pretty word for it That can honour or extol or purify The endless sea of blood it lets
As cannons boom, bombs explode And the world crashes and burns The inflection point for humankind Is now at the cusp of no return.
Jang/ война/ Guerre: The word “war” in Urdu, Russian and Frenchrespectively.
I see her sitting under the tree Dignified and serene even as she is encircled In the cumbersome arms of poverty. Destitution has cloaked her for many years From head to toe it has persevered. But still There are nuances of grace and light; Of a decorum that has bested the blight.
Sparse hair is pulled back into a little knot Threadbare clothes are mended and clean Calloused feet wear leather sandals Thousands of steps etched into their seams. She sits there solitary and separate Her expression is one of learned abjection As she labours on in her enterprise To live another day, to go on, to survive.
But every so often, when there is a lull In the cresting and falling human swell Where she sits, under the leafy canopy The wretchedness leaves her face And in its place Shines a serene and quiet majesty A poise, a stateliness Quietly they still linger in her being. Even as she sits under the tree To beseech, to plead, to request I can still see the queen.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 