I go to the kitchen and switch on the light
A hazy, 5 watt bulb warms to life
I then put the kettle on
And while it sings its little song
I fix my square blue-flowered tray
Strainer, spoon and a little bowl
And one of my mugs adds to the whole
With a pinch of the most fragrant earl grey
It sits in its saucer and awaits
The steamy pour from the spout
Of the kettle as the water gushes out
Onto the teabag it flows in a rush
Steaming vapour billowing up
The mug is filled almost to the brim
Just enough space for milk, not skimmed
(Low fat is the best I can do
Playing around with tea is taboo!)
Then the iris-strewn tea tray goes
To the lounge, loaded with its amenities
In all of this, as its centrepiece
My mug puts on a steamy show
It blows kisses in fragrant plumes
Sending them wafting across the room
I kiss it back with my first sip
It’s the one that has the scalding nip
I close my eyes as it slides down
My throat, searing the flesh around
But that is the pleasure of tea drinking
A self-immolation fit for a king
Tag: verse
VERSE | STAY
The tea’s still warm upon our breath
The samosa crunch still lingers
On the horizon the sun now rests
Like a russet-orange finger
The quiet echoes of our chats
Still reverberate around
Won’t you stay as the garden plays
Out its evening song?
My heart still beats toasty warm
From your visit to me today
Let me have my fill of you
For a little longer, stay
The tea’s still warm upon our breath
Memories plume out in wraiths
Reminiscing, remembering
The sweetness of bygone days
VERSE | BREATHE
Stop and listen - do you hear
The wind blow through the trees?
Let your mind soar up a little
To the rustle of the leaves
Stop and look - do you see
Her golden yellow wings?
As the bee floats round the flowers
Gathering nectary-sweet things
Stop and touch - do you feel
The texture of the bark?
Of the grand old banyan tree
It’s head swaying up with the lark
Stop be still - let your heart fill
And your atoms all slow down
As you walk through the ethereal realm
Of nature as she abounds
VERSE | UNTIL THEN
He looked at me with eyes of love
I could not hold his gaze
My heart lay closed and tightly bound
In yards of purple lace
It once had soared high above
Where eagles roam the skies
But since then it had plummeted
It had shrivelled up and dried
By and by it beat again
As I slowly found my peace
But it still liked to hide away
In its blue-violet niche
So when he looked at me with eyes
That spoke of tender starts
I looked away, there was no way
Into my blue-bruised heart
Someday when the colours change
Of the blood that flows within
Of when my heart reddens anew
And once more soars and sings
I hope that I can hold that gaze
So full of affection
Until then I hope to heal enough
To want to love again
VERSE | WOULD I BE READY?
I sometimes wonder if I heard
A new rustle in the trees
Would I be brave enough
To open up my door and see
I wonder if I ever heard
Its tread outside my place
Would I be calm and ready
To meet it face to face
I might sit still holding my breath
This would be something new
But it is all eventual
It’s what we all go through
If it looked at me and held
Out its hoary palm
I wonder if I’d have courage enough
To clasp it in my own
If it stood to lead ahead
Waiting for my cue
I wonder if I would follow it
Into the cosmic blue
If indeed it came to me
While I was fast asleep
I wonder if I would float away
On wings of final dreams
And so I hope that when I hear
My name called to depart
That in serenity and grace I walk
The all-eternal path
VERSE | THE SHIFT
I feel it shifting
The air around me
It hums a new dirge
In the rustle of the trees
It wafts through copses
Of almond and neem
Fraught with scent-memories
Right out of my dreams
The Earth wears a glimmer
Like it’s pulled out taut
Resplendent, kinetic
Like a tiger just caught
I feel her eyes bore
Deep into my soul
Flecked with vermilion
Full of phantoms and ghouls
I feel her hot breast
As she holds me close
Pulsing, convulsing
Her lifeblood in throes
I hear it sometimes
Her seized-seismic sigh
It thrums in my head
Like death’s lullaby
VERSE | STRANGER THAN FICTION
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
VERSE | FOR MY MOTHER, ON HER BIRTHDAY 🌺
It’s your birthday today
And I wanted to say
That I wish I could see you
For a little while today
That your essence surrounds me
On all of my days
Even if you are a breath or eons away
That I love you
And I miss you everyday.
Even if my words limited as they are
While making their cosmic way to you
Should lose their form, be strewn apart
That the love in them still finds its way to you
I hope that you are happy and you’re well
I hope you still have your special sparkle
I hope you’re still lighting up lives
As a friend, a mentor, a spirit divine
I hope your radiant glow also reaches within
To make your big, lovely heart sing
My dearest I hope you get this message of mine
In these words, on the breeze or in the warm sunshine
My memories of you are full of joy
Uplifting, heartwarming, they don’t usually hurt
But today thoughts of you that flit through my mind
Bring a sweet achiness to my throat
It’s your birthday dear Mama and I wanted to say
May the choicest of blessings fill your time and space.
VERSE | RODS AND CONES
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 floating, floating into infinity.
VERSE | ALIVE
I sit with the sweet pain
Of remonstrating muscles
Aching tendons
It’s been a good day
I’ve clocked my vital number
Of steps again
Day Eight. Eight days. Day Eight
Of doing my best
The precious little victories
Sit like shiny safety pins
In my body. Their lancing points
Glimmering. Abrading. Wounding
Forcing tiny trickles of red-hot plasma
To run outside my veins
In the sweet agony of pain
Reminding me that I’m still alive
I’m still surviving, still striving
Still clocking all the steps
That keep this life ongoing
Going on. Ongoing. Going on
I breathe in deeply. Tonight
I am serene, there will be no dreams
To torture or torment me. Tonight
In Sleep’s benumbing arms
I will lay down my head
I breathe out, uncoil, soft-ache-bound
As I sink into the swelling seams of my bed.
VERSE | THE SHOW MUST JOE ON!
A tad controversial? Maybe. But am I still saying it out loud, in rhyme and meter no less? But of course. Some folks mull over things in the privacy of their heads, others whisper them in low tones while my iPad … well, it just blurts them out, no holds barred. Whoosh! Here it comes like a sweetly painful winter chill to get your adrenaline up and your spine a-tingle.
Hello 46th*
Are you seeing this?
A war has been stoked
Europe has refugees - Look!
The shock of it!
Afghanistan and Kashmir
Don’t count; neither does
The Middle East
Oh please!
The world is used to those
People, forever in the throes
Of some tragedy,
Some devilry,
Some new-fangled holocausts
Of their own
Russia, the land of Ruskis and Putin
You do so hate them all, Joe Biden
Your last names though
Have such a harmonious ring
Putin, Biden … Biden, Putin
But I digress, your sentiments
Have reached across the continents
To grapple at the throat
Of that villainous foe
That Trump-loving pariah
That creator of election drama
That divider of the faithful
And good American folks
Oh, and you’re still not over
The Hunt for Red October*
The hunt that Hunter* hunted
Via the Kiev crossover
All the chickens that got away
Came home to roost and lay
Their devilled eggs, without the yolks
Putin had them all artichoked!
You believe in all of it
The fairytale, the who-dunnit
To Russia is where all the trenches lead
Putin has always been so full of sheeet!
So now there’s bloody war afoot
The gloves are off, we’re all in it
It’s the same old American adage
“You’re with us or you’re with the villains”
And while you’re beating
That hoodoo drum
The whole world is slipping
Into a recession.
There’s no food, no fuel,
No jobs to do
These trickle-down economics
Don’t affect you
They make their insidious paths towards
The poor, the beaten, the never seen nor heard
Hellooo 46th
Do you at least see
How so much is attributable
To you directly?
The depression, the frustration
The agony
That is doing the rounds
On its maleficent spree
I can see how you wont
See this like we do
How? you declare, can
Uncle Sam be such a brute?!
But you are! You are!
And a bully to boot!
On a final note, dear Joe
May A tad bit of third worldliness
That has so diligently been foisted on us
Graciously, karmically circle around
To you and yours. Please be assured
It will be an experience profound.
* 46th: the 46th president of the USA
* The Hunt for Red October: Tom Clancy’s debut novel, it shows the contrast between Soviet and American societies as exemplified by their militaries. Another significant theme that is played out on several levels of the novel is that of betrayal.
* Hunter: Joe Biden’s son who is rumoured to have had dodgy business connections with Ukraine.
VERSE | THE SCREAM
Listen to the poem being read here: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdn6UdCw/?k=1
A storm is unleashed
In sheets upon sheets
Of pouring rain
In a cacophony
Pounding the ears
Pounding the earth
For a while
The storm becomes a part of me
I listen …
I hear a howl, a primal cry
I’m agitated, it feels so familiar
I still my breath …
I know that voice
I’ve heard it before
Finding itself
In a tropical downpour
As the sky tore open its breast
Pouring out its glutted greyness
On my world that was floating upon
Even tides of peace and rest
I heard it then, the banshee scream
It swelled upon the torrents that
Came down in never ending sheets
I heard it then as I hear it now
That voice that is screaming inside me
Mahvash Mohtadullah 