Sheikha A.

Poetry

 

 

Haveli

 

The halls around me shed their dust

like flea-motes,

 

I know this place of de-sewn shadows,

 

walking the lengths of my ancestral home

 

while I smell the carpets hiding

their wetting greed

 

rolled and stacked up, I see rooms come out

 

of rooms, the walls shift to the forward

shuffle

 

of my feet, more carpets, more dust,

more musty

 

shame hangs with their sons scaling

the cob

 

webs, the dust float like angry flies

over an empty plate

 

that is my body, shed of bones,

given to rituals

 

as the walls keep opening into rooms,

my steps

 

braver, my heart the one of a deer

on a stick

 

over a cooking fire, I know the finding of

 

nothing within something that is everything

 

and the walk becomes a more

pronounced science

 

the dust gathers thickly, as though by command

 

the walls end to a wood-latticed window –

the gates of the shadow

wherefrom it’d enter –

 

the road beyond a tapered racket of shops

 

without doors, the open faces of

which look up

 

telling me this is home.

 

 

 

Bleeding  Blackboards

 

What happened in the past is just

as current as a current in the sea –

it may rid of its crease

 

for a while – the surface below shall

calm, save for a few fishes that might

dare to swim against the flow

 

and heave a ripple to the top

and we might see a tiny wave

 

an inkling of fever

a forehead of sweat

a man’s hand brisking the water

 

taming the news from submerging

 

from parting the water

to show a mass buried under

bullets fired

 

into bodies delicate as water,

the hands that didn’t

 

know expert swimming to have

waded through  the blood to find

a badge burnt a hole in place

 

where a face existed, a country’s crime

 

will never be education, but not

having learnt

 

to hold a gun sooner, its crime

shall still never be

 

having learnt about prejudice,

the art of selective

 

alliances, the price of patriotism

and counter attack.

 

 

 

Becoming

 

He lives in a land of white horses

where the sun falls to meet a horizon

 

where the light pushes out

through a dying bark,

 

tumult is the name

for over wrung kindness

 

from which every drop has been

absorbed by an arid well

 

that knows no satiation

unless he and only he is replenished:

 

this is not an act of greed,

but of desperation

 

over uneven favouring

and the cry of the next louder

than one whose voice has blistered

in his throat

 

from ulcers of silent waiting

for his turn to be called

 

for God to personally hand him his

fortune, saying

 

you’ve waited far too long

 

the voice of patience gentler

on his shoulders when he replies

 

not as long as my brother

standing ahead of the line

 

and then imagines the smile of God,

the nod and hand

 

that should hand him a ring and say

 

and for that you will be king upon him.

 

 

 

Symphony Tonight

 

The sounds of loneliness sing

through the eyes,

 

hear them in the slow sweeping

of oars in still waters,

 

the overlooking moon’s breathing

like a wolf behind a bush,

 

a faint whistle of a white winter

owl on a barren bough;

 

there is a song playing on repeat

in my head

 

about love’s conquers, happy

melodies in your smile,

 

your grim stare of a hunter’s,

the sound of wind

 

between your fingers as your run

them through your hair,

 

the drop of my heartbeat

in the lock of your look,

 

the shovelling of sand

under our toes as we walk,

 

the whimpering of foams

as the water writhes,

 

the gentle thumping of the pier,

you urging me towards the sea –

 

 

 

Pinjr

a collaboration with Suvojit Banerjee

 

The pyre bleeds fire in the Ganges

resurrected by religion – little faces

 

roam the streets of Lahore, tracks

of a rail by the ruins of Chittorh

 

echo of self; Wahga is a fancy ribbon

of her naqaab frozen by December’s

 

allegorical girth; she makes pancakes

from pebbles of flour, the colour of

 

saffron; the air is a wise man’s stick

that usher his slippers, the soil is green

 

on the qaraqul of a decisive doctrine,

metal strikes the hijab she knows;

 

there will be screams of an unborn

finding its resting site by a barbed

 

patronage; she will carry death to it:

the country: the never-pilots: the never-

 

screams of the never-free; she has left

the tree of the red strings tied upon by

 

eternal wishes of flight; the dargah is 

lit up by many moons, and dias across

 

the temple facing the pole of the flags:

here she walks the path of her calling,

 

face masked, hair tucked neatly under,

no loose strands, resolves exchanged,

 

legs now to discover youth,

leaving behind a burning

 

qabar – pinjr.

 

 

 

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Over 200 of her poems have been published in 80 literary venues including several anthologies by different presses. Her poetry collection titled Spaced [Hammer and Anvil Books, 2013] is available on Kindle. More about her and her publication history can be accessed from her blog sheikha82.wordpress.com. She edits poetry for eFiction India.

 

 

Suvojit Banerjee is from India and the United States. He started writing early, but found his niche in his early twenties. His works have been published in many Indian and International journals and magazines and featured in several anthologies. He currently works in a software company, and has worked as a lead writer/reviewer for a technology website.