My son took a bathput on new clothes,left home,riding a horselike a prince;came homeas kilos of ripped flesh. one foggy winter day,some two decades ago,my brotherlost his fingers;an eagle feastedon his eyes. meadows, haunted hamletswhere the grass grows uphill-armed men storm the villageand take men out of their houses,beat themand force them to carry their…
I. why elsewhen elsedo you put our narratives on a weighing scale?exceptwhen there’s your familiar bloodpolitically differentiated from our familiar bloodtogether calling out for help on our streets.(pray ask when has blood ever left my streets?)Quite a time for you to suddenly wake up, no? I heard your reality is throbbing like an inconsolable ache…
How often do you actually remember him? You left the dessert half-eaten when suddenly his smile flashed in front of you. I do not. Instead, I devour my meals, my days, I spend engrossed in books where lovers unite in the end or don’t. Or die. Or are victorious against a tyrant. Someday I’ll know,…
Originally an Arabic verse form dealing with loss and romantic love, medieval Persian poets embraced the ghazal, eventually making it their own. Consisting of syntactically and grammatically complete couplets, the form also has an intricate rhyme scheme. Each couplet ends on the same word or phrase (the radif), and is preceded by the coupletโs rhyming…
My country still churns poetry out of mutilated migrant labourers.The skeletal remnants of a metropolitan do not stir the nationโs conscience.Death lies snuggled in the palms of my state,destruction kneaded on the cold skies.Humans lie like scattered petals on roads and roofs.Artistic stimulation for some.Ghost buildings are standing like cardboard boxes,perforated by the needles of…
Today, I write to you from a faraway land I don’t know when my words will reach you, If you’ll get to read my letters or my songs. I hear rumours of men marching towards your city Men with guns and laathis and power; Power that controls us, tortures us, leaves us powerless in our…
The Murderer and the Murdered I have never found it in my heart,to clean my room.I like it muddy and untidyโthe kind of chaos, that accompaniesa frantic search for the passport,just before leaving for the airport. A madness walking naked,turning my walls into New York Subways,where trains leave from one city to anothertravelling through holes…
My mind is a graveyard where voices go to sleep. How do I tell you I am barren today?If satisfaction was not bought with a few clicks,I would have sailed too, like Odyssey and spit on his grave,named myself the only Queen of Ithaca. Haven’t I travelled to worlds far beyond?Haven’t I seen God in…
I enter my citywith blood under my feet.I walk by the lane, flinched. I run- run into daughters,into mothers,who breathe grief;who walk with their shadows underneath. I see fathers, sonsresting in empty coffins. I blind-fold myselfas I walk by broken homes,unmarked graves,and mosques,where now no one prays. I run into my broken citywith broken dreams.I…
Translated from Kashmiri by Dr Mufti Mudassir Glory to Him who created lifeEarth, heaven, love and knowledge Countless blessings to the ProphetHis noble companions and family A thousand eulogies to his four friendsWho are the four pillars of the faith Ovations offered, mark my wordsA love tale of Sheereen, Khusrau and Farhaad Nizami says so…