Ayesha

Ayesha Oct 2021

Still they lie on the river-bed.
Unforgotten; daughters of the sun
their itching, prickling, stabbing beams
And dusks that ran ran red
But tread on, the circus just begun,
The ripples— mote by mote— by seams

The sands stir and rocks twitch
Dull-eyed creatures still non-living go
Roses bloom, say, roses rise
Once lively dawns to sacked towns switch
Body and body and body we sow
Roses bloom, say, roses rise

Say, still they lie; still sessile
Of tens a blooming heart we plucked
Still some more we knew as our own
Stumble on we desperate while
Lie we still in the river-bed tucked
Oh, those parched pieces that once shone

and these wretched blooms undying

14/10/2021

"Hello, Paul. Thank you for the comment on Roses Bloom.
Even as I write this, I realise that I did not do a very efficient job of depicting my thoughts in the poem, as I was paying too much attention to the rhymes. It was a clumsy attempt, but, well, here is what I meant to say:

The poem is about all the good parts of myself that I have lost along the way. All the versions of myself through the past, through every day (thus ‘the daughters of the sun’) that I have killed/neglected. I guess I could say that the poem is about goodness lost as one progresses through life - I do not mean that in a sense that we become bad, or that I think I did, rather that we lose parts of ourselves as we grow, and some of them also happen to be good. This poem is about a temporary state of mind that regrets all that loss.

And all the dull-eyed creatures go on, meaning that days pass on, and the waves of everyday living hide from us all those sins we committed, or goodness we lost. But the bodies still lie there, and I see them very often. They bear all the memories of myself, and they are myself, yet I can do nothing to undo my doing.

Well… It ***** that I could not write it very brilliantly so as to make the theme or message clear, but, well, thank you for reading anyway.

P.s. sorry for the rant."

[Copy-pasted]

#roses

Ayesha Oct 2021

XV

new moon’s a shy child
fairy-lights, cherry night, quiet.
I talk myself wild.

and all the world listens

Oct 2021

C. S. Lewis

After Prayers, Lie Cold

Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light,
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night,
-A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup
Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up,
Faded in colour, thinned almost to raggedness
By dirt and by the washing of that dirtiness.
Be not too quickly warm again. Lie cold; consent
To weariness' and pardon's watery element.
Drink up the bitter water, breathe the chilly death;
Soon enough comes the riot of our blood and breath.

Ayesha Oct 2021

One, two—

The silence stabs, but not painfully
So; intruding, its sour and soft luminosity.
I felt a thousand things ooze out of me
Dream-dipped drops dripping so drowsily,
And each ticklish sweetness echoing; to sea
I sank— past lids, through lashes, all. With glee
Snaked under I under I furtive; faint and feathery.
To dark I fell, to naught, to white monstrosity
One, stream of plea, two, agony, and three
Well three— I filled, filled with scarcity.
When all the ripples quiet lay, I in melody.

09/10/2021

Took me a whole day this *****

#silence #chaos

Ayesha Oct 2021

The traffic, oh, the traffic

Dissolved in traffic
we forget ourselves
Metal and muscle of bone, of beast
Marrow of bloom
and whip-quick flapping of pigeon wings
When father coughs his crackling logs,
we know he arrives, we hide away our games

why don’t you study, why don’t you study, where have you been

So terrified of the world he,
with his sky-shaking speech.
father, father
what have you seen?

My limbs twitch and eyes flee
He knows not what to say, and we
never learned.
Taut skin aged to crease, and all that clover smoke

and dust from road,
It sits so stout in his placid gaze
I sink, I sink.
Say, father, father, will you not leave?

Dissolved in traffic—
Gyres of grey and their loosened rings
mimicked by the reeling of kites
So long he roamed
Within those slithering maps
almost became,
almost them.

Memorised the city on his very palms.

Father, father, I never could learn
the twist and twists and turns of its trails

The city got lost and I,
And I, oh— I

The whispers fade
of footsteps strange, and closed are hearts
in breathing reliefs
father, father,
What have you learned; father, father
we become ourselves
father,
The birds all settle, the metal melts, the
noises die, the traffic, oh, the traffic
your good old mistress, we forget of it—
father, father,
What have you learned

07/10/2021

#father

Ayesha Oct 2021

It is awfully quiet today

Not still, no, the rumble still plays
With thunder
And vehicles onwards go
There are so many clouds
And albeit too far their talks
I can almost imagine

No poems or music
Weaved upon lyres
Today, they too
Are polluted with normality
Such treacherous natures
Of this ever-stirring yonder
The surface speaks art,
And in depths aridity crawls

Cruel, so cruel their lightness
How I painted and sang
Of their rich tummies
How I danced in their blood

They chirp now a vacant gossip

I should’ve known
I should’ve lurked away
From their shows
Breathe now I in the rue and in a dim, dim fury
So cruel, so cruel the blue
So cruel and cold
In its silence
I hummed my throats parched
In mine, it vanishes, vanishes to grey

But tread on
The car stops and I slide out
Back in my rehearsed role
My stinging skin melts beneath the mask
The classroom roars

It is awfully quiet today

01/10/2021

#blue

Ayesha Sep 2021

On the lips

dancing off to The Beetles’ tongue.
there is gloss on lips and all features rest
for nothing else
of decor could be found
in the sudden haze, the sudden haze
of that mad devour

we have stumbled on the edge of order
and now tumble we—
beneath, beneath, under
these treacherous waters with masquerade licked;
a calm— a calm shimmering
like them Sirens almost.
come, it cooed, and went and went we
to its feather-light lure

and jumped and swayed our arms about,
skipped and laughed then laughed
till stomachs winced

loathed
and we have loved on the lips
on the lips, but slipped
as smeared, pink hues;
oily and glittery in their innocence

there lurks chaos in its smothering, wet mouth
and we moths flutter
closer, still, still...

and for us ripped
the golden lake its skin
and us it held, held till took from us
all

we have lingered precarious and
surrendered crumbled,
and crawled out dying, dead, undying

still to those chapped, glossy
banks we go
and dance and dance and—

29/09/2021

#order #chaos