Ayesha

Ayesha Oct 2021

The Magic dripped out of the night
Out of the holed hold
Of its frail, fence-like fingers
The Magic slid onto and past me
Kissed the cold, cement floor
In its drip drop dripping ecstasy
Then vanished under still
Though no deeper depths I had known

As a towel hung out to dry
The night melted onto its grey shadow
Till the moon was just a moon
And the quiet— piercing shrill and bitter.
I felt my fingers go dry
And my body
Sensed not the silky speech of my palm
Nor the whispers of sneaky light

And the city
Was a song torn apart—
Every horn upon me lunged
I slipped through the silence, and fell, but
Fell not enough
I said, Magic, Magic, take me along
But the floor for me was a circus uninviting
And in my wretched solidity, I lay limp
Listening in to the echoes
The echoes, the echoes of a laughter so far away
(I said, Magic, Magic, take me along)

And the moon was just a moon
The evening star I could not see
And sleep was a ragged little thing,
As the sharp dripping,
With last and last of the Magic, was gone
I sank, I sank, immobile —
Oh, In the ever-stirring city
It was a night lonely

20/10/2021

Whatever Magic is

#magic #lone

Ayesha Oct 2021

Audacity

Strike— bare, boastful light.
Snakelike, your silver serenity
Strike with firm, flaunting fatality
Surrender then, to specks flush-light.
Split asunder, your thriving fragility
Shuddering then, a humble complexity
Shimmering so lovingly bright.
Spin I the crystals; your dancing simplicity
Simplicity— oh, so generous in its creativity
Scarce old stars rather I,
than sun’s lifeless white.

20/10/2021

I keep thinking: it must be painful for the mighty rays of sun to be broken to bits by the sun-catcher that shines by my window. Yet, the patterns that form through the process are so overwhelmingly beautiful.
There must be some beauty in the pain that comes through bravery.

There's a saying in Urdu - my mother tongue - which goes like this:
کچھ سوچ کے شمع پہ پروانا جلا ہو گا
شاید اسی جلنے میں جینے کا مزا ہو گا

Which roughly translates to:
"The moth must've thought something before it leapt into the flames
Perhaps it was that burning where the true flavour of living lay

Honestly, I so wish the translation could do justice to how beautiful that verse is in our language. The first time I heard it, it just took my breath away.

#valour #audacity

Ayesha Oct 2021

Grief is good

Grief is good, O naked shivering—
Grief, the last full blossom
In the rich, rich ***** of spring
Laden with hues, their gentle smother;
Reap it they and morph a shrine:
Grief, the violent girl of a silenced mother.
Grief, the first decay of decay old
As the sky beats down and down,
Burning all green to gold.
Grief, the cunning god
That quietens, and teaches the art of scream.
Grief then, the ripe fruit’s bitter-sweet cold.
The first fall that a thousand follow,
Crystal chambers of the first frail flake.
Then, hues that all white swallow.

On, on swirls the necklace.
A countless tyrant beads
Still, countless laced with grace
True, shrines tumble, and daughters weep,
Falls then burn, and summers melt
Thirst and ash into fruit do seep.
This despairing tickle in so deep—
But suns to snow and sweet still on subside
Own thus the jewel, and, hush, be off to sleep.
Oh, in here a faceless sky long stubborn stood;
Years blank, till snow and sun lit up from soot

O naked shivering, grief is good.

17/10/2021

Going over to my father's village, my little brother sleeping. I don't know, I began to feel quiet, dissolved in the trees and fields running by. Suns are good, crinkled leaves, itching, annoying flies, and terrifying insects. Cold is good, and flower and water. Chatter and laugh and silence. Hours passing by, yet I felt so still.

#grief #despair

Ayesha Oct 2021

Roses bloom

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