Who is walking at orange-noon?
Is a person, a living bonsai or a tiny moon
putting on master color dress?

Old sky is sending soft melodies
A smoothening smell of perfume
is following behind
As a delighted pet shaking soft tail.

I'm moving on and on keeping zero distance
Entering silently into the
core zone of a person
As a laser ray like an invisible ghost!


Poem 14
Book 'Beckoning Jade-Dreams' April 2007
Copyright Musharrat Mahjabeen
Mizan Publishers, Dhaka, Bangladesh
ISBN 984-8700-82-X

Into the sea,
the choppy waters call me.

Inviting me to run my feet through the sand,
As I walk in holding  the sun in my hands.

Leaving my worries by the shore,
Or washed into the water, till they trouble me no more.

The water warm, oh so warm,
embracing  my  sorrows like a lovers arms.

Reminding me of life’s ups and downs,
Uplifting my spirits, smoothening my frowns.

And without seeking I find my way home,
Though there was many a mile that I intended to roam.

The mellow breeze whispering  that everyone has troubles too,
That’s why the beautiful ocean is blue, oh, so blue...
- MSD June 2021

Precious chance for a lonely thought,
Loose, slip-fades sinuously free
A melodious stream of nostalgic mist
From a mug of Arabica sea.

Curiously exhaled from dissonance
In an amber lit café.
He imagines himself a sojourner,
A wayfarer without a way.

Long shore drift en echelon
Long minutes march by metronome
Long is the spellbound beachcomber
For an island all his own.

Long is the dream of an inland man
Lost to his seaside girl.
Diver down where the standard waves
Swimming dizzy for a polished pearl.

Light from her eyes plays on sea glass chips
Tumbled in the curling waves
That crest and break on a beach that waits
for a wish he once had made.

The surf is heard like a lingering kiss
breathing ripples on the smoothening sand
And just as the whisper and simmering fades,
Another promise swells, tumbles, and lands.

The ocean is love running breathless,
In a race between the moon and the sun,
Causing tides to surge across the poignant curve
Of an incandescent blue horizon.

A tranquil star contracts and bursts
In pulsing neon spires.
There’s forever a star expiring
While life glows from embers in a dying fire.

If this writer could paint, it would be a portrait
of the empty space beside him.
Awaiting the image of a seagoing girl,
He turns his canvas into a thirsting ocean.

My heart,
Is a jigsaw puzzle composed of
Pieces of souvenirs from wherever
Life has taken me

Sunny mounts of happiness,
Dark troughs of gloom,
Blind alleys of secret memories

Punched out remains
Of the parts that I gifted to
Those special few

Uneven buds added on
To the surface, because some gave me
Pieces of their hearts too

Marks of where it was trodden on,
Scars that show its
Brave, healed face

With pins of guilt and remorse
Studding it in memory of how
It also became the cause of others' pain

That's my heart. Not so pretty,
Not perfect, not pure,
Yet it sits in my chest, beating away
Patiently, as if entirely sure
That any moment, its wait will end
Of someone who'll admiringly
Imbibe all of its stories,
Ease away all the tense knots,
View in awe all its glories

And let its inadequacies depart,
Completing them with closeness-
Smoothening their unevenness-
By merging with them,
Heart to heart

Converging night of  a hideous
dream, hitting like midnight
migraine in wintry winter,
pursuing  ferociously,
but all  
a mirage race of fleeting illusion!

Fear in rampaging arrow
Vomiting death in fire downpours​!

Faith in power devouring ravenously
Bringing down walls of death
Exalting valleys
Straightening crooked places
Smoothening rough places
Bringing down proud places.

It's the defeat of a proud putrid night!

I know it's been a while, forgive me for not writing you back.
     Do you recall the project I did a while back ago? The sculpture I had told you about? I have to confess to you that there never was one. You see, it was always just a metaphor of sorts.
     My metaphorical sculpture was of a face, that much is true. The face specifically, happened to be yours. I worked on it for months, smoothening your features, adding smile lines, working on the dimension of your eyes. Months I spent trying to mold you into an idealistic form for you to stay in. About three months ago I finished it and oh, it was perfect. I so accurately depicted the most wonderful image of you.
     Recently, however, I have begun to revisit the sculpture and look it over after our last face–to–face encounter. I began to notice so many things wrong in it, but it wasn't a flaw in my work. The work was still perfect, but the sculpture no longer matched your description. I know none of this may make sense to you, but just keep listening.
     As I looked at it closer, a thought occurred to me: You cannot make the wrong person into the right person. You cannot convey a person as someone they're not. I suppose this has been my mistake all along and I apologize for just now figuring it out. I've spent months attempting to conform you into what I thought you should be. I wanted you to be what you never were without telling you. I never was in love with the You you were in the natural, I had only ever been in love with the You I had made you to be. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the time I spent trying to convince myself we were right when we were never intended to be.
     In the time we haven't talked due to my abrupt silence, I had done a lot of thinking and my thoughts had led me to the decision to destroy the sculpture, because I needed to stop romanticizing the sculpture and getting lost in the blurred lines of you and my creation. You wouldn't believe what happened though. The moment I raised the sculpture in the air to smash it, I saw someone through the window who was the mirror image of the sculpture. I ran down to catch up to him and we have continued to talk since.
     I have now concluded that you can't make someone into who you want them to be, but if you're lucky, that eventually the people who fit your criteria come when you don't expect.
     I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I think I've finally figured out why we were always so toxic for one another. Now I don't feel like I have to manipulate or conform myself or someone to certain ideals and I don't have to deal with the emotional baggage you inflicted. I'm free. And so are you.

So I guess this is goodbye. I wish you the best, because I think I've finally found a muse for the time being.

The smell of earth
and moist clay,
kissing my senses
with a rose-petal feeling.


Sweat on my brow,
dirt on my cheek,
and soiled hands,
I live for this.


Molding,
pinching,
smoothening.
The imperfections
make you perfect.


Into the kiln,
and out.
Awake, creation of mine,
step out into the world.


I have molded you,
and formed you
with my own hands.


I know
your every little flaw.
Your strengths
and weaknesses.


I made you with care.
I designed you for a purpose,
a reason,
a calling.


I am the Potter,
and you are the clay.
You are the work of my hands.
Live like it.


Do not question me,
for you are exactly as I want you.
Do not look down on yourself,
you are mine and I love you.


Do not doubt.
I am not finished.
I am the Potter.
You are the clay.
You are mine and,
I love you.

When the hours get slow, and the voices go low,
The time of the night when the humdrum tends to go;
I lie awake in bed, and thoughts begin to cloud my mind,
The future goes at a scary pace; the past gets stuck in a rewind;
It is in these times I find no one but myself to converse with,
So I ponder over a million things, and it starts to get a little turbid;
Now I find dimmed lights and the radio plays old tracks,
Looking in the corridors and staring across the room, I see lost souls and turned backs;
It is now I feel the poet in me rise and come out of its scabbard,
Or if stated more humbly I turn into a mighty poor and morose bard;
I write to express myself, justify my own actions and thoughts,
Let the drunken ghoul come out of its attic at the back of my mind, where it stinks and rots;
It is the ghoul which had been a silent spectator to all my lies and all my pains,
He knows where I faltered and where I got selfish to amplify my gains;
He laughs and curses, and realizes me where I sinned,
Burns a hole through my soul, to the bottom of my heart I am pinned;
Its voice leaks out from the crevices my mind has forever tried to mend,
The truth always oozes out through the voices of family, friends and fiends;
So I write to be free, I write to become pure,
I write till I drop or till the heart goes sour;
The mind says I am vindicated, I am selfless and one thing is for sure,
I am the victim, not the criminal, a million pains I had to endure;
I should let go of these memories and forget my ordeal,
The past is misty, the future’s foggy, and the present I must feel;
I must make amends to the corners in the past I broke,
Smoothening the edges, to this dust I must never choke;
For I better future I should work, the lessons from the past I must learn,
Never must I trip again where I have passed, never must I crash and burn;
Tread carefully all the while; never should I ever stagger,
Falling is not an option now, half my life I have traversed now, rest half is on my platter;
Lying silent, staring at ceilings, crying in vain, I should end,
Having seen the changing shadows on the wall, I now know every changing trend;
Time goes by slowly in the night; it’s like a tunnel with no water and no bends,
I have many a queries to ask, but I don’t know to whom these mysteries I should send;
The night gets mystical, the starts and the moon make a mighty blend,
Maybe that’s the why the galaxy is called the Milky Way, maybe everything is Godsend;
Hey!!! But I don’t believe in God, that’s what I’ve always said,
But that’s when I use the word God, and then I start to dread;
I must believe in him, a mighty, imaginary, divine power,
My friend tells me it is all scientific, he is the energy in every particle and in every star;
But I know God is like ghosts, a figment of imagination, a scare to the kids and hope to all,
A good guy at heart, but in a tough spot where everyone he must enthrall;
And here I find all my answers, so here is my withdrawal,
I write to satisfy my whims and fancies, so satisfied here I must stall;
I am the one who had gained knowledge from this untidy scrawl,
I declare myself the winner and end this friendly brawl;
The ink bottle I now close, and roll up the scroll,
And now I sit up in bed and ponder, a poem came out of this all;
******* it!!! I can’t believe it, a stupid poem came out of this all!!!!!!

At times, you choke on your breath as you fall. Then, the lids of your eyes shoot open. A sneak preview of a nightmare. You were asleep all along.

Life is but a dream.

Sunset-amber flames curled from the cedar kindling of the great divine,
and lo, from an imperceptible dimension he crouches down to a wick,
you,
us,
them,
me,
on a wax of chance,
on dirt not far from the sun,
we hiss into being and flicker in the cold wind of uncertainty.

From this, a hard-earned lesson; a lifetime is spent reeling love into our arms until time pries them open and make off without yielding to consequence, save for us who are foolish enough to believe we can outlast it.

Who lived to ever tell?

Fracticous hours know not the pain of wasting away as it saunters by, leaving wilted hope frozen beneath its shadow.

Storm clouds in the horizon charged with crackling blue bolts that split trees in the open.

Grief flashes through our eyes like headlights bracing themselves against the graying sky metastasizing into darkness.

Moon-white hair, dyed by the endlessness of crossroads leading to nowhere, is sheared short, and shorter still until they fall limp on the scalp that cradled them.

One can only hope that their roots reach deep down into throbbing wisdom which a weary body has amassed over tumbles and falls.

We know not.
Some nostrils come powdered if only for a moment feel alive until it wears off.

Some hang on cliff of smokes sailing through the air if only for a moment artificially induce emotions other than loneliness.

Some wicks come bent, breaking dirt, submissive, submerged in salt water or oil for a chance to burn another way.

Still, there are those whose heels are filed by dust and sand, smoothening them perhaps, but praying they could be planted and hold flame elsewhere.

But there are wicks that are born with eyes weighed down by the ego and sights nailed to their chin and nose s anchored to the clouds.

Some wicks are coated tips, but in truth are fuses to fireworks that light up the skies. Often loud, leaving s stamp on time.

Some hide, losing themselves, they do.
Heinous crime against the essence of being.
Hiding behind an image that does not exist.
Hiding behind expectations.
Hiding behind a false construct and letting the play of light warm up and comfort misled believers.

Some pile up blocks of wood, glass, steel, silicon, and plastic, hoping to burn brighter but in the end just burn out like the rest.

Perhaps as wicks, we can light those who cannot for themselves, for those who are obscured by shadows, for those who are dampened by the downpour.

Perhaps the world wouldn’t be as dark. Even when the sun is going about her day.

We’ve been falling all eternity.
Life is but a dream.

when you commit

words enough, you

break down their meanings.

you love them thru the hack.

faithfully smoothening

that roughened patch.

heartfelt defense of gibberish.

babying the baby.

truly placing the birthplace

of a poet.

biographia.




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