May 2017
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Photo credit: Felix Russell-Saw
Perdition
take all that is mine and gorge on my bones
fill your heavy soul in watershed light
this is all I have to give this empty worded hollow crowding
take it all and she who is tendons and helix ribcages coughing up perjury
she who has been tethered and stitched and flung through window
against the great protest of stammering glass we repent our own murderers
I have died 4 times and in each I picture you more clearly
the spirits melted into thin air and
most tragic of all her pruning skin
purpling in the sunlight like a dream dissolving
Photo credit: Felicia Simion
Conflicts of the Heart
By Reham Yeshar
The pure hearted I was told I am
But look closely and you’ll see a scam
There is a white chalk line in my mind
Like the oceans that have’nt intertwined
Can a soul be split in two?
Or is it all me all along?
The trail of steps I left, some were bright and some were dead
Can an angel have ripped wings and a red halo above their head?
I was created to love not to hurt
To clean their hearts from the dirt
But all I do is tame my ghoul and take the blame
It wasn’t me, or maybe it was. It’s all the same
Can a soul be split in two?
Or is it all me all along
Is it all me all along?
Photo credit: Li Yang
Silence
By Sofia Sacre
Silence,
Silence does not exist in this world
It can never be quiet
It can never be still
You see my love
Silence does not exist
The water, it speaks to us
The wind replies back
A conversation is born
A Conversation exists
Listen,
It’s noisy, it’s loud
Listen well,
Your thoughts, your ideas, each has a sound
A unique sound
Music
To you,
Is it music, is it noise?
Hey!
Im speaking to you!
Listen!
It’s overwhelming the noise
It’s everywhere, sounds, music, notes
Music – what is music?
Notes?
Melody?
Footsteps?
Traffic
The River Flow
Everything
Everything is music, everything is noise
Photo credit: Mary-Ellen Greenwood
Edge of Your Love
A quaint coffee shop,
just us and the half-eaten sandwich.
A trail of fading thoughts
akin to the white line of smoke
left by a passing jet plane in the sky.
Bridges of snow
between our chairs.
Suddenly a rainbow of my sighs
vaporize the pause.
The words unsaid
still hang in your breath…
Our journey is golden.
But for the yearnings that is so mismatched.
Photo credit: Ismael Nieto
Conception
By Biji Dominic
Conceive your baby in your pure heart,
during your conception time fill your mind with
faithful and positive thoughts.
If you have a faithful heart,
let it beat for fear of God.
Conceive your poem with a pure heart,
for a poem is first conceived in the heart.
Pen down your thoughts with a positive mind,
your baby and poem may sublime one.
Photo credit: Kaya (Kavyaa Suryaa)
Crystal Clear
you see, my dear
I’m familiar- with
shedding a tear
and so my vision
is blurred, and
to me, the world
is not crystal clear
Photo credit: Natheer Halawani
Lost Souls
By Jean Teodoro
Humming birds, swaying trees,
Floating clouds within the breeze
Beyond the lake, grow daffodils,
That every heart’s delight fulfills
I wonder why these not satisfy,
A tormented heart that walks on by
With thoughts that linger in distant past,
Sweet and bitter memories buried deeply into dust
Tears tremble in her face,
As the river flows with haste
Tearfully recalling, reminiscing every smile
As she kept on repeating “I’ll be back” in sigh…
Photo credit: Ajmal Cholakkal
Empty Spaces
Empty Spaces,
fill in the gaps
but are the gaps worth filling,
when spaces could be the best there is?
Empty Spaces,
must we fill the void?
when the spaces are meant
to breathe life to an otherwise teeming lot?
Empty Spaces,
must I come here?
when it was deliberately left empty,
desolate, deserted.
Empty Spaces
should I step out,
and never risk
to step inside again?
Photo credit: Tarek Roumie
Untitled
By Jane Stark
You are different: pure and rare matter.
Your fresh mind makes my poems scatter
in the forms I will have to learn better…
Like a sound, that’s much more than its letter
Time is cruel and time is splendor.
If you think of me now, remember:
Love your dream, to what is surrender,
Strongest – is the one that’s tender!
Stay in lands of the honest choices,
stay, where sense of life is – senses,
stand the ground where friendship condenses
in the smiles and in the voices!
I am there for you, I am there.
Space is only one slice of chances.
Chances change, you will know once you dare.
I am there beyond circumstances.
Photo credit: Felix Russell-Saw
Clementine
Cinnamon apple; cinnamon,
Stuck in my throat; cinnamon,
Stones and sticks of cinnamon,
She tasted of
Sweet cinnamon,
I kissed then washed with cinnamon,
Heart aches; spice cinnamon,
Body frail like cinnamon,
Clementine with cinnamon,
Long hair shined; smell of cinnamon,
Ticks and tocks; stick cinnamon,
Orange locks; smell cinnamon,
My heart stops,
Her eye clocks,
Clementine,
Sweet cinnamon.
Photo credit: Hafsah Malik
Cosmos within Us
Looking up at the stars;
we wonder about the intensity of the cosmos that is beyond bars;
its limitlessness keeps us in awe
just to fathom the world beyond – the sheer vastness
when these thoughts arise, let our minds guess;
for nature holds the answers to the lessons we must learn;
this is what we yearn.
As we are also a part of nature; the highest form of mankind
how we let our minds wander away
that our very own seems astray?
to get back to where we must keep going
we must take time to ponder over
to learn from beings that considered “below” us
how beautifully synchronised they are minus our fuss.
with time I hope we all can get to this point
where we realise the cosmos are within
the unlimitedness of love we can feel therein
now we know how we are connected
for when we remind ourselves not to look at nature from a distance
we will then be “realised “in that instant.
Photo credit: Clem Onojeghuo
Stinging Intimacy
I enjoy the warmth beneath
your purple cotton shirt
your double chin beneath
straight spiky hairs
your arm between
rough polyester
airplane seats.
I enjoy the stinging fear
of this surprising
intimacy.
Photo credit: Ismael Nieto
Graveyard
“Life isn’t a bed”,
they said,
“of roses, red.”
“Instead,” I concluded,
“it’s a graveyard,
of souls.. dead,
absorbed in the activity
of destroying the rest,
of whatever humanity
is somewhat left.
For some people symbolise
decomposers.
They constantly crave
for corpses.”
Photo credit: Ajmal Cholakkal
A State of Melancholia
It hits you
2:05 PM blue…
All of a sudden
and you don’t know what to do
The sun is gleaming
your thoughts; cascading
but what can you do?
To stop your mind and heart
from having this unplanned rendezvous
Thank you to every writer for the thought infusing poems contributed and
thank you to every passerby for reading the art of our talented poets.
If you would like to have your poem or image published for the next
Dubai Poetics edition
send your poem or request to be a “visual artist” to poetry@dubaipoetics.com
Join us again in our Poetryhood!!
Enjoy more of our earlier editions of 2017: