June 2017
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Nabra
Nabra wore glasses
I want to know what her power was
I wear glasses too
Quite high in number
And I keep adjusting them
When rushing through dark parking lots
For if I was ever cornered
My only weapon
Would be my vision
To fight back
I need to see the monster
To make a run
I need to look for an opening
For my screams may go unheard
Or my voice might lump in my throat
As my world stops to spin
I often take my glasses off
When details only prick the eye
I welcome the blur
Where I dont see objects or faces
Only colors
A rainbow in disguise
I wonder
If her glasses were knocked off
As she fought for her life
And the last thing that she saw
May not have been the monster
But red
The color of her own blood that night
But to me dear nabra
Your smile still shines bright
You are at peace now
You are pure
You are white
Photo credit: Tristan Fitzgerald
Imperfect Peace
I offered you a clumsy peace,
imperfect calligraphy,
scrawled in gold
on a palm scarred
by too many
thoughtless accidents.
Is it any wonder
you reject this hand
and keep fists
tightly clenched instead?
Photo credit: Ajmal Cholakkal
The Anonymous
It is me who has no identity no distinctiveness or a purpose to last and serve oneself
It is me who wandered through time hunting for a motive to justify my journey
It is me who has a pint-size of experience to judge or criticize life yet does so effortlessly
But you, you my darling you were set to lead me to the truth to define me and set me free carrying your identity as a brooch of honour
I might have been selfishly wishing for a love so great that would oversee all my shameless blunt behavior
for a love to see that all my wrong doings are the reason I am who I am now, and proudly applaud as it has shaped me perfectly for you
You see my dearest you were made to rescue me from my inevitable destiny of never finding true love
A love so profound and unsullied
A love so naked in nature and shameless
A love that has no language to define it thus infinite in meaning
A love that is mindless and free from all the directions the world set for it
You see I’ve always been lingering over the thought that one day I will escape my barophobia and fall so deeply in love
Maybe you’ll recognize me and know straight away that it is I that was made for you, before I get to tick-off all the characteristics I wished in you
Maybe just maybe, I would be the one to crack the enigma that is your heart
Or perhaps we’d walk together till we find ourselves and love simultaneously, then the free fall begins
You see my darling all my life I have strayed as I was petrified to find myself trapped in a relation-ship that was set to sink anchored by emotional poison, I know myself enough that I can see myself attempting to save what I’ve worked so hard for by patching all the holes that are drowning us
Yet Here I stand fearlessly, independent and seemingly complete waiting for you to come and complete me
With a love that might not be what I have portrayed in mind but certainly a love I was intended for
and I’m mostly satisfied as long as I know even if our relation-ship sunk we would drown deep in love.
To: You my anonymous
Photo credit: Hakim El Haj
I am Not My Skeletons
By Reham Yeshar
If I unfold the dusty box
Will my face have a darker shade?
If I admit for the sins committed
Can you still smile when you call my name?
I have changed, I have changed
I’ll beg and plead just look at me the same
Photo credit: Reena Remeshkumar
The Butterflies
Deep down inside
she feels broke,
the butterflies within
want to break free.
If they could,
they would flit their words
and squabbles out
“A multi personality”
they would say.
“Her presence could be insincere,”
they warned.
All the jubilant colors displayed
on her face but
within it’s pitch dark
even with a ray of light
nothing could be palpable
if you could unlock all that is within.
With just a single tick of a key
they would shudder their wings
in fear of what lies within.
Their splendid vibrant colors
showing a sanguine character.
But once all’s let loose
at the moonlight’s reign
these colors dwindle away
but what do these wings quiver in dread of
only those vans that flutter within
know of the inky sinful puzzle.
Photo credit: Sacha Mourad
Demise
Farewell sweet doll
no longer would there be a need
for your love and charm
‘till you find your place
in a world that knows no hate,
sadness or fear
may you find solace
in a place you can call your own.
To you I bid adieu —
to a dying, listless you.
Photo credit: Kaya (Kavyaa Suryaa)
The Other Side
The back and forth pace
behind the seal to individuality
a blurred plastic vision of a
mystery that could be joy
or utter sadness that maddens
or utter madness that saddens
the very soul of the soul and
the only spark that lives within
this state of mind, now may
remain or may not, on the
other side
Photo credit: Ajmal Cholakkal
Undo
at 5:12AM
I am in our spot
old light and sleepy bones
watching flashes of you unwind in cosmic pictures:
you are back home, the grey in your skin slowly unfolds
to a glowing pink, you ungrow your bitten nails and porcelain wrists unchip
the denial that haunts your limbs slips away
whilst the veined routes outlining the alps of your spine sink.
you stop being distant and the gap between us is no longer a cliff.
unwrite the letter and we feign the numb of eleven months
returning to calcium flamed walls and syntax that evaporates on the tongue ten
unbend the orange heavens and forget the smell
of viscous regret and brittle words too blunt to stitch the wound
back to unbroken eulogies and unstable desire
back to burnt-out carparks that still cradle your absence
back to 9AM nosebleeds like your heart has finally erupted.
Unplump the clouds knitted in a sky cracked open
and spit out the dawn whispering I hate you in a foreign room
short-chained dreams that reduce to falsetto breaths
we migrate across dark crescents eclipsed by midnight smiles
blinking, as I watch you revel in the irreversible.
clock strikes and we mount stairs to a balcony where the night untraces the constellations of your cheeks
collarblades of soot unblacken to a pilgrimage of skin,
muddy footsteps trace home towards a summer of insoluble horoscopes whilst
your hair plummets 8 inches to your waist once more
the loneliness is reborn as.
I watch you untangle a tide of memories on a martyr drenched pillow,
replanting lilies, detach yourself from the broach of your father’s arms
seven the caving grief dissipates and
your grandmother is alive again, your words no longer burn.
dismantle june and may is still a month instead of a euphemism,
we are whole once again and the
sadness slides over an unripened year,
suddenly you are unsad and we are back in a library that no longer aches, I am unmissing you because we have
never met, journeying back to the start
six uncrack the mirror, we are strangers of a distorted reflection
five I am unfizzled stardust that lurks between the blissfully empty lines of you for
I start to fade and you are unsad and it does not matter because
three I unexist and you are excited to grow up too
and we are one.
Photo credit: Hakim El Haj
I Have a Broken Heart
By Sofia Sacre
I’ve broken my heart
Once
It’s been broken before
Many times before
But I’ve broken it once
I could almost hear it shatter
Like glass against cement
The sound of painful decisions
It will never truly mend
This is a different kind of break
Self inflicted, more permanent
I broke another in the process
Which I cannot repair
It cut deeper than anything before
I broke my heart
Once
And gave a piece away
Photo credit: Tarek Roumie
The Face
Lost.
Swallowed the sparkling light.
Like a wisp of thin smoke, I rise.
I float. I see you.
Dream. I am there in the corner, as dark as sleep.
Cry. I am the shape of your tears.
Pray. I dance at the rim of your consciousness.
The empyrean sucks me, gently. I am not I.
Time ticks. Fades the photograph.
Diluted in your memories.
Remember me?
Or is it just another face?
Photo credit: Ajmal Cholakkal
Urban Loneliness
Restless, I feel,
watching wings flutter,
birds soar,
leaves rustle,
and kids bustle,
beneath me.
Low, I often feel,
although at the highest floor,
do I actually reside.
Nature is away,
much beyond my touch,
maybe, that’s why.
Photo credit: Mads Schmidt Rasmussen
Agape
I stopped looking for you
in the glorified Scriptures
so I can see
Past, Future, all Present in you!
The invisible one who can see
the Eye of my Eye
and not the Mind of my Mind,
but the Heart of my Heart!…
You are so different from unknown
yet!… so very well known,
“infected” by Infinitude
giving justice to the silence of the Truth!
No meta-logic…… not extra-language….
You rose above the canons of False and True,
passing through the song and rhythm
of your own life, while Infinity
found shelter in the depths of your eyes.
You wear my Being….. as I do yours…..
duo souls….. but we named them as one!
You are the One within the multiples
reflected in a thousand dips of everlastingness…
I closed my eyes….. not to hold, but behold you
and speak to your multitudes in the name of one
about the history of futures residing inside your breaths…
No more citadels of doubts
in these lofty peaks of mysteries
You are either my distance or my proximity,
a sentient Being inside my listener’s Eye
as you died plenty of deaths of your Self.
I finally empty my Self….. so LOVE can enter
and accompany each of your breath,
recurring in both of your Presence and Absence!
I am the singer of your song
and the lyricist of your Life!…
Only YOU remain!…
the rest…..is IT!…..
Photo credit: Ismael Nieto
Untitled
By Letitia Jiju
My father sleeps here, beside me, in his seat,
and I watch him after I put my book down, in my window seat.
I imagine him to be dying, falling in his sleep,
his head hanging low, mellow, small.
When you say death, I do not flinch.
The blood in my blue green veins do not stop
nor is my heart in my throat.
I have seen death.
I have felt its intangible monster,
the grip of its painted talons in my hair,
the stench of its moist breath –
and have cheated it,
lying, unfaithful wife, not noble quite;
once,
then twice
and like the cat,
I have nine times to die.
When you say death, I do not flinch.
I reach out, grab it by its tail
and fling it over my head,
over my aging mortal being,
over my bones,
over my ashes,
so it can travel back in time
to kill all of my wasted parts,
all of me,
again.
When you say death, I do not flinch.
it grows a hunch every time.
it comes back, like an uninvited aunt,
and takes things away unasked for.
When it crouches over me;
growing fog, moth spreading its cold wings,
I shall be ready.
I shall be full, wise and old
dying in my sleep,
falling
not from the vulnerability of my youth,
but my contentment.
And I’ll burst open like a fig:
ripe; willing.
Photo credit: Pujohn Das
Almost Midnight Suburban Thought
A humid night stills.
There are no stars
no signals
just motions for
the steady notions.
I have changed.
Everybody does.
But there are some
moments I want to relive
that I can’t seem to
get a grasp of.
Looking at my trails,
I do not seem to get that far,
I’ve been running in circles
for days.
I can only look back
and I can’t get past
the thick glass separating
the present and
the days of my youth.
I wanted to break the glass
but it resides within
the deepest chambers
of which I can no longer
retrieve
and
the beer in front of me
is getting warm by the
hour.
It’s another day of work
tomorrow.
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:
Edition XIII
Edition XIV
Edition XV
Edition XVI
Edition XVII