By Sheikha A.
Maktoob
Starvation is a lost rhythm of invention:
they tear out of webs of light like nuance
between warm and cold; they transliterate
the codes of artificial darkness as absence
of utility. If I tell you what a camel's hump
stores, you will slice through it with a palate
of giving to its mysteries for mere sake of
taste. We are taught to dream halal:
believe in our visions sent by the universe
a pack of wings floating as gossamer
parachutes that serve a nur expelled
from orbital lamps. My mother dreams
of green chickens parading a courtyard
led by a yellow peacock. I tell her this
could mean wealth or calamitous belligerence,
the order unspecific, for we give ourselves
to hunger daily like untimely prayers;
for we know the air in our bellies as salvation;
the tone of tears that have dried wells
of progeny; she tries to remember the cry
of molten steel. Instead, she deduces
green is the colour of spiritual harvest,
and holds grains of dead crops in her palm
like combustion. Dark drapes its burqa'a.
We slip behind projections of prophecies
I tell her could mean nothing. We have
tendered a raging maw with hysterical
sleep. Tonight will be of modest dreams.
Backward Wind
The backward wind died this past month;
it has become hard to breathe without agility –
floating tiny atoms in the light sheltering the shadow
thrown by the reckless growth of a pliable tree –
sustain me from the chaotic runes of crumbling
illusions; do you know what it’s like:
to capture a receding shell
to implant a whisper into a conch
to mute a melody in its instrument
to find trust in an immobilized body
take control, breathe in my head like logic,
eat away the cells that refuse entry
and weigh down like a giant scaling a beanstalk;
we have bridges within bridges to cross over
where the lights of the city have taken incandescence
and the streets have turned into a pile of books
with old stories that smell of broken snow, flakes
melting the designs off of their glass bodies;
winter has settled fast on the gaps between paves –
unpruned weeds have died with more grace.
Aspect
Peace is indelible footsteps on water,
the confident afterlife from following
every moral planned in the book of life
where skies are friendly;
security is the bird eye view from atop
the peak of a mountain that isn’t visible
from below where clouds don’t extend
beyond the limits set for them;
loyalty is the offer of a lover’s heart
that is yours to keep until you decline
to acquiesce, then separate for perspective
but with liberty to fantasize other prospects;
silence is the microphone on highest
notch without a word of promise of echo
of a stirring in the mind or about rights
that leaked off of placard faces in the rain;
protest is sure safeness from spitting
thrice on fallen hair before casting it
into the bin protecting it from possibilities
of possession by evil;
success is the quiver of the president’s
whisper when he sheds tears in public
over an atrocity that occurred by no fault
but a mis-planned target;
reality is the claim of a star not having
lost its shine despite falling on a rock
in sand, shunning all proclamations
of it atrophied.
The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process
We can only make assumptions about whether the world is getting smaller or bigger, or whether if in its entirety, we are becoming more connected. We can even go through life pretending we understand its mysteries or equations better than the next person; write about it with conviction, surpassing others, knowing that somewhere inside ourselves, we are ignoring the greater truth. There's so much that tends to get lost in translation, transliteration even, or through a naive eagerness to hold on to global connectivity without developing meaningful connections, and in the broader scope of consideration, for that to happen is simply okay! The purpose of words is to be able to tell our story; whilst some will relate and some won't, but through it, the creation of dialogue has at least been put into motion - and that's the important broader scope of consideration: for stories to travel in digital motion.
