Thirst drove me down to the water
where I drank
the moon's reflection.

Rumi
1207 – 1273 A.D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Index

Page....Content

10......Shades of grey
14......An idyllic love
15......A mother's anger
16......Let there be a beginning
18......And sadness
19......The night
21......The soldiers of life in the geriatric ward.
23......The diary of the abandoned
25......The muse
26......And the devil said
28......Futile...trapped!
29......Sunset in my soul
30......Too much to ask
31......I dub the 'Pain'
33......Ice
35......Do I love?
37......The Quest
39......Cold January mist
41......Come hither, my love!
43......Paper planes: Two

Index continued

45......Ode to your innocence
46......That be love
48......What this minute is worth
50......Annotations

* * * * *


BOOKS BY WARDHA JAWDAT

Poetry

Shades of Grey
Known Stranger

Fiction & Writings

A Summer in Black
Writing by Numbers

Short Stories

Kat & Sable

Folk Tales

Enchanted Lake

* * * * *

 

 

 

Prologue

 

Shades of grey

And I plucked a dream
Out of the garden of my night,
And I wondered why,
the colors were all
Grey.

Never quite black,
Never quite white,
But grey,
One shade,
Never too dull,
Never too bright.

And I looked around
At the sadness
And the blight,
And I never felt the tear fall
Silently, in the night.

I stood humbled,
By the vapid waste of my mind
The lusterless grayness,
In which I see my soul reside
I want to breathe some color


Defeat the monochrome palor,
Whisper some faith,
Into my opaque third eye.

I want to live;
I want to see;
I want to breathe;
I want to be free
Of this bleakness,
This impotent grayness,
This continuous lament,
That has become my being.

I want to take a pail of Orange
And fling it upon the canvas
Of my sub conscience,
Obliterate all the gray
That is so plaguing my soul,
And bring in the happiness,
The sun,
The spirit,
The moon.

The Canvas

 

 

An idyllic love

From the other side of sunshine,
From the village behind the stars,

I fancy your coming back to me,
I fancy you pulsating in my heart.

I fancy your eyes were sad,when you turned to go,
I fancy, and darling, I let those tears flow.

I fancy your lips trembled, as you muttered goodbye,
I fancy you even kissed me, and the pain flits by.

I fancy I hurt you, I fancy your heart even I broke,
I fancy that’s why you left...not because you chose to go.

I fancy the beauty of your desertion, I call it all love,
I fancy it because I have nothing, if not that trust.

Ah! My love,
Even on this lonely eve
I fancy,…
From the other side of midnight,
From the village behind the hills,

I fancy you beckon alluringly,
I fancy you loving me, still.

A mother's anger

You!
issue of mine,
borne with love,
birthed with care;
I look at you now,
the naughty gleam in your eye,
as your worrisome ministrations
wreck havoc with all order.

I look and marvel
at the miracle of your evolution,
from gurgles to mumbles
and thence, to comprehensions,
the actions, with anger
tempered by the pouts,
which dissolve my resolution to be firm.

You, little bundle of joy and woe!
all atwitter in a fit of
infantile anger..
I look at you, bewildered!
marveling as a mother
at what God had me do!

Let there be a beginning

I have ached for you,
since time began
to have any meaning;
since the world began
to make any sense;
I have hungered for your look;
that look, which will tell me
that I’ve been birthed,
and christened.
That I’ve been sun-kissed
and pocketed
in some recess
of your heart or mind...


I have lusted for your sentience;
for your lips to mouth a question
that will defeat my obscurity,
and define my existence to me.
for, since time began
to have any meaning,
and since the world began
to make any sense to me,


I have loved you;
and awaited you;
and dreamed you into godliness....
till, I have lost my soul,
till, I have lost my reflection,
till, I have lost all sense of reason.

…and sadness

The moon is so silent....
the air, so ominously still,
this night seems endless,
this sadness, tireless still.
My heart, does it beat?
I hear nothing in my mind,
no breathing even;
it's so silent,
I might be soulless tonight...
there’s no whispering fantasy,
to enlighten my sobriety,
no empty wanderings,
to chase away these morosities.
I feel alone...bereft,
tragically sad.
Without knowing, I’ve been met
with such a friend, as sadness,
who comes upon me ever so slow,
like a forgotten lover's memory...
which is slow in advent;
and ever reluctant to go.

The night

Music...
floating on the wind,
serenity,singing her ballad
of love ,hope, faith;
the night,wrapped around my senses
like a comforter,
hiding all things broken,
splintered,
shattered.
the night,
its gentle veil
pulled down over my eyes,
like a tangible lullaby,
wishing away all tears,
all disappointments,
all fears,
just for the night,
by the night.
I lie in her arms
surrendering all reason,
lids laden with defeated causes,
heart heavy with all the bruises,


that the day has burnt,
into my existence.
I shall heal tonight,
I shall forget myself
and sleep unencumbered tonight...
the night
hugs me to her bosom,
close,
sweet,
tight.

 

 

 

The soldiers of life
in the geriatric ward

Soundless as a ghost's whisper,
amongst semi-corpses.
Pulsating in pained rhythm
to the blue-green tracings,
in which agonized souls seem trapped.
We breathe, but only in catches,
between apathetic beeps
of inanimate machines.
Living, perched, upon the edge of sanity
which seems an elusive romantic dream.

We drug bodies in a state of semi-being,
treating their soulless shells,
and our own perception
of just how obscene
this business is,
of playing court to Izrael.
I look down upon countless
frail forms, which are, but mere
whispers of the men they used to be,
and I wonder: what am I soldiering for?


What have I saved?
Or, if anything at all!
Your skin is pasty
and waterlogged so,
that you seem to be forever
weeping, en masse,
body and soul...
I look down at you and wonder;
would you even know you?
And I find that I’m glad,
that you no longer know:
that life has abandoned you as redundant,
and that death
has not yet the mercy
to claim you as her own.

The diary of the abandoned

The mouths to feed
lie silent for now, but not for long;
he's been gone I’m afraid
for very, very, long.
Too long for my hopes to expect his return...
but not long enough for me to hate him, with a passion.


It’ll be dawn soon and hunger shall awaken the young;
the desperation to feed and clothe my flesh,
shall before long, return.
I know not which way to dig
or which direction to burn;
what part of myself do I sell,
to salvage the hungering soul.


Oh Lord!
“love” is the penultimate curse
upon a woman whose chosen the worst;
"dependence"
the devil's spell upon one
who slumbers, in the lap of another's festering scorn.
Ah! Daybreak I can't play with regret anymore,


self-pity is a luxury I shall bathe in
forever more.
But for now,
I shall scavenge,
and survive somehow,
the only respite is making it till dusk,
somehow.


There’re mouths to feed
and bodies to clothe,
and nothing more to guide me but the pain,
the instincts,
and the sheer brutal strain,
the anger,
the passion of having been deceived,
the desire to be heard,
and the need to be seen!

The muse

I want to court "discontent"

for a while longer yet.
I want to cavort with words,
utter some more sonnets to rivet.
Come “discontent”

, plague my soul
for thou art my muse

,
my nemesis, my ever oozing wound...
I need for the blue ink to flow
for my ache to blossom and grow
into poems, into verse, into song.
Come Muse, Pain, Plague!

Come play with my sanity some more.
I am not ready to resign my pen
I wish to play Devil

some more.

And the devil said

In my being
there's a rabbit hole, so deep,
It begins, like a vice
where your nightmares end;
I keep my eyes lowered,
and my hands folded,
so that you see it not,
in my eyes,
lapping up your soul.
And, feel it not atremble
in my hands,
as they desire to
bleed you whole.
You don’t even see it,
dont even think I exist.
Your mind can’t escape
the feeble
mazes you keep it trapped in,
the desires, the pathetic wants,
and simplistic needs,
you think will make you complete...
You see not that I enslave you,


that you are puppets for my treat.
You feel no regrets, no depravity,
no desire to escape my captivity...
I have you in the palm of my hand,
and I am bored now
with your sacrilegious seed.
Your ungodliness has ceased
to please me...
I wonder...
what else shall I
now disease?

Futile...trapped!

It’s all so futile,
all so meaningless,
if you don’t have the compass
that points to your best.
It’s all so futile;
Me standing,and wilting shadeless,
all so painfully useless,
when you couldn't care less.
All those many questions,
asked and reasked;
so many futile answers,
spanned over deaf years.
Your mind, so beautiful,
yet so dark to my ray of love;
your eyes, so brilliant,
yet dulled to my sheen of tears.
All so futile; this game we play.
No happy endings,
no smiles, no relief.
No escape!

Sunset in my Soul

Blood-red swords of light,
and flame-angry lava clouds;
I wonder why there's no pandemonium
when the sun goes down?

My soul screams for mercy,
even as you turn around,
to walk away from the wretched mess
of me lying on the ground...

Does your heart not ache?
Do my tears not sting your face?
Do my silent yearnings for your love
not melt your stone-cold restraint?

Maybe, it’s best I’m shattered;
Scattered, like ashes upon the wind.
Then, after the pain is done with me,
I’ll try to piece me back again.

Maybe, its best I understand;
you can't love the way I can.
And it’s best that I comprehend;
that this is how the story must end.

Too much to ask

All I asked for,
was an ‘I love you’,
And the price I paid,
was estrangement.
Maybe I asked for too much,
When what you felt
simply wasn't enough,
for it to warrant,
a profession
of love...

So now, I drown in the silences
of your indifference and my distrust;
Certain that all, I thought
I saw in your eyes,
was a mere phantasm,
of my own desperate desire.

I dub thee ‘Pain’

Each time I dream of you,
I dream the same pain,
cry the same tears,
slit the same tattered vein,
and yet…I dream of you again.
I never tire
of seeing you leave,
I never despair
of the despair I feel.
I haven’t understood as yet why
I never see the look in your eyes
when you turn to leave
on those countless nights...
Just the darkness,
that swallows you whole,
and the emptiness,
as it echoes in my soul…
I don’t wish to sleep tonight,
don’t wish to see you leave tonight;
my death in your absence is real indeed.
But the tragedy of your parting
I feel I can’t repeat...


not tonight;
not even the lure of looking upon your face
can entice me to risk seeing it turn away
yet another time,
yet another night.
I want to be completely bereft tonight,
for there is a sad loveliness
in this estrangement we share,
somehow less treacherous
than the dreams where
you beckon unto me
till I ache for you,
and then turn away
as my eyes tear up,
and,
I reach out to whisper
my pain:
I love you,
I love you,
yet again.

Ice

The cold war you wage,
is of the fiber that would
freeze over hell's gates;
and confound the devil himself
with its lack of soul.
Your reticence has
cooled my raging passions,
and made me a stranger
to my own shadowy presence;
I exist no longer in my world
of ginger and spice,
where romanticisms were nurtured
and fairytales sprung a thrice.
You have made me a pauper
upon the streets of my own fantasy;
I no longer sing ditties or
fondly play with elf or pixie.
I stand marooned,
on an island of ice,
chilled to the bone
and blue in my woe;
yet, not a tear I shed…anymore;


so frozen is my despair,
so complete is your dark control
over my iced soul.

Do I love?

You come and with you
the winds come,
bearing scents of spring
and subtle tales of musk.
The iridescent little particles
which float above your head
mesmerize me so much;
I fall in love with the aura
of you and your imperfections;
I look at you as you sit,
silently
staring at the sundance,
and I find that I like
the sad eyes,
the wrinkles about them;
I quite fancy the
shape of your lips,
and your nose is soft
in its direction;
I like the peppering of grey
about your temples,
and the fact that you know


I like the silence.
I wonder,
if all these parts
add up to the one answer:
Do I love?

The Quest

The beauty was so perfect,
that it felt ... almost cruel;
I could feel the pain in my bosom...
the pain of its perfection.

I could not look away,
I could not blink;
I forgot to draw the life-giving breath,
That sustains this fragile being...

The sounds of the stream,
swirling like a thousand free spirits,
playing at ring-A-roses,
around age-worn crags…
pulled me down, into depths so cold so sweet,
filled with such tragically soft promises ...
of heaven and honeysuckle...
the ecstasy was paralytic,
in its wholeness.
So long ... have I hunted for you,
years I have lusted for a drop
of this nectar...


Here ... finally
I can feel you, looking upon me,
feel your warmth caress my face;
I am home!
I am free !
A child of the earth,
a soul at peace.

Oh Lord! Let me rest here,
in the shadows of Your Grace;
these trappings of pretensions,
I can’t do anymore.
O! let me stay,
let me swathe my spirit,
in the balm of this quietude...
Let me float like an atom,
upon the winds
of freedom,
and soul.

Cold January mist

They roll in like a velvety surprise
after the sunsets,
and make me worry,
that the cold will spread
like a poison, through my being.
The chill that slows the rhythm
of my heart, will clutch
it so tight that it shall stand still
altogether.

The dying embers
of my passion-fire
sputters its last curses
upon the cinders,
fast turning to ashes.
I sit, hardly breathing,
listening to the soft tearing of the mist
as it slides
past my window.

As if
the mists were mystic spirits;
they float about me


eerily,
hiding the world from me;
and I delight,
in the anonymity
that they bestow
upon my senses.
These wisps
of vagrant cloud
are the magic
of January,
which kiss my soul
with a wet, tender passion,
and dissolve into dew
as though, saddened to tears
by my apathy.

Come hither, my love!

Come hither,my love,
lets hold hands one last time,
before you take the final bow
and I have to let you go.


Now come along...
just lets hold hands,
one last time before,
it's all long gone,and you're lost to me
in the sands of time.

Yes,come my love;
Yes! come away with me,
come,hold on to me,
hold onto this wrinkled palm,
you’ve loved so long,
and loved so well...


Just hold on...
my tender love!
I wish to imbibe your fragrance,
and forget that tomorrow
you will be gone…
And just tragic it is
that life will
have to go on...
just as now,
except for the lack of soul,
my story shall go on
yes, it shall go on,
come hither, my love this last morn.

Paper planes: Two

I fly them by the dozen
they need no names,
no passengers save
the wishes I alight upon them;
like fairy dust,
like the mesmeric heat of summer lust,
the essence of you upon my pillowcase,
the fragrance of your hair left…

Forever…

in my memory.

I fly these planes and in my mind,
serene,
they reach you…
today and every day,
on time,
never late,
for any dinner, you had cooked me,
for any party, you had thrown me,
for any anniversary we had together.


Unlike me,

so
unlike
me

Fly paper planes,
fly, fly away
and tell her,
“I’ll never be late
again.”


Ode to your innocence

You toy with the idea
of being my empathy;
you congratulate yourself
for the humanity
you extend unto me.

I smile at your eagerness,
I marvel at your youthful face.
I regret the coming dawn which will
denude you abruptly of all grace.

My senile world,
O innocent fairy!
I will keep veiled in my silence,
and let you smile in your sleep
as deep as the gurgling Nile,
while I stay up long into the dusks
and measure
the immeasurable
time.


That be love

I look mesmerized
at the drowning darkness
in your onyx like eyes,
I look at those lips,
ruby-red as though bled,
I look at that satin skin
smelling of peaches
as though lusting
for deglutition,
I look at you
and then pry my eyes away,
you could entice the devil into faith,
had you half the desire to it.
You could rob me of my sanity
had you been aware
I staked it...
You could have me snatch my heart out,
had you so desired to see it
beat.
You, so pure a deity,
would have me sell my soul
if that were the price
for a kiss.

Epilogue

 

 

What this minute is worth

All these choices,
All these notions.
All feasible,
All veritable solutions;
Which one is for me?
That‘s what I have to see;
The power I have today, castes
long shadows over my destiny.
Upon the shoulder of this second…
Lies the fate of a million more
In my “yes” of today
I can say “yes” forevermore.

This is all, I shall perhaps have,
This moment, when my mortal self shall
Purchase for my immortal self
A niche in the heavens above.

O my children, o my progeny
Would that
Within the shadow of this certainty
Shall I lay in my grave
with sweet dignity.


And shall you live too
sheltered from ignominy.

Be that my decision of today,
Become cause of some such fame,
That I steal a page for my name
In the book of tomorrow's history.
That in death...
Be dead, for only me
And yet, live on...
till Eternity.

Annotations

Page 14:

"Sometimes a broken heart needs denial to heal."

Page 15:

“Inspired by my year & a half old daughter who has the strange power to drive me to tears and then to make me smile through them as she licks my face like a little loving poodle!”

Page 20:

"Dedicated to a distant relative's distant memory. May your soul rest in peace, Amen."

Page 42:

Inspired by 'paper planes' penned by Rehan which left me sad enough to write this. Thanks for the inspirations friend!

 

Imprint

Text: Copyright © 2010 Wardha Jawdat. All rights reserved. This book contains material protected by Copyright. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. Layout and design: Faisal Mahmood Cover page: 'Mind Machine'. Copyright © 2010 Andrew Jones
Publication Date: 05-13-2010

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