Rhyme ‘n’ reason
Macaronic language refers to text using a mixture of languages. It apparently arose throughout Europe at the end of the Middle Ages—a time when Latin was still the working language of scholars, clerics or university students, but was losing ground to vernacular among poets, minstrels and storytellers.
In Scotland, macaronic songs have been popular among Highland immigrants to Glasgow, using English and Scottish Gaelic as a device to express the alien nature of the Anglophone environment. An example:
When I came down to Glasgow first,
a-mach air Tìr nan Gall.
I was like a man adrift,
air iomrall ‘s doll air chall.
The torched wings
By Nayab Imtiaz
If only I could just,
Understand the why,
Behind my heart’s,
Secret desire,
If only I could just,
Grow a pair of wings,
Flaring in the wind
Just to torch them up
Feather by precious feather
And let myself fall,
Only to understand,
Where I belong.
I.C.U.
By Fizza Zia ul Hannan
ILifeless;
Hopeless;
Beating to shut down
thy last stage,
Why o’ heart
thou chose
an “intensive care”?
Why o’ eyes
open not thy sight
and let me
steal his glimpse again?
Why o’ soul
thou cuddles me
and let not die with ease?
Thou keep on living;
How foolish thou be!
Breathing torn emotions
into lungs of time,
My existence lie
with a “goodbye” rhyme...
An “un-heard verse” by him!
Lies
By Shafi Rehman
I’ve surrounded myself with lies
and worshipping false gods I’ve got no choice
A temple, monastery, mandir and masjid
I’ve never found out what will I forsake
A collection of selfs I am
Emanating a false view of worthy saint
To get a worldly gains of few Rupiyah
I’ve desires that lead me astray
How I find justice in men’s durbar?
where everyone is nothing but a big fraud
I’ve got no place to hide away from sins
My rusty heart shows me how to win
Dead heart
By Saba Sheikh
The journey of life could have been less painful if... if only;
I had not the power to feel
I had not the feelings to love
I had not the strength to fight
I had not been so true.
If only...
I had a dead heart !
Alas! Who was I to play with the delicate threads of life
When I knew that words of happiness were not written
In the silent long letters of my fate.
Stardust
By Suhd Nazeer
It is cruel phantom - time
Turns people hysterical;
Makes them jump out of their skin.
I wish I were Buraaq.
So you, my beloved,
Could spend millennia
With me, ever panting, the
Flashy backdrop assuaging filth!
We’d abhor and poke fun
At its feeble takeover attempts.
And dart forth into where it is nobody.
Friendly Destruction
By Zahra Akbar
Damaged beyond repair,
by cyclones of undesired kindness;
splinters that once were lodgings of mutual care
And (forced) acceptance,
Flew around in the storm,
piercing into the chests of undead sacrifices.
A cabin only stood; residue of the wreckage,
Covered by spiders of imposed relations,
Its only resident bound in cobwebs of importuning love,
A spirit struggling for freedom.
Compiled by SK
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