POEMS FOREVER

The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Rewind

By Ayesha Malik

I want to go back

Cuddle up in a blanket

In the warm embrace

Away from the worries

The hiccups and hurry

Of work and struggle

To a time where

Everything was free

Love and happiness

Bundled up in the present

Of freedom and infinity.

Hopelessly hopeful

By Zahra Zafar

You talk about hope

Like its some visceral

Fragile thing that will

Shatter or crumble.

A reclusive thing that will disappear

Or a delicate flower and that will wilt

At mere cruelty, at hint of insanity

But to tell you the truth, it’s not

Hope has its own claws

That grab your heart with tenacity

Urge you to do things you might never do

It leave scars that engrave

Your thoughts for eternity

Hope is something utterly feral

That sends you to wars

With dirty knuckles and bare hands

It makes you scrape your knees

Bleed through your feet

Hope, mi amour, is the daughter of Darkness

And the last thing you will ever lose.

Two sides

By Amna Ameer

Each coin has two sides

This life and an afterlife

A shadow and the casting light

A thought and an afterthought

The real and make belief

Of love and other disease

The lies and convenient truth

Of hopes and lingering proof

Fingerprints that show

Someone was once here

A person, a thought, a corpse

A ghost that was once stricken with despair

An eye that kept dreams

A spark and the darkening night

A moon and its fading halo

A long way ahead, but no home

Each story has two sides

One that ends

And the other that’s meant

To finish before it gets right

Compiled by SK