POETS’ CORNER
On hope…
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
- Emily Dickinson
Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering ‘it will be happier.’
- Alfred Tennyson
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Cleaning colors from memory
By Haseeb Sultan
My first memory of the colour green is my carpet
and of the colour white is of the paint on the windows.
I always thought I was walking in a sea when I learned to walk.
Not knowing that the colour white and green would mean
I would have to adjust to knowing my blood’s clean.
As I grew up with the green of the leaves turning brown
And the white of the clouds covered in grey
I didn’t feel clean anymore.
There was no clean air to breathe
no clean feelings to feel
no clean soul to be.
I don’t feel so pure.
The oceans’ reality is dividing me,
As I am understanding the breaking of humanity
White only exists as a background now
technology, and in LED screens.
So will you?
Help me find the naive understanding of
what white and green used to be.
Pure white.
Pure green.
Pure me.
One last time
By Amna Ameer
I once,
Heard the ocean,
Speak to me,
In a dream,
That wasn’t mine,
But in a present,
That was borrowed,
And a memory,
That was surrogate,
I walked,
Beside a heart,
That is no longer mine,
On the sand,
I felt,
Underneath,
My feet crumbling,
With our thoughts,
Blowing in the wind,
Tasting our laughter,
I kept this thought,
In the deep secrets,
Of my mind,
Though you created,
This reality,
With words that said,
‘I wish you could be here,’
You took a part,
Of me,
With you forever,
Now I stay,
In a landlocked,
House,
Where I can still,
Hear the ocean in my sleep,
The waves crash at my window,
And I tell them,
You’re no longer here,
As I drown in tears,
I sometime wonder,
If my skin,
Still carries the hue,
Of winter evenings,
And if redemption,
In the shade of twilight,
Means,
Belonging to your arms,
As I wake up,
Carried by you,
One last time.
You by my side
By Maryam Ali
I do not seek paradise
Nor do I fear the blazing fire of hell
All I seek is ‘you’ ...
I would rather choose hell
With you in my heart;
Over the lush paradise
With you not by my side.
Journey de Life
By Bushra Mustafa
Wandering over the reigns of bygone
Where moments freeze for a while
All she can do is to create ‘em again
In the hope of getting everything same
She reminisces ‘em; knit ‘em together
To overshadow the eclipse of absence
