Poems for the SHE Collective @ Casa Cottage

A slap is enough,
To put her in her place.
A slap is enough,
There’ll be no marks on her face.
No one must know,
She’ll keep it in her chest.

Intensity of Love (Shiddat-e-mohabbat) ~ Musten Jiruwala

ज़ालिम को मुंसिफ़ बनाया है मैंने
इल्ज़ाम लगाकर इंसाफ़ करेगा मेरा
दीवानो की फ़ितरत ही कुछ ऐसी है
मुंतज़िर है वो इंसाफ़ का तेरा

मोहब्बत को क़ाबिलियत मेरी क़ुबूल नहीं
मोहब्बत की चाहत का मैं क़ाबिल नहीं
इसी तरह लड़खड़ाती हुई ज़िंदगी को
ढोते घसीटते दम निकल रहा है मेरा

ज़ालिम दुनियाने निकाले है ख़ून के आँसू मेरे
वही आँसू से सजायी है इस नज़्म को मैंने
सुभानल्लाह सुभानल्लाह करेगी यह दुनिया तेरी
फिर ख़ून के आँसू रुलाएगी यह दुनिया तेरी

ग़ैरों से जीत हासिल की है हमने हर दम
कभी दोस्ती से तो कभी दुश्मनी से
अपनो की मोहब्बत से मात खायी है हमने
ना दोस्ती से ना दुश्मनी से

दम गर मेरा टूट भी जाए तो ग़म ना करना
बिखरी हुई ज़िंदगी को तुम सम्भालना समेटना
मैं था, अब नहीं हूँ उसका सुकर अदा करना
और फ़ौरन तुम मुझे भूलकर आगे निकल जाना

PIETA [Ode to Mother Teresa]~ Mini Naidoo

Come, let me pick you up
from the morass of wretched apathy;
Lift you, just a bag of bones
onto my maternal lap,
Peel away your torn and tattered rags,
Feel the parchment thin skin
barely covering your ribs,
jutting out and grazing my palms
as I run them gingerly
over your clogged-up pores;
I bathe away the stink and stench
of filthy pavements and open gutters
to reveal open, bleeding sores;
Come, let me apply balm
on your wounds,
and sing a psalm
for your wounded soul.

Come, let me hold
a glass of clean water
to your cracked, parched lips,
Feed a mouthful of gruel
into your toothless mouth
which has forgotten
what it is to be fed;
Feel it go chokingly
through your throat
and reach jerkily
into your concave belly
which has forgotten
its last meal.

Come, let me wipe your eyes encrusted,
tightly closed against cruelty,
And open them once, just once,
to see that even if
humanity has forsaken you,
there is still one human who cares.
When you leave this wretched world,
my arms will convey you directly
to the welcoming arms of God.
Come, look into the eyes of Love,
The eyes of a Godmother,
Before you close your eyes
and open them to look into God’s eyes;
You, the Son of God,
Pieta draped on my lap,
Look into eyes
dripping with piety.

The fall of water on my being,
My inner self,
I am all of these and more…

Inner light
Kali
Power Struggles
Lakshmi
Softness
Parvati
Strength
Durga
Motherhood
Yashoda
Miracle
Mother Mary
Compassion
Mother Teresa

So many facets, so many different views,
I am a woman
a woman is in me                                                

                                                           

The Self ~ Anees Zehra Husain

                                                   

Valentine’s verse ~ Deepak Joshi

under twisted trees

under a moon floating above drifting clouds,
in pelting rain, in howling storms,

through plagues and pestilences, and wars and droughts
where rotting corpses pile up to the skies,
in those desolate days, in careless sunny days,
when our cup spills joy and our laughing mouths ache,
in the blind fire of lust, in the divine ecstasy of life,
in the soft arms of angels, in the forgiving lap of God,
in the curse of daily routine
I will love you.

and many thousand years later,
after my body is long dead and gone
and my ashes become soil
and the soil becomes grass
and cattle devour the grass
and men devour the cattle
and die and become grass
and a billion more eons pass
until the sun’s final flare is spent
and all is cold and dark and lifeless
I will still love you.

Woman ~ Meghana Gaonkar

                                                          

You, my half-remembered song:
I can only hum the melody
While its lyrics keep slipping by.

You, my incomplete painting:
I wish to finish but confused
My touch may disfigure your portrait.

You, my unborn utopian verse:
I can’t conceive my virgin thoughts
For they seem too tender to bear the burden.

Still, haunted by your
Vaguely elusive angelic beauty,
I daydream you in my nightmares.

Perhaps,
You seem to remain in me forever
Just a dream – too good to be true.