Home

I am from here, I am from there,
yet I am neither here nor there. 
                   - Mahmoud Darwish 

I reach home, home. It fails to recognise me, 
the tide of being "other" hits
the shores of my heart

and washes away the joy.

                                                 I walk through the streets:
strangers, strangers. No friends. 

"When are you going back?"
A new neighbour asks.

Everything has changed.

New houses, new lanes, 
new songs, new aroma in the air.

My heart whispers in the language of loss. 

I am from here, I am from there,
yet I am neither here nor there.

(22/05/2021)

©️ Dr Javed Ahmed 2021

​​O life
 
At dawn you greet us with bird songs,
energise our spirits, with the first rays 
of sunlight, to overcome the hurdles on our paths, 
to steel our resolve against your vicissitudes.
 
At noontide you sweeten our pain of daily struggles, 
rekindle our dying desires with the warmth of the sun, 
allure us with the sweetmeats of hope, and display 
the illusionary rainbows to our heart's contentment.
 
At eventide we eat the bread kneaded by our sweat,
and drink the wine of our desires, we draw the comfort 
for our tiring bodies, and prepare to sow new seeds 
of hope in the fields of our dreams.
 
The next day, again, besotted by your seductive baits, 
and hypnotised by your new dreams; we forget 
your deceitful nature;  we forget the approach 
of your unbecoming sister.

(Gushing Fountain-2015)

A Dream

In a dream, we are sitting
In a park, on a wooden bench.
During the whole day 
 
I carried the image 
Of my dream: the face
Of the pond, the dewy eyes
 
Of the evening, the soft-mouthed
Breeze, the freshness 
Of the air, the fragrance
 
Of the moment, the flutter 
Of the fallen leaves,
The twitter of birds, 
 
And the warm touch
Of your hand. 
As the evening approaches, 
 
Carrying the weight 
Of my dream, I concur 
Dreams float free, like buoys, 
 
In the deep sea of our minds, 
To retrieve our sunken 
Past and hidden desires.

(Courtesy Poet`s Espresso Review- 2020 USA)

Grandfather 

My grandfather, a bearded family man
dressed in a khan dress, 
a waistcoat, and a brown cap 
made of lambskin, 
would often sit in a room
smoking his hookah.

He, dutifully, woke up 
before the dawn,
for his morning prayers, lighting 
the kitchen fireplace to cook, 
long before the rest of the family 
woke up. 

He liked the company 
of his, peasant, friends.
He was kind, unlike his children, 
to his, orphaned, grandchildren.
His wife, my maternal grandmother, 
I remember
mostly praying or chatting.
She never cooked.

He tuned to Radio Kashmir, daily, 
mumbling Sufi songs
with his eyes closed, as if 
in a transcendental state. 
He would talk, to his grandchildren, 
about his six months pilgrimage 
to Mecca, by a ship, about sea burials 
of pilgrims, who could not make to the land. 
 
He would distribute 
Zamzam water, discovered
by the heel 
of thirsty prophet Ismail, among 
the family and friends, even years after 
his return from Mecca. 
 
To follow the tradition
of the prophet, he  would, for months, 
look after the sacrificial sheep.
He would feed, wash,
and apply henna dye to them, until 
the annual festival to commemorate the sacrifice 
of prophet Abraham.

We went through his things.
We found his marriage 
certificate, witnessed
by Kashmir's would be prime minister;
his snow-white burial garment 
he bought, decades before 
his death, from Mecca.

His home, filled 
with soundless words, memories, 
of his children and grandchildren, now sold 
to some strangers.
They have whitewashed, 
memory-stains, voice-stains 
of our childhood and his life.
He, persistently, told us 
"no human, living or dead, is worth
worshiping".
He deserves his own prayer 
from God.

(for Mohamed Ramadan Wani)
(27/08/2020)

(Courtesy The Poet's Espresso Review-2020 USA)

​Time has embroidered
 
Time has embroidered, your face,
On the canvas of my mind,
With the exquisite threads
Of my memories.
 
Every day, helplessly, I stare
At your silhouette, standing
In the courtyard
Of my dreams.
 
Every day I hear the echoes
Of your voice,
Reverberating,
In the attic of my mind.
 
Every night I weave the net
Of my dreams,
And cast it widely
In the sea of your eyes.
 
At night you watch, like
A white moon, at the forest
Of my solitude
Of my longing.
 
At night your fingers, like
A violinist, vibrate the strings
Of my soul, create a music
Out of my chaos.
 
Take my heart
And break it like a mirror,
And you will see your face
In every shard.
 
Here, guarding the casket
Of my memories, with a light basket
Of my dreams,
I nurture hope.
 
(The Galway Review- Ireland)

I order my heart to be patient 
 
"And I ordered my heart to be patient:
Be neutral as if you were not mine!" 
                                               -Mahmoud Darwish 

As the hands of time remove 
The veil from their schemes; 
 
As the new breed 
Of foxes, hiding

Behind a forest of people, raise 
Their heads;
 
As the new legion 
Of peacocks 

Master the craft 
Of seducing the marketplace;
 
As the silver footed, democracy, princess 
Turns into a bondmaid;
 
I order my heart to be patient.
As the butterflies of change
 
Spread the pollen 
Of fear and hostility;

As the herd mind gets intoxicated 
By the opium 
 
Of "Us versus Them"; 
As the amygdala overrides 

The frontal cortex; 
I order my heart to be patient.

(2019)

(The Cannon's Mouth- UK)

​Dreams

O dreams...you give wings
to our lives.
You encourage slaves, born 
in the cradle of misery
and fastened in a pillory, to aspire 
freedom from their masters.
 
Your fire emboldens a nation 
to rise against the tyranny.
O dreams...you sweeten the pain 
of a pauper
with the dreams of possessing the riches.
Your saccharine consolations
help a prisoner to fight
the pangs of loneliness.

O dreams...seeds buried under the blanket
of snow, in your warm company, 
sprout during the spring.
You squeeze out the sap
of stagnation
from our hearts, from our minds.
You inspire us to know the secrets 
hidden in the heavens.
 
O dreams...in your pleasing company, we navigate 
​around the boulders
of daily difficulties, we carry
the earthly, and the celestial dreams, in our hearts.
 
They ask me what do you advice-
Listen: hold fast to your dreams,
for they manure the roots of hope,
for they illuminate the precincts
of our hearts, for they sustain us
between the alp of life
and the precipice of death.
​
​(Gushing Fountain-USA)

​Sorrows

Your intervals 
Of gloom, 
Stretched, intermittently, 

Across our lives, 
Reveal
Our helplessness 

In front of the Fortune, 
And her merciless darts.
You fill the sacks 

Of our souls 
With gnawing blues and tears. 
Yet your darkness 

Uncovers
Our, hidden, courage
To withstand adversity. 

And your tears 
water the seeds
Of our compassion.

(Gushing Fountain)

We often forget 

The fallacies of our Reason,
The limitations of our Free Will,
The truth of our impermanence,
Our finite existence 

In an infinite universe.
We often forget 
We did not exist, for 
An infinite time, before our birth;

We would cease to exist, for 
An infinite time, after our death.
We often forget 
We are not the centre 

Of this indifferent universe;
Our planet is merely a speck 
In a vast universe; 
There is no person, or any deity, to ensure

We are all dealt fairly or justly.
We are all vessels, meat 
Vessels, full of anxiety, full 
Of prejudice, full of vanity. ​

(Poets Espresso Review- USA)

Perhaps it is not your famed beauty
 
"In her absence, I created her image" - Mahmoud Darwish 
 
Perhaps it is not your famed beauty
Creating this absence. Perhaps 
It is waking up to familiar faces, walking 
In familiar streets; hearing 

An Azaan, or Guru Granth Sahib 
In your neighbourhoods. 
Perhaps it is feasting 
On a Wazwan, or enjoying lamb skewers 

At Khayam Chowk, or maybe
It is blathering with friends 
On a bridge railing, in a college 
Canteen, or in a shop.

Perhaps it is strolling
On that, amorous, residency road,
Or growing up listening poetry 
Of Sheikh-ul-Alam 
 
And Habba Khatoon.
Maybe it is the joy 
Of Eid shopping, in your bustling bazaars, and 
Lining up in front of grandfather 
 
To receive an Eidi.
Maybe it is the aroma 
Of fresh bread, and the taste 
Of Nun chai, in our mornings.
 
Maybe it is your women, tying 
Their prayer threads, whispering 
Their modest wishes, to the mausoleums 
Of your Sufi saints. 

Or maybe it is hearing 
Shameema Dev, on Radio 
Kashmir, singing. 
Maybe it is just watching 

Your face, in every season, without 
Carrying the sack 
Of longing in our hearts.
Every day I lean on our history. 
 
Perhaps your memories 
Shall continue to orbit
Around our yearning souls,
Like satellites, until eternity.
 
Perhaps all this excavation 
Of memories, this living 
In the past, is the story
Of every uprooted plant.

(The Scarletleaf Review-Canada)
 

Notes- 
 
Wazwan- a Kashmiri cuisine 
Sheikh-ul-Alam - A highly revered Sufi saint and a poet of Kashmir 
Habba Khatoon- She was the last queen and celebrated poetess of Kashmir. 
Eidi-  a Muslim tradition to give small sums of money (Eidi) to children on an Eid day.

​Everyday her dawn arrives 
 
Everyday her dawn arrives 
With a bread of martyrdom
With a drink of tears. 
 
Everyday her bruised soul 
Is hammered, ceaselessly, 
On an anvil of a conflict. 
 
Everyday bulbuls, sit on the sill 
Of her soul, sing 
The songs of our tragedy.

She carries a burden, a heavy sack
Of our dreams, on
Her sacrificial head. 
 
When I look for expressions 
On her face, in her eyes, 
I find a tearing emptiness. 
 
Like her last queen, Haba 
Khatoon, she carries 
A longing, a gnawing grief. 
 
Like dead stars 
She carries, a burden 
Of loss, a ruined destiny.

Everyday she falls 
Into, an abyss, a black hole
Of two toxic neighbours. 

(The Galway Review- Ireland)

O my unruly mind

O my unruly mind
I ceaselessly try to harness 
your unruliness
with the rationality 

of philosophy, 
with the objectivity 
of science, with
the finality of holy texts.

I even try to tame you 
with the magic 
of poetry, the rituals 
of faith, the wisdom 

of sages, the art of mindfulness, 
the habit of journaling, 
and the promise of houris; 
yet you always find 

your way, out of every bridle, 
with your habitual conniving, 
your monkey tricks, 
your reptile winding.

(The Cannon's Mouth Magazine- UK)
​

Who am I ?
​
Cutting a long story short
A patchwork of 
My genes and my family,
And my culture and faith,
And my town and country,
Their beauty, their ugliness;
Together with my education,
My work and my politics, 
And my travels and leisures,
Their inclusiveness, their exclusiveness;
All seamed together 
By the neural circuitry of my brain.
An ever-changing 
Medley, a rainbow, I contain 
Multitudes, dyed 
By every experience. ​

(Poet's Espresso Review- USA)