Three Fabulous Poems by Sheikha A

 

Hujrah 

 

I age in bouts – silver storm whipping 

in ears of the sea; there are many curses

 

that seep from the tongue of a merjaan

plucked from stone where its spirit keels

 

to a cresting moon. Rugged waves get swept

under overwhelming gushing of owls

 

on sidled branches; the night turns an undertone

of fire – to dream of a broken spine augurs 

 

treacherous love, but I dream of black fish

hanging over a mantle against a senescent

 

wall – crumbling nervous system as a sacrifice 

for stronger intuitive regency. If there was

 

a ship that cut through sea haze, sailed

towards the rear of a shore, I would find

 

him surfacing from sand, like a descended 

cenotaph pushed to life where earth splits

 

and air blows into destruction a kind of hope

prone to illnesses. Night beach is damaged 

 

cornucopia entering from his window; 

I tell him destiny isn't the verdict of self-notion:

 

how does one fall without having fallen,

and he points to the silhouette of a woman 

 

at his feet, eyes coal pits of insomnia,

outside, the window a thickening haze – 

 

 

How to Read Reversals in Tarot

 

after Amabella

 

Flip the card of the Lovers in reverse;

tell your fears to clear out the orbs 

 

encircling your head like premonitions. 

You have been dreaming of wings 

 

large like candle-cast shadows;

weigh the lift of love from below 

 

where the feet don't touch the ground, 

the limp of her extended hand is nemesis, 

 

is expression of bondage – read it upright – 

is the look of Judgment, calling the Wheel

 

of Fortune to appear in the midst of scatter;

array of hope, as variety, as many as cups, 

 

as untamed as a lion at the beckon 

of a woman, as the Moon clear as daylight. 

 

Sheath the sword of the Queen, 

there is no truth to be told – 

 

truth is a nail in a forest, elusive 

and magical – because you've fallen 

 

in love – keep the card downwards

when the Empress lifts her scry;

 

her throne the cold of a stone 

knowing to be wary of Knights. 

 

And then draw the Devil, deliberately;

unshackle the couple, watch him smirk

 

as they run separate ways. They wrote 

their destinies before coming together

 

in a new life – the past is centuries 

of star seeds never waking to purpose. 

 

Now, glance out of your window. 

Watch the night alight from vapour trails. 

 

 

Man-cub

 

after 'a people' (The Jungle Book)

 

Strike stones: everything you touch in cinders.

So, you'll hold me down by my shoulders

and teach me the ways of a cabled forest,

how lineages are extended like immunity

draining from a wound. I have seen fights

take down prayers from animals' flesh-

smelling colloquies. There is a monster 

in these waters, tendrils like floating 

fibres whose rapacity eternally keeps

life bleeding ghosts. A people we are

scattered like ankle-deep hills of dust

and billows of burning smoke, pushing out

of rapine horizons like shells of golden flakes 

appended with slow rising echoes of a soil

laid with prints of feet we follow for tracks

to fruits of aspirations, songs of flavours.

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her works appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Her poetry has been translated into Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Polish Italian, Albanian and Persian. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com