Category: Poetic Leanings

I want my world

Neatly packaged

No Postmodernist confusion

Just a generously elitist academia-

Keeping high horses above the showjumpers

But linear narratives for all-

Happily ever afters and all that.

Clarity to inform warring perspectives

But most of all

I want my world to have perforated edges

So that

I can hold on tightly with one hand

And rip with the other

And fold away ambivalence

In a tight little square

For your perusal,

Madam,

On some other day.

 

Long ago

I looked within me-

Supposedly gifted,

With much aplomb but without remuneration-

Like the Bedouin woman reading our coffee cups

In the formal living room of an arabesque princess.

Looking to the future

Expecting direction

I found you.

But I was young and stupid

you were older and stupider

So we led each other on a merry dance

Each too proud to admit the other

All dances end when the music dies.

And so ours did,

With acrimony and recriminations.

Some months later

In the spirit of the first of September

You said sorry

I said why now

You said why not

We shook hands

To the world we were friends

To each other we were sparring partners

Somewhere I remember making the decision to be just friends

Because

Anything more would risk friendship

So we stayed friends

Through the arduous months and the halcyon days that together welded into years that went by too quick

You were the friend who made me laugh through a haze of tears when the he-of-the-day flouted my dreamy delight

You were the friend that was subjected to my attempt at playing Emma

You were the sound of reason in my flights of giddy anticipation

 

But yesterday

I looked into myself

Like the Bedouin woman who read our coffee cups all those years ago

The future is a series of tomorrows that doesn’t offer episode recaps to prepare me

My direction is not so clear, I just move with the spirit of the time

But like that Bedouin woman who read our coffee cups

I looked within me

And I found you.

It’s always been you.

I must still be young and stupid.

 

It cuts to know

You were here

When I wasn’t.

I kept a vigil over these doors

Blessed them hallowed

By your imminent entrance

Any minute now

I said

But

The clock ticked a wind chime’s dance

Turned the minute to days

and

After days of waiting and wanting

I walk away

Defeated

Yet

They say you came

Just as I left

Unperturbed about the time

Ready to put your hand in another’s

And it cuts to know

That where you cut me

It still bleeds.

 

Dear Bono,

Parasputin and I have come up with some lyrics. If you do use them, kindly remember us when your company’s paying out royalties , 85% Parasputin, 15% Khadija.

soul like a devil sick of sin

can’t access His love

won’t let me in

‘cos I’m unaware

of His mercy

mercy

looking for perdition

from up above

I can’t give in

‘cos I’m unaware

of His mercy

mercy

 

And for the bridge:

you think you need a bridge

but really it’s a key

to open up your heart

and truly see.

 

We thank you in eager anticipation of fame and fortune,

Khadija and Parasputin.