New | Poetry | Three Poems | Seher Hashmi

Artwork via Wikimedia Commons

 

How To Be a Human?

How to be a human?

Is it an achievement?

An inborn talent

Embedded in titles -

Pittance from colonizer -

You have it or you don’t

No two ways to get it

 

Like sultry looks, curvy figure

Or cosmetic surgery can

Make this wonder happen

Maybe a bit of bleaching out

Sins of my ethnicity

Do up my genetic make-up

DNA structure, upping

Majority of Y chromosomes

To stand somewhere on my own

 

Because after all modern

Democracy has always been

The cure, one-stop-shop fix

For pangs, pains, fears

Topsy- turvy ladder of humanity

Wobbly stairs of existence

Built upon cremated honours

Lone voices of dissent

Perhaps, it’s a luxury

Relished only by those

Able to snatch away

Pounce upon preys

Holding on to power’s doorknobs

To put have-nots in their

Bracketed, aboriginal place.

 

 

 

Missing Red Dragonflies

Do red dragonflies flutter

Somewhere up high

Away from the mundane

Shrubbery of everyday life

Aloof from showy display

Of woebegone individuals

Dunking finite

Into infinite, flowing free liquor

Available for bringing in girls

To kick up their dying

Manhood marked by baldness and

Bulging jackets full of well-meaning advice

Very ‘anti-sexist’

‘Pro-feminist’

Club of privilege

Strutting around to initiate

Important discussions

Debating conflicts that

Choke heart, wreck lives

Ruin cities, wring souls of victims

With a clink of French chalice

Inhaling effervescent fumes trailed

Off cigars to puff out crisis

Against ruddy cheeks

Of teenage companions

Viewed from behind branded

Spectacles to visualize funds

For poverty alleviation

Climate change

Gender discrimination

And such other stuff

To stay abreast with what

They now call the zeitgeist?

 

 

 

 

Eclipsed

Last night

I shut myself inwards

Kept children inside

They say, ‘it’s ill omen’

Portentous enough to

Let loose all buried demons

And I’m old fashioned, born with

Perennial worry genetically induced-

A hand-me-down of colonial experience-

For my children, just a mother

Explains itself

If you get to live just

You vs tyranny of

Systemic oppression

Modelled

Programmed to

Filter us out

With an airbrush ruffle

Refined tapered off machete

Gilded, etched with subtle

Serpentine patterns

Thanks to Silicon Valley oracles

An undetectable shove

Like detached wave from a blue blood

Aristocratic swing of willowy wrist

Adorning bracelets

Gold; gleaned, collected, pitted

Upon cracked heels

Stitches, sweat, blood

Of nameless millions

So, what else I’m left to do

But

To take my kids indoor

Push them into some poorly

Hideout covered with

Persian rug, threadbare

Few chipped cups, a rusted samovar

And wait with heart pounding

In my ears, palms, jaws

Bite my own nails till

Sheer pain, palpable

Pours out blunting fears

Desperate vigil of Kashmiri mothers

Antigone marooned to fend for

Her trapped brother

Until… they come marching in

And eventually,

Despite all this

Hunt them down.