Reconcile

I've severed a tie in my mind today;
it was hopeless,
you see.

Ragged breath and flaring eyes
met me at the door
of innocence.

I let it in. Offering balance.

It tore me up.
Shredded me to bits.
Barking. Angry. Violent.

A calm descended after the storm.

Rose water fell from the heavens.
I drank it in.

I forgave. I forgot.

Hope burst forth.

We watched the moon reflected on the water.
Again I let it in. Hope. Life. Etc.

It snarled. Face contorted.
A new demon revealed itself this time.

I shrunk back.

It bit my head off.
Severed. On reconciliation day.

My life overflowed. Manufactured from within.
I seeped into the ground.

Life sprang forth. A tiny shoot. A leaf.
It shivered in the breeze.
A drop of dew weighed heavy.
Sunshine singed the crease.

Hope takes too much patience.

Now, detached,
I can only reconcile
with all
that I am
today.

The Banquet

For some people
love is delivered
fresh from the oven,
aromatic as a prayer,
to be consumed only
after a ritualized
washing of hands.
Others meet God five
times a day:
each time they are hungry
God manifests on a plate
to fill them up.
This banquet is beyond religion,
more personal than breath,
universal.
The spent soul is replenished
through the echoing chamber
of an empty, grateful body,
each of its cells saying
repeatedly
thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.


Poem "The Banquet" from 'The Everyday Wife' (2010) by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers.

the circularity of blood and dust

Writing is farcical, if it is not able to create a shift in some way. It must, in some small way, undo the latch to the dusty box that is our potential, and reveal the raw material inside that seeks to become something majestic, at least.

Writing, just like anything else that we might do, is undue banter and rather superficial, if it is not accompanied by a whole range of purposeful conditions. Or at least, just one. A purpose. A need to adjust the everyday meander, dissolve the self-doubts and dissipate the fears of failing and of succeeding all at once. Writing is and must. Writing with a sense that something more must come of it. It must be loaded with that intention to do and be for the greater good; even if the path getting there is strewn with thorns. Writing is a vehicle and a weapon, a building and a bridge. Each might be used or abused; the action is fueled by the intent.

Writing, if you really think about it, is an act of worship.
It is a show of love. And a way to bribe the creative soul into production.
Writing is also a show of hate. A means to burn and destroy the wasteland of minds that prefer the route of the blissfully ignorant. It purges these, tearing unused sinews apart, washes away the rust and then forces the flow of new contemplation into the midst of these healing recesses.

Tedious tasks done, writing is the balm. The disease and the cure.
The bitterness and the sweet are found to be one.
Love is, life is, being is.
Bitter. Sweet. Bittersweet...
Living is.
Dieing is.
Bittersweet.
Living-Dieing.
Circularity breathes reason into being.
Writing gives it form.
The vehicle moves onward, transporting thought from one to another. Me to you.
A building of ideology soars skyward.
Glass shatters at a crazy altitude.
Someone slips.
Someone falls.
A grey suit hits concrete pavements of unreason; it bears the mark of the martyr. Red becomes brown.
Brown is earth.
Like ashes to ashes; like dust to dust.

Living is dieing
Dieing is living
Writing is Living-Dieing
Reviving the dust, the ashes, the blood and the being.
Re-creating, moving, becoming, seeing.

"Keep breathing. Everything else is a bonus."


Copyright 2009 Shafinaaz Hassim

To Blog

Of course, just as it is with every motivated thing in life, there are reasons to blog. And there are reasons not to blog. And then there is just plain old non-reason. Not in a do-not-care kind of way, but rather in a just-not way.

Blogging is writing in a way that puts words out on a fluttering flag of sorts; a piece of fabric flaps in the wind, tied to a fickle post, without the guarantee that it will stay there, but in the meanwhile holding on for dear life. At some point it always tugs just beyond that sane disposition that we give it due. The force of pull and stay and the fight with wind and calm is an orchestra that brings both life and wear and tear to a simple piece of cloth, with strangely painted war art that gives it just a small token of belonging. Why? Because in symbols we find meaning and closeness. And a sense that this is home, in all its dreary plainness. And in all its wonder, too, of course.

I think that blogging is far more forgiving than the world of print media will ever be, and I think that short sentences are like drops of lemon on honey, made for flu-ish days. And I also think that grammatical errors are little rebellions from the artists creative pen. And of course, finally, long windy sentences are like taking a road trip and discovering oh-so-many wonderful things.

The scenic route is misunderstood. We should take more of them :)

Here's to loving being at home and here's to traveling to incredible new places and also to those long sentences that transport us between them. I missed them.

enthusiasm

Sometimes enthusiasm scatters,

stumbles

then seeps its last few drops into the
drains of doubt.

And sometimes it rises,

up and away towards the

place where fingers of sunshine

tickle it

out of its silliness.

And other times it even

ventures towards the

great wide oceanic

depth of love

and is

refreshed

that way.

And it lives!

a thousand helpless pieces

boredom is...

that moment between

contemplating and creating

when nothing gels

for long nail-biting hours

and the hole wears thin

along that carpet path

in the artist's hiding place;

the midnight lamp sucks the last of its oil,

and then suddenly

a lightbulb flickers

its almost daylight,

the moon shatters bits of glass,

my window lies at my feet in

a thousand helpless pieces

windiness howls into the gaping space between

random articles of furniture, paper, skin and cartilage.

all is silent now,

-my heart skips a beat-

a pen finds its way between bedraggled fingers of my writer's hand,

and then it bleeds for me,

once again.

This journey of words

I feel a storm of words brewing... Mostly, the torrents are echoed inside and out in symphony, by the rush of rainwater drenching the earth outside my bedroom window, and the surge of emotions making their way through my being. I am, once again, on the threshold between worlds. The free spiritedness can be so ambiguous... in some ways it tends to whirl one in a mix of creative energy and other times it tends toward a tiresome rant in rhetoric. Mundane tasks may seem enchanting, while deeply enthused moments can be completely forsaken, until its too late to redeem.

But the current surge of thoughts is quite a powerful one. It begs my attention now, forcing me to do more than engage in analysis and thought, but urging me to be more than a spectator. Allay the fears, and ride the wave of destiny, remembering what if feels like to delight in the rollercoaster with real glee. Before the days of over-thinking things. Before the hurts and pains and reactivenesses of ships wrecked and long delivered to the ocean floor. Before the trees and huts that held fresh dreams, now burnt to cinders. Before the fairytales went sour. Real glee is the realisation that all those moments of wistful memory and unfathomable stumbling along the path to finding meaning, make up the cobble road to a place far greater than the imagination could conjure. A place where free spirits roam hand in hand with their faces to the sunshine; where roads lead to endless possibilities and where words like 'suffering' arent put aside to character development by a world choosing the desensitised route.

Too many words still echo. This is why, todays post cannot be quenched by a simple poem. It needs open spaces in which to rush out, go forth and beyond in its quest to relieve me of this load. Words are things. They can lay a heavy burden needing to be removed, or be like a new child waiting to be laborously borne. Either way, the implication is release from the source. I am not that source. I am just an instrument, through which these words must be played; flute like. Inspiration is Divine, as Rumi always says. The music is strained, though. And I wonder if the extended path into India will help to soften the grip that the chords have on my inner being, enough for it to find its way out.

Durban, beautiful water-coloury Durban. My farewell begins here. Until my return, that is. Because the ties that bind are in too many life-like colours to be just a figment of my travel weary imagination. Old wounds bled internally; then dried to a pathetic scab or two. Its these fresh cuts that slice through to the core of my being. They need to be reduced to gleaming tattoos, removed, and left at the foot of Taj Mahal. Gory details must seem that much more illustrious in contrast to shrines of eternal love. Only time will tell.

Art as Flirtation and Surrender

In your light I learn how to love.

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,

where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,

and that sight becomes this art.

J.RUMI



(Excerpt from The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, 1995. )

cryptic reflections of creativity

the writer writes,
the painter paints,
the lover is awed by every nuance of the beloved..
the sculptor creates..

all are reflections of the Master of Creation,

...each is an artist,
each a philosopher residing in creativity,

each makes of their matter of choice malleable forms,
with fingers delighting in the feel
of their raw clay warmed by creative enthusiasm.

and all this time,
the inspiration is divine and fragranced
by the purpose of loving
all that life has to offer,
showing appreciation
in having partaken in its fruits,
and extending ones' self
to that realm of energy that abounds
when souls meet in eternity.