Ode to Spring – Poem

April 7 2020

ode, Poem, poetry, spring

Ephemeral winds of the South, scattered hither and thither,

Fade and shrivel away despite the wrinkled dream of King.

Haply the Twinleaf comes untimely and Alyssums wither,

Shall I dance and evermore confuse all seasons for spring

Or shall I dangle my spring and chase my palpable winter?

Lithe morns placate my anguish and lush earth my ferocity

I shall henceforth defer my acrid storms, and blithely chant

A hymn of budding spring clothed with a greenish alacrity

One moment past midnight and I still sing blasé of all Pain

O, for a passage full of beauty! O, for this change of heart!

Adieu! Adieu frosty days of the unprecedented tranquillity

These Eastern clement wafts enliven my sense and my soul

Upon my heartstrings they play, and my murky Pain wanes

As though of Lethe I drank or slumped into a state of torpor

That only unleashes forgetful moments and earthly ecstasy

O, for a winter full of cryptic warmth! O, for a warm spring!

Tasting of my Mother’s coffee in a Mashta behind the vale

And of the fragrant flowers reminiscent of the years of yore

I know not what fall and winter might have left in my soul,

Save what the vale of tears has thrown upon my shoulders.

I know not what my friends or foes might have knit for me

I, all the same, know that Twinleaf shall trounce Alyssums,

For the sapphire sky and the June charms cleanse all shade.

Rustles underneath my feet, springy chirps from the boughs

And easeful ripples from the dales fall like balm to my ears.

I know not what heavenly bliss spring might cast before me

Nor what that West twist might affix to my profound fears.

Still, I chant a hymn of budding spring oblivious to rainfall,

For the voyage of subtle metamorphosis demands a rainbow.

Author: Sara Mehadar.

Many Blue Mondays – Poem

March 27 2020

bad days, blue mondays, Poem, poetry

There are days when my body feels too heavy to carry, and it is then that I need myself most. when heaviness is no longer a feeling but a state of being.

Today, I am heavy,

I am the weight on my shoulders, I am the words I barely blurt out, I am the lack of confidence, I am my stage fright, I am my loudness, I am my clumsiness, I am the ugly I feel on the bad days, I am the bad days, and although everything comes to end, today seems infinite.

Today, I lose the rhymes to write my poetry, I lose count of how many times I scribbled I love you in my notebooks, I lose count of how many times I longed for love, for a warm embrace to tell me what I already know “everything will be alright” I whisper to myself, but it isn’t my voice I need to hear, today it is his,

It is my friends’

It is my mother’s

Today, I need to hear anyone but myself.

I lock my tears hoping they won’t escape me again. Today I learned that my body has an exquisite self-defense mechanism. My body will declare a state of emergency and trigger an iceberg to prevent a breakdown, but every defense-plan has a downside. The downside in this story is that I break down regardless. I break down in silence.

My body locks the tears away and pushes the screams further down my throat, so far away I choke. Before I know it, I am hostage of my own body, I am hostage of my psyche, of the demons telling me I cannot, and I believe them.

I am the darkness of my shadow

I am the blue of my sorrow

Maybe, I don’t deserve the dreams I see in my sleep, and this is who I am destined to be,

Maybe greatness is not meant for me

And that is okay. I will be okay

Authour: Nourhane Atmani.

Addiction – Poem

February 12 2020

addiction, anxiety, depression, pain, Poem, poetry, struggles

human bodies

remember the infliction of pain

the memories, the injuries

the human body

has a fascinating way of making you live the moment

all over again.

i am addicted to voices in my head

telling me what i am worth

and what i am not

where i do, and do not belong

my body is barely leaning against a wall

against a background of my nails scratching the dried up blood

the stories of pain and conflict are told in its corners

reeking through its cracks

every mistake I ever made

until it risks its fall

but the wall stands tall, i

am the wall.

i wake up

to the same scars

to the same bumps on my skin

dried up blood on my sheets and a

“oops”

did it again, well

we did it again,

didn’t we?

my bathroom floor already knows me

a little too well

the blood in the sink was the hardest stain to clean

but i remember all it took was my tears

to wash away my mistakes

from the nights before i disappeared

before I sunk into my own realm

and i

used to beg the voices in my head to leave me alone

but now that they’re gone

i am lonely

i have grown used to their company

to their echoes

feeding off my psyche

and I guess I am not really clean

since they’re still using me

the human body, registers the pain

and what causes it

and how it feels

just not this time, I think it failed somehow

it only feels like reality

looks like reality

but isn’t entirely real.

Author Nourhane Atmani.

Photographer: Mwangi Gatheca.

To a Bird in Mid-May – Poem

February 11 2020

Bird, English, Loss, Poem, poetry

O wingless bird!

Thou canst not fly, nor sing in thy wakeless sleep

Thy wings perished by long disuse

And all the birds perch on a tree by the dale

Elatedly they tweet and flit in seasonless ecstasy,

And I watch thee in a sullen silence

Of breezeless mornings, and tears unshed.

O noiseless bird! Thou canst not sing anymore,

Yet thy song sings itself in my retentive memory

To thy melody I dance oblivious to all Pain,

And I go insane, for it becomes my empty heart.

Like a lightless star in the sunless blue sky,

Thou canst not shine, nor canst thou be anymore

Thy nest, thy songs, thy beams, thy whisperings,

And all the memories sit heavy on the soul

All suffused with a patch of light, and clouds

Enshrouded in the mystery of the blue yonder.

They all come upon me, in a moment they haunt me

And I long for thee, for thy tweet

I long for thy nonchalant yet reasonable lunacy.

O little bird of mid-May!

Hast thou even seen halcyon days?

Thou canst not hear the birds nor would thou be heard

Thou canst not bear this windless sphere,

Nor can the birds endure thy complete lightness.

O precious bird of mid-May!

Thou hast gone, in the beyond thou dwell

And here I stay in the shadows of thy absence,

I wonder, I wander, I ponder, I whimper with pain

But thou hast gone, in the beyond thou dwell

Farewell, little bird, farewell precious bird.

poetry