Today we rise.
No more hiding in the shadows,
of culture,
creed,
tradition.
No more silent complicity,
disingenuous arguments,
hypocritical pretences,
shabby excuses for the actions of men,
brutal,
vulgar,
coarse,
obscene,
murderous,
abusive men.
Today, we rise,
as one.
Today the change starts,
with me,
within me.
With you.
Within you.
Today WE Rise!
Today we rise.
No more hiding in the shadows,
of culture,
creed,
tradition.
No more silent complicity,
defensive arguments,
sickening pretences,
shabby excuses,
for the actions of men,
brutal and coarse and vulgar and obscene and murderous and abusive men.
Today, we rise,
as one.
Today the change starts,
with me,
within me.
with you.
within you.
Today we rise.
thanking all at Conceit Magazine for having me on the cover of the January/February/March 2017 Issue.
Volume 7, Number 71.
Thank you, Editor Perry Terrell!
Conceit Magazine,
Perry Terrell, Editor,
P.O. Box 884223,
San Francisco, CA,
94188-4223
conceitmagazine@yahoo.com
she walks alone,
barefoot in the paddies of rice,
breaking her back for some precious grains.
she walks alone,
in jo’burg town, with a black eye,
smacked around by him the previous painful night.
she walks alone,
in the streets of neon hazed manila,
in the villages and in the small towns,
along the pristine hedges of rotten london,
on the crowded pavements of lonesome new delhi,
in the alleyways of twisted and rotten karachi,
across the rolling plains of the vast bounteous pampas,
over the winding back-ways of the sloping and grimy favelas,
on the glittering pavements of rich and sweetly-scented sick jeddah,
through the blindingly false boulevards of that sad los angeles town.
she walks alone,
bearing the burden of mother and daughter
of cook and sweeper and wife and mistress and punching-bag,
she walks alone,
through your streets and mine,
standing up as she is beaten more down,
loving a little as the bruises on her face turn purple,
feeding the little ones with morsels of hastily cooked beans.
she walks alone,
in factories and in mills and in buses,
in schools and in brothels and in places in-between.
she walks alone,
staying alive on the alms of the ‘charitable’,
violated by those who from the pulpit preach.
she walks alone,
my sister and yours,
my mother and yours too,
my lover and your beloved as well.
she walks alone,
caged by society in its invisible prison,
a slave of norms and culture and religion and caste,
she walks alone,
but she is the conscience of me and you,
screaming at us silently in hunger and despair,
she walks alone,
and though fearful of you men she may seem,
be warned that she may not forever be this alone,
for she too dreams and thinks and believes,
for she too needs and wants and loves and weeps,
in the silent night of complacency while impotent mankind sleeps,
and she too will rise and in rising slay,
the beasts that in your callous hearts prowl and lay,
and she too will demand her rightful place,
for every mother and sister and lover and daughter has a real, human face …
She Walks Alone …
she walks alone,
barefoot in the paddies of rice,
breaking her back for some precious grains.
she walks alone,
in jo’burg town, with a black eye,
smacked around by him the previous painful night.
she walks alone,
in the streets of neon hazed manila,
along the pristine hedges of rotten london,
on the crowded pavements of lonesome new delhi,
across the rolling plains of the vast bounteous pampas,
over the winding back-ways of the sloping and grimy favelas,
on the glittering pavements of rich and sweetly-scented jeddah,
through the blindingly false boulevards of that sad los angeles town.
she walks alone,
bearing the burden of mother and daughter
of cook and sweeper and wife and mistress and punching-bag,
she walks alone,
through your streets and mine,
standing up as she is beaten more down,
loving a little as the bruises on her face turn purple,
feeding the little ones with morsels of hastily cooked beans.
she walks alone,
in factories and in mills and in buses,
in schools and in brothels and in places in-between.
she walks alone,
staying alive on the alms of the ‘charitable’,
violated by those who from the pulpit preach.
she walks alone,
my sister and yours,
my mother and yours too,
my lover and your beloved as well.
she walks alone,
caged by society in its invisible prison,
a slave of norms and culture and religion and caste,
she walks alone,
but she is the conscience of me and you,
screaming at us silently in hunger and despair,
she walks alone,
and though fearful of you men she may seem,
be warned that she may not forever be this alone,
for she too dreams and thinks and believes,
for she too needs and wants and loves and weeps,
in the silent night of complacency while impotent mankind sleeps,
and she too will rise and in rising slay,
the beasts that in your callous hearts prowl and lay,
and she too will demand her rightful place,
for every mother and sister and lover and daughter has a real, human face …
my wishes are simple,
desires few,
gazing upon a leaf,
nourished by dew.
my wishes are simple,
dreams hardly grand,
hearing birdsong in the desert,
together, hand in hand.
my wishes are simple,
my heart calm,
resting with you ‘neath the palm,
years rattling bones,
wrinkling skin,
greying our hair,
ever so thin.
my wishes are simple,
walking in the rain,
leaning on each other,
through life’s joy, pain … … …
For Men Everywhere …
Stop! Listen! Think! Act!
Stop!
Stop the abuse!
Of grand-daughters,
colleagues,
daughters,
girlfriends,
partners,
mothers,
sisters,
nieces,
wives,
all women.
Listen!
Listen to the voices!
Of grand-daughters,
colleagues,
daughters,
girlfriends,
partners,
mothers,
sisters,
nieces,
wives,
all women.
Think!
Think of how you treat,
grand-daughters,
colleagues,
daughters,
girlfriends,
partners,
mothers,
sisters,
nieces,
wives,
all women.
Act!
Act now to change yourself!
Stop! Listen! Think! Act!
The violence,
the abuse,
the rape,
stops when you stop,
the violence,
the abuse,
the rape.
Stop! Listen! Think! Act!
The violence,
the abuse,
the rape,
is perpetrated by,
grand-fathers,
colleagues,
boyfriends,
husbands,
nephews,
brothers,
partners,
fathers,
uncles,
men,
all men.
Stop! Listen! Think! Act!
The violence,
the abuse,
the rape,
stops when us men stop,
The violence,
the abuse,
the rape,
today, now.
Stop! Listen! Think! Act!
Heritage Day (2014)
1.
Reclaiming loose shards of hope,
gathering up slivers of a splintered rainbow,
today we reflect,
today we pause,
today we wrestle our collective plundered consciousness,
today is ours!
2.
Tomorrow,
the struggles continue …
Amandla!
afzaljhb@gmail.com
Rains over Jo’Burg…
The parched African earth soaks up the liquid offering from the heavens,
birds sing,
ululating,
a chorus of relieved catharsis flows through my barren heart,
the steady rain continues,
elevating just another day,
transforming a dry insipid moment,
into a cacophony of jubilant life,
life!
life flowing,
streaming down the desolate avenues,
dripping like perennial teardrops,
down the cheeks of this crazy,
maddening city of gold,
moments of undistilled supreme mirth,
heralds the arrival of a new season,
a triumphant rebirth,
jubilant,
relieved,
ecstatic,
as the Gods of Africa,
and the spirits of the Ancestors,
smile down,
on us,
we of flesh,
and of blood,
and of muscle,
and of bone,
soaking hardened hearts,
dead as cold stone,
infusing new life,
amidst the fragrant scent of rain on dry soil,
while the bronze sun retreats,
seeking respite behind the dark, hopeful clouds of charcoal grey,
while the rains shower their blessings,
banishing the winter chills,
and graciously beckoning spring to stay.
The rains over Jo’Burg caress the leaves on the trees,
cleansing the accumulated baggage that only yesterday so listlessly hung,
over the dryness in my soul,
scorched by a merciless winters’ sun,
Ah! But today,
today,
there are songs to be sung!
today,
I feel complete,
I am with the heavens,
no longer splintered,
into a thousand and three fragmented pieces,
at last I am whole,
at last,
I am one…
scribblerofverses@gmail.com
For Dr Maya Angelou
(1928 – 2014)
Vanquished by the day one may be,
Beaten down by the barren night.
Faltering at times,
at times upright.
Still one stands.
One still fights.
For though one falls,
One must rise*
*this scribble of mine was inspired by the poem ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou
caressing the seductively swaying marmalade roses,
teasing the stealthily approaching morn,
the smell of you lingers,
on,
and on,
as I lie awake and allow my vagabond thoughts to wander,
to the thoughts of you, seducing my soul entire,
as I sat,
and as I basked,
intoxicated,
teased,
raging,
transfixed,
and warmed,
by the healing glow,
that embraces your being entire …
I’ve Scribbled This Song For You…
I’m wasting my days,
my empty nights too,
I should have held on,
but I simply lost you,
now I stagger along,
wearing broken smiles,
in between hell and you,
there’s a million miles,
yes, I should have kept,
you close to my skin,
soaking your warmth,
but you were laughing,
at my foolish grin…
now I’m all broken,
and torn apart,
but what the hell,
I was always late,
for the tolling of the bell,
and now…
now I stagger along,
wearing broken smiles,
in between hell and you,
there’s a million miles,
so kiss me now like you once did,
I’m tired of being so carefully hid,
la laa laa la laa laa laa…
(repeat to fade)
Loneliness slithers by,
its icy feel brushing past,
coiling itself around my being.
In the depths of solitude,
alone, torn apart by circumstance,
battered to a pulp by fate’s hushed trials,
my desolation is complete,
the final notes of mirth,
now scurry off into this hollow city’s street.
I try to scream,
cocooned in my shell,
none can hear my plea,
its plaintive call,
settling beneath the murky waters,
of the oblivious sea…
I don’t know why,
but you have endured,
in the recesses of my memory,
filling in the crevasses of all these passing years,
cementing my will,
forging my spirit out of the cauldron of molten loss,
I do not know why,
but it always keeps coming back,
to you…
The Women
(for the countless women, names unknown, who bore the brunt of Apartheid, and who fought the racist system at great cost to themselves and their families, and for my mother, Zubeida Moolla)
Pregnant, your husband on the run,
your daughter, a child, a few years old,
they hauled you in, these brutish men,
into the bowels of Apartheid’s racist hell.
They wanted information, you gave them nothing,
these savage men, who skin happened to be lighter,
and white was right in South Africa back then,
but, you did not cower, you stood resolute,
you, my mother, faced them down, their power,
their ‘racial superiority’, their taunts, their threats.
You, my mother, would not, could not break,
You stood firm, you stood tall.
You, like the countless mothers did not break, did not fall.
You told me many things, of the pains, the struggles,
the scraping for scraps, the desolation of separation
from your beloved Tasneem and your beloved Azad,
my elder sister and brother, whom I could not grow
up with, your beloved children separated by time, by place,
by monstrous Apartheid, by brutish men,
whose skin just happened to be lighter.
You told me many things, as I grew older,
of the years in exile, of the winters that grew ever colder.
You were a fighter, for a just cause,
like countless other South African women,
you sacrificed much, you suffered the pangs,
of memories that cut into your bone, your marrow,
you resisted a system, an ideology, brutal and callous and narrow.
Yes, you lived to see freedom arrive, yet you suffered still,
a family torn apart, and struggling to rebuild a life,
all the while, nursing a void, that nothing could ever fill.
I salute you, mother, as I salute the nameless mothers,
the countless sisters, daughters, women of this land,
who fought, sacrificing it all for taking a moral stand.
I salute you, my mother, and though you have passed,
your body interred in your beloved South African soil,
you shall remain, within me, an ever-present reminder,
of the cost of freedom, the struggles, the hunger, the toil.
I salute you!
(for the brave women of South Africa, of all colours,
who fought against racial discrimination and Apartheid)
Mora Piya Ghar Aaya (My Beloved Has Returned Home)
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Autumn:
the leaves fell, as you left, a bleak chill wafting across the barren space within my being,
you left, taking your smile and mine,
my smile rests with you still, leaving a void impossible to fill.
|
|
Winter:
pangs of longing consumed me, my only company in the frigid nights,
my tears remain frozen, within,
unable to fall from my broken eyes, as I searched the depths of the cold, harsh skies.
|
|
Spring:
birds returned home, though you did not, and I felt soothing rebirth all around,
memories of you began blazing, their embers stoked,
and at last the tears rolled, like ink on this blank notebook, my whole being pined for you, my very self in anguish silently shook.
|
|
Summer:
alive I felt again, the promise of the coming cooling rain, easing the heat of desire,
yet the furnace slowly raged inside, your absence tearing into me, shattering my nights, my longing for you soaring unfettered across the skies,
dancing on clouds, blissfully free,
|
|
Monsoons:
heaven itself opened, the deluge an unending dream,
rain falling all around, mingling with my flowing tears,
and then I saw you, you returned, and I embraced you, never wishing to let you go,
and though I may wear the mask of the clown,
if you were to leave again,
my very soul, would quietly slip away, and in the monsoon rains, I would gratefully drown.
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scribblerofverses@gmail.com
Scribbled Verse 
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