Poetry
FROM SCARBOROUGH FAIR '23
Women never begin as human beings.
They are earth and clay, molded into sin.
Apples bitten, and boxes opened, sweet syllables
Dripping like honey from lips, kisses of venom.
Wars are started over her beauty, and won over her claim.
You are the witch’s cackles as they engulfed her head in flames.
The red moon spilled across the cross and bled ashes from her grin.
The flames licked around her outstretched arms like wings.
Although her incantations melted, the curse was unleashed.
with a letter I'll never send you. anyway
how much time does it take for your memory of someone to become
flat, like a faded sticker left on
a dashboard in an abandoned car?
when you reach a suspended hand into your brain and find
a friend, that someone, your heart and your good morning songbird
has lost their motion-picture quality.
will their eyes lose that sparkle - when once they were as real as the blood that wells from every paper cut?
do their smiles fade like news ink from a crumbling headline?
There are many times where we’re in bed and I turn around to look up at you.
One blink, and then two, trying to take you in,
every part of your face. And that’s when, every time, you launch the affection space shuttle.
Landing: a cheek, my nose, gently on the lips. With you, the moon, and I can see the stars.
You entered the pharmacy and walked into the narrow aisle,
The smell of substances had circulated as the breeze rushed through the door.
"Welcome to Happy Choice Pharmacy," the man in the back of the counter yelled.
You ignored the man and found the item you were looking for,
You picked me up,
You set me down, once again.
You never picked me.
Instead you picked up the regular bandaid.
But I've always wanted to be a bandaid.
A small strip with a gauze pad in the middle,
Not the regular ones though,
The ones with children's favourite movie characters or a cool design,
That relieved the pains and aches in an instant.
Your tears that started to overflow - immediately stop.
The loud alarms that blared - immediately stop.
Your sniffle started to tremble - immediately stop
It's a miracle, huh?
They say that —
I don’t know
I don’t know that this
Youth is only a blip in time
An infinitesimal wink of an eye
That one day I’ll wake up
And reach for the air
Of my Innocence
Only to find it — disappeared
Come to the cold realization
That it was long gone
Had left — piece by piece
Moment by moment
As the sun begins to peak from behind its dark veil,
Sparrows sing a mourning song.
Air nips at my numb nose,
my breath dancing away.
Oak beams tumble down
Crashing, lifting dust into the air.
Rot sequesters in my mind
Each smudge of dirt, a stain.
Never to be removed
as paint keeps chipping.
Echos of moments long since past
bounce around in empty halls
like cut edges of a rope.
Threads unraveling,
Never meant to reunite.
Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault
You were 16 years old, young and naive,
Your heart belonged to a soul who didn’t cherish you, so you gallivanted for pleasure in the arms of another.
You were juvenile and injudicious, only focusing on the fulfillment he gave to your womanhood.
One last breath, one last touch,
I give in to the moment. God says I must.
This is the end, I feel no pain,
I’m numb to the cancer in my veins.
18 years I’ve been fighting this war,
I surrender peacefully. I cannot take any more.
I look towards my future, and I see
Moments in times I dream
I see a big vast ocean,
a beautiful sea I see myself healing
And healing others like me
I see warmth and brightness
Reflecting like pools of honey
I see love and light
I see it fill the loneliness in me
I see no boundaries
The smell of orange blossom
And the salt of the sea
We left it all behind
Like the golden glow of the sun
On the copper pots
We left it all behind
Like saffron and cardamom
And hyacinths in the spring
We left it all behind
My life begins when I become eighteen.
Inside the university so grand
Besides big kids so smart, the fields so green.
Countless new things to learn and understand.
I know I will be living large one day.
This parking lot is packed with fancy cars.
Study the textbook ‘til my hair turns gray.
FROM SCARBOROUGH FAIR '15
Winners wear medals on top of pyramids
and look down at the losers,
though some say winners only look ahead of themselves,
always trying to find a way to achieve more,
never content to win once, starving to find crumbs of
the essence of success only to consume it whole and move
on. I escaped from citizenship in order
to speak out, grappling at the hope for freedom and free will.
My mother dyes her hair on Sundays,
takes the steely grey out of her curls.
All the gleam that framed her so strikingly,
flooded with a youthful blackness,
a fresh shade of ‘carbon’.
Bombarded by wave upon wave of aimless art seekers,
we squeeze between the high-heeled, lipsticked cattle.
Bundled and undone, we bump, we scrape – tripping
along streetcar rails. “Welcome—” it says, “Welcome
to the rowdy-rivered ruckus.” Dragging me behind you,
I walk in skip steps, deer dodging the drunken boys
hoisted upon shoulders, play-fighting in the open
air. We brush by with eyes wandering, tracing parodied
patterns of crisscrossed feet.
You are the sound I spit out
as I lust over vanilla dip donuts —
the “get ready. set. go.” of the boy
I’ll never forget — the stifled
Why do you seduce me so
Sweet October? September sweeps
The summer winds and
You bring in the cold.
A
natural
skyscraper
made of molehills
stands its ground as
it’s slammed with storms
and shrouded with clouds.
A poem by Oubah Osman
stormy standstill woman, a languid, smokeless fire over american planes. what could be of her, her with thighs and many, many hues?
A poem by by Rumaisa Khan
Van Gogh was considered insane
trapped within the cold bricks of his asylum, cherishing each bristle to his paintbrush
that stroked masterpieces of a depressing reality —
a supposed figment of his twisted mind
a poem by Victoria Loder
Come away with me
Build paper lanterns by the firelight
Let them float into the stars and become one with the maroon
a poem by Nazaneen Kaliwal
Ever-changing seasons know not the grace with which you come and go
a piece by Kosan Shafaque
To live in books is to
choose an existence of infinite happiness and limitless emptiness,
recognize that naught is superior to your beloved, papery companions,
accept that real-life people in real-life flesh are now ruined for you,
acknowledge that no place can be grander than the description of it,
believe in the higher wisdom of the spells that spellings create,
and fall prey to worlds that subsist only in dimensions of the metaphysical type.
a piece by John Dias
I am a visitor here. I stand alone on the pier watching a young woman. I hear her speaking in the common tongue; I don`t understand her words, but they intertwine with my thoughts. I try to make sense of her foreign, elusive utterances...
A peice by Sally Vusi
Mine is a problem not uncommon. I feel burdened with the need to speak out but the lack of ability to do so. However, to put it so simply would be a grave understatement.
A poem by John Dias
Dear Stella,
You remain like a naive childhood memory:
One night, stars crawled over the beach as I would,
While I tunnelled my feet through the damp sand.
I thought myself immovable in the light breeze.
But my garments became pennants that were
thrown around when the strong winds came.
I was a tearing pinwheel in their current when I first saw
how fast things could change.
A poem by John Dias
Water wavers in this ceramic cup.
This wishing well that was to be my home
Now holds the tinges of an ashtray.
A poem by Nazaneen Kaliwal
The air is humid, but dry enough to start a fire
to warm the shallow cavities within me.
My lungs are punctured.
You donate air as quickly as you steal my breath.
“You’re so big now”, can hide many thoughts that run through their minds.
Piece by piece you start to dissect me with insecurities,
Like an old puzzle that slowly becomes unsolved?
Another celebration overflowing with presents filled with scars throughout my body,
Guests share their piece of mind like the heavy frosted icing on their slice of cake.