SHEIKHA A. - POEMS

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. With her poetry published in over 60 literary venues so far, along with several anthologies, she continues to seek more venues to reach out to wider audiences. Mostly disinclined to talking about herself, she prefers her poetry fill all the gaps instead. In her free time, she's either reading or writing poetry, musing over myths and watching cartoons. Her poetry has been recited at two separate poetry reading events held in Greece. She edits poetry for eFiction India. 
 

                              What about the sea
 
(after reading Oscar Wilde’s The Fisherman And His Soul)
 
 
What about the sea haven’t I said
that flows in your eyes like a morning
 
breeze that whimpers in a conch, if there was
a way easy to the path of your pearly world,
 
(like the man who wanted to give up his soul)
 
like a flower growing from the roots 
of the underground sea, I’d bloom 
to the surface as a lotus
 
and give many wanders for sea merchants
to puzzle on, there still wouldn’t be enough
 
number of times the defiance of my words
would send shivers of allure down the bones
 
of your desires, and the stories I would tell
you about how my fins expand like the wings
 
of a bird in free flight, how my arms
have been bound by the blood in your veins;
 
and then your eyes would promise me
its flickers of life, that like a flame leaps
of undeterred determination
 
and on a day of sunrise when the moon would
be conjunct with the sun, to watch me surface,
 
I’d pull you into the depths of the sea
and show you how, in my world,
humans are loved.
 
 
 
                           Will these mountains
 
Will these mountains fall on my back – 
they have begun to crack in rocks – 
as my rough wood canoe pushes across
by a stick of branch I use as an oar;
the light has receded into the clefts
of their shadows, and my body is lone
in the songs of the aged water 
that sits like a brewing drink in a glass
of permissible sweetness; my ears are
filled with whorls of your twittering 
when early autumn in my parts, I found
you in the sky of a different world
far from mine; when the season moved
I come, now, through these taper water-
paths, my swimming skills weak
against the unknowing deepness
of the deep looking for your song,
afraid to drown and die in irony. 
 
 
 
                                  still arriving 
 
walking on a bridge of nets to a land of lights
a thousand moons ago, I had arrived to a shore
the gulls slept, resting wings on sun-fried sand
 
as the ships I counted became fewer by the tide,
the sails flurried the winds buried the eyes cried
walking on a bridge of nets to a land of lights
 
I remember the tree that had offered us coconuts
hanging half-finished like a painting on a stand
the gulls slept, resting wings on sun-fried sand
 
how the fire beneath the waters rocked our boat
how our eyes had set on splintered crags of gold
walking on a bridge of nets to a land of lights
 
I remember my mother’s back matched the sky
pale clouds, yellow birds, wet rivers, hands dried
the gulls slept, resting wings on sun-fried sand
 
at night, I would  sit up to hear the fishes sing
the scent of dreams, new land, a perfumed lore
walking on a bridge of nets to a land of lights
a thousand moons ago, I had arrived to a shore
 
 
 
                    The hour of night walked over
 
The hour of night walked over the ledge
strolling on the edge of the roof’s, counting
 
its steps as it walked one foot afore the other,
like the night had arrived to its fate, vacant blue
 
held the mist in a jealous lover’s embrace,
petite was the stone on which the stars rested
 
their heads; the dreams of the roving grooved
into the walls like rings fallen off the sun’s
 
outer rim, the night shone within like a bulb
with the brightest yellow hues, un-exhaustive
 
like an eternal supply of continuity enclosed
around the universe’s brim; the night climbed
 
down the pipe with the stealth of a pubescent girl 
returning home at the hour of dawn, her cheeks
 
visible on the rising sky, her love, though a flame
showing like the rare golden on a dying night.