Farida Haque – Medium

Mar 25

An Aztec Pyramid Called Out To Me

An Aztec Pyramid Called Out To Me ~ and I wept~ Wrapped in torpor’s musk you stir and sigh, mutter thickly, voice like soot and licorice, then silence settles on us like a rain of feathers. And I wonder how wordlessness can be so eloquent. What are these quasi-dreams that…

Poetry

1 min read

Mar 24

I Sing a Sweet and Simple Song

I Sing a Sweet and Simple Song ~ my life, as i see it ~ Bow to me said the sky, every day, and I bowed without knowing why. But I was thankful for its indigo blanket. You are mine to keep, said the earth and I readily agreed for…

Poetry

2 min read

Feb 17

Eating Desert Sands, It Will Come

Eating Desert Sands, It Will Come ~ and I’d rather be on a rock ~ Ecstatic shimmering of heat-crazed air thrums above a chameleon which is and is not there, on a huddle of meiotic rocks clinging to shy patches of cool. Subject to whims and edicts of light, now mottled then opaquely tan suddenly slate…

Writing

2 min read

Sep 20, 2021

Visions In A Sorcerer’s Garden

Visions In A Sorcerer’s Garden ~ a meditation ~ I. Sometimes I am the shadow of A dragonfly, broken and sliced, On ripples of a pond And sky an inverted Blue bowl. II. Sometimes I am a dark cedar Frozen in a silk tapestry Doomed to stillness, Whilst the hunt tumbles Deafeningly about. III. Sometimes…

Poetry

1 min read

Visions In A Sorcerer’s Garden

~ a meditation ~

Sometimes I am the shadow of

A dragonfly, broken and sliced,

On ripples of a pond

And sky an inverted

Blue bowl.

II.

Sometimes I am a dark cedar

Frozen in a silk tapestry

Doomed to stillness,

Whilst the hunt tumbles

Deafeningly about.

III.

Sometimes…

Sep 7, 2021

Paradox of a Drowned River-Flower

Paradox of a Drowned River-Flower ~ a dark love poem ~ You said in voice infirm, sight ravished by too many suns and glimpsed chimeras, nothing is forever. I walked a chained walk on a scorched immaculacy, shattered splashes of yesterday’s innocence. And I was left with a sharded sun black flowers and severed arms…

Poetry

1 min read

Sep 3, 2021

The Woman Who Would Be Mother

The Woman Who Would Be Mother ~ though we did not share a womb ~ It’s dusk. “Come child, sit” she’d say. Wood fire clay courtyard small and damp smell of which sits in my soul like aromatic earth even today. My Ayah’s lap a cradle like no other a cradle of cloud, amplitude and simply …

Poetry On Medium

2 min read

Sep 2, 2021

Ghosts of a Lost World

Ghosts of a Lost World ~ and we must live ~ The outside world. Do red and purple neon signs pierce hazy skies, still, and roadside cafes animate the night? Can laughter be heard as girls, buoyed by sunshine, excitement and expectancy walk to school? Is there really a world left out there? I will…

Fiction

13 min read

Aug 25, 2021

And She Would Bear a Son

A Love Story — Her eyes were closed, his open, and between the woman and the man, ghost screams rose, and like thin long birds that break their beaks against cracked mirrors, flapped around, then settled to roost in the disquiet of an abandoned citadel of silence. Both lay at the edge of an…

Writing

15 min read

Aug 9, 2021

Exile in Egypt

Exile in Egypt ~ Cairo, day one of two years ~ Like shards of crystal slanted with gold, dragonflies hover and hasten in green clouds of an ancient Ficus more a terraced geographical feature than an arboreal entity, they dart and skim then dance down to sip cool waters from a pool undisturbed…

Poetry

2 min read

Aug 9, 2021

Give Me a Vulture Any Day

Give Me a Vulture Any Day ~ On some things I am clear ~ and I will not go quietly I judge the murderer I judge the rapist I cannot judge a woman or a victim who kills a tormentor. The anguished know — within shadows agonies cry gems die everyone hears no one hears. They…

Poetry

2 min read