All IS LOST!
all is not lost…just dream with me…
But you asked,
And so I speak.
Chew on what I say
Or swallow or spit,
But to think
Talk of a chair
Calling to its
Wayward legs,
Or inability to run
With coded messages
Of our incumbent sun
Ends a relationship —
Why, have you never
Tripped
On newborn pollen
Delivered
As exclamation marks
For the face’s tired
journey;
Gilded a pillow with
A caged lion’s reverie,
Floating in
Oceanic veldt days
And fairyland prey
Of centuries ago?
As she bends over
An inauspicious cauldron,
Have you never
Lusted after
A bronze-loined witch,
Who
In a singsong
counts
Drops of vanilla
— Torpid juice for your
Spirit’s interstices —
Or chased visceral kisses
From moist
Bellows which drive
Noble horses through
Landslides?
All is lost —
If superimposed
Upon a bird
Sweeping canvases
Of a different
World and breathing
Diamond air
Forged by icicles on
God’s rock-face,
Sits a boy’s
Memory of
A bad bad man.
All is lost…
All is not lost
If you watch
As I drink crying
Sounds of rain that
Swallow a swan-song,
Become
The rogue hand
That unlocks a straddling
Kaleidoscope
Scattered like
Pomegranate drops,
Emerald-blue cinders —
Unbearable
Polyhedron dazzle.
Come drink
With me and were you
Born yesterday?
But you asked,
And so I speak.
Farida Haque
