Poem- Fragment XVII

There is a question mark
in my mind.
Why has the leaf
decided to fall in the wrong place?
The ocean is turbulent tonight,
I can see a raven through my window.
Why have words suddenly become
so grim,
and so utterly useless?


Zaina Anwar 2010

Poem- Fragment XVI

Emil Nolde, The Prophet, woodcut circa 1912

Sometimes, melancholy
like a great black-winged bird
descends, in a vicious arc
trailing terrible echoes
through my mind's stagnant mist.


Zaina Anwar 2011

Poem- The Lament of the Coconut Tree

Aubrey Beardsley inspired illustration by Howard Tangye

I remember her street
always teeming with traffic-
miles of twisted metal holding
the heat of a scorching summer.
At my grandmother's house
bleached by eternal sun
with encrusted stucco falling off
like peels of broken skin,
there was a coconut tree,
terribly ancient and bending
under the weight
of wind-scarred years.

Its spiky leaves
always covered with sand
from a sea languishing somewhere
along the horizon beyond
hung low as if barely able
to breathe.
The tree was familiar
as my own two hands.
I played in its crooked shade,
meditating on strange shadows
shifting with fire.

Once, on a night of idle dreams
laced with stale breaths and dung smoke
when the moon felt the shiver
of the first touch of winter,
the tree spoke to me
softly whispering its lament,
strange and indecipherable
and floating upon the virgin breeze
to my grandmother's heart where
it was buried,
yet again,
never to be revealed nor understood
by those who have forgotten
the sad refrain of the coconut tree
as it mourns the loss,
the irrevocable loss,
of the earth's wondrous glory.


Zaina Anwar 2011

Poem- Guilty Pleasure

Egon Schiele, Two Girls lying Entwined.

nipples, redheads
orgasms on screen-
the boy plays
at sex in his mind
already, a dichotomy
has taken shape between
visual scenes
of plastic fornication
and the taste
of real
live
flesh.

Zaina Anwar 2011

Poem- The Vigil

Sadequain, Circa 1970

The moon hangs low tonight.
In my house,

candles burning
everywhere.

A devout vigil
is being kept.

The women look
like nuns bleary-eyed

and dressed
in immaculate

shrouds of death.
Gradually, the wailing

grows louder,
until the voices

pierce the night sky
and break the composure

of distant stars.
I lie

in a brittle coffin.
I scream

(masked) but no one can hear.
Eventually, the voices

fade away,
until the moon

becomes my ghost's
haunting mirror.


Zaina Anwar 2011