Chance (un)Encounters (I)

come stand by me.
doubt the sun from your window and
because by chance i came prepared,
but you thought you’d risk it,
let me offer you a small reprieve.

i’ll raise my elbow
try to stand a little taller,
your hunched warm breath
won’t stop slanting rain from the left,
but will make it (quite) bearable.

we, an island in the season
of downcast eyes
as if raindrops will be
misinterpreted as tears,
look away.

sound is swallowed
by more sound.
we only have
brief glances,
infinite allusions.

across the million refractive dreams
on their way down to pave moments in
the grand sequence

the light will change
you

into green, into get away, into
thankyoubutimokay;
we go separately, but,
just for a moment,
won’t you

come stand with me.




-11/19/2011

©Farhana Jahan

This fire burns cold

I am a wasteland, a tired hand
that carves bars around my chest,
poetry into my flesh.
I design the lines that bind and cut,
construct
the walls I fall against.

My chains weigh heavy
gilded in blue,
but are borne with broken smiles
painted over
like so many cracks in my masks.

Dry eyes can't water,
can't make love grow
out of quicksand,
with empty hands
like winter's touch.

Stone-cold heart,
you are light-years apart
from the fires that burn beside you.




-06/30/2011

©Farhana Jahan

On avoidance of action.

When my voice is raised and
your voice is raised
and we are screaming at the sky
wondering why
no one can hear us
over the hollow quiet
of shattered ears.

When our darting eyes
follow every refracted glare
to avoid the gaping wound,
fractured earth,
swallower of light.

Silence is a golden dagger,
held to a throat.

You and I,
our bodies crumble to the dust--
swept along sidewalks,
between columns
of spines, rows of ribs.
The cage door cracked
but the heart didn't fly,
didn't even flutter.
And still you wonder,
why?

Why our lips move in a vacuum,
a dance not satisfactory,
a pair of lovers not communicating
but unable to step away?

There it is, that gaping wound again,
swallowing the day again.
Dry and cracked,
the fissures split
little rivulets of red
out and over the edge,
threatening to spill
into straining pupil,
still darting, still darting away.

The dagger plunges,
the river plunges
into darkness, illuminated.
All is lifted, all is light.

And then the cries begin,
and the eyes begin
to see:

There is blood in the streets!
There is blood in the streets!
And yet the foot paths, tire-tracks
paint on into glowing taillights.



-12/03/10

© Farhana Jahan

Beyond the Fringe

(I)

I creep on the edges
along dust-filled lines in wallpaper,
the invisible crackles infinite chasms
I can’t cross with my little feet.
Beyond the fringe
I see the soles of your shoes,
details only visible from below.
Your voice is thunder
and sometimes I shake on the precipice
waiting to fall in,
fall up
into view.
That leap into the jagged unknown
promises an inferno
to melt the hard edges I cling to.
But I douse the flames
with icy breath and gazes
(a drop of sweat falls here, an escaped tear).
Hold myself away
from the crash,
risky descent.

On scabbed knees,
post-traumatic attempts
and last-second realizations,
I stumble
not ungratefully
back along my dusty paths,
content myself with a wistful smile.
I am safe here.

(II)

Sometimes I float past
small enough to see the dust motes in your eyes,
often as invisible.
I'll land on a strand of your hair,
and you'll move on
unaware.



-11/04/10

© Farhana Jahan

Untitled

Fragile frame on toothpick stilts,
I hover with my head in space clouds--
nebulae of dreams made of sequined dust.
My knees quake like a baby bird's,
wings just as useless.
I am swept along by the currents
always dancing to keep my balance.
These limbs are stronger and more nimble than they seem.
At such heights, bright cold does funny things,
bronzes and blushes cheeks
painting maps onto my face.
I can't know where I'm going
half blind with colors in my eyes.
I will not sleep, not even at night
when the black satin sheet beckons.
I keep knocking at the sky,
plucking stars out of the dusk.



-11/04/10

© Farhana Jahan

"Maybe being good isn’t about getting rid of anything. Maybe being good has to do with living in the mess. In the moment. In the frailty. In the failures. In the flaws. Maybe what I try to get rid of is the goodest part of me. Maybe good is about developing the capacity to live fully inside everything. Our body is our country, the only city, the only village, the only every we will ever know. Our body is the carrier of the stories of the world, of the earth, of the mother. Our body is our home. We live in a good body."

-Eve Ensler, The Good Body

Untitled

I paint my lungs black
in dark comedy,
No consequences in my eye.
Teeth and bells echo and
die before they reach the pulpit,
Cracked with a million lies,
heavy sighs;
They wax and wane,
half moons meeting in a broken sky.
My wings clipped and fell down,
down mid-flight
by great shears in the twilight.
I never saw them behind me.
They were never really there.
Only dreams my feet dared,
dragging roots through dirt
caked in pavement,
a lightening-maze,
picture-mirror of the broken sky.
The only clouds I walk on
are dust.
The devils tug at my toes and curl
their sharp tails around them.
Little by little I crumble and slip
like sand into the quick.
Those phantom wings are still bent where they were tossed,
And I keep reaching,
I keep crawling
to all that I have lost.



-10/26/10

© Farhana Jahan