Monday 17 October 2011

OCTOBER NIGHT

OCTOBER NIGHT
Seema Gill
The moonlight
stretched out to touch
my feet, as a daughter's blessing
... The breeze synchronised music
in my ears
like a lover's kiss
While out there, like an errant vulture
the night was playing
a game of light and shadows
wrapping in it's wings
death and destruction

This journey from peace to conflict
is just another power struggle

Peace, a rare commodity
displays itself in disguise
in the name of war
Peace is....
Peace is my guardian angel
Is my mother's aching feet
I touch it
to bless my journey!

This poem was published in a peace poetry anthology we compiled after the 9/11 event and is still fresh! To buy the peace poetry anthology, SUN DOVES, BUMBLEBEES & BLUE STREAK BANANAS, please write to:seema@seemagill.org

Friday 14 October 2011

A FIREFLY RIDE

Seema Gill

The sky is spiced
with rose petal clouds
touching raggedly on
my blue black hair
Like a thirsty rider
on the zigzagged alley of her dreams
I’m chasing illusion in the calm of a whirlpool

As the winding road slides ahead
like a slithering rattlesnake
like the monsoon drizzle on a pee pal tree
like an image from Kroyer’s painting
like my heart beats with solitude
like the shining bush of stars bending down
to touch my mother’s feet
like I shiver in anticipation

The sun skitters down through a
tiny black hole in my window fantasy
And the metaphorical
rain from my words pour down
I touch the scattered vapours with my eyes
A storm gathering
cryptically intended
My finger tips are twittering like birds
My feet grow taller with a burning itch
I’m traveling through the blizzard of a time machine
I hold my vulnerability in my hands like a crystal ball
I smoke the fireflies from its intangibility
I paddle vigorously on my journey
I shut out all the other noises
The earth is spinning with me
like a woman’s raw fantasy

Showers of illusion drown themselves
in a ambiguous horizon
I’m lost in this jungle of truth bewilderment
A moon walker trapped in the light like a dead wasp
shakes me up, ruthlessly reminding
“Look, you got to keep on moving.’

(This poem was published in 'Reach'.

Thursday 13 October 2011

I DON'T WANT TO SELL MY HEART

Seema Gill
I don’t want to sell my heart
Selling is for suckers
They suck the blood of the dispossessed
The pot-bellied monsters will never confess
They sell pieces of their soul to claim fame
They sell their dignity with no shame
They will send the boy to fight a war
If he ever comes home, he’ll carry their scar
Many more are dying, many more will tell tale
All their glory will be put to sale

I was sitting on a bench in a famous park
A bit scared and lonely, it was getting pitch dark
I had a three legged monkey in my back pocket
And a beggar asked whether I've seen his ‘rocket’
Are you a terrorist? trembling I asked
He looked me up and down and laughed
No madam, but I got a story with a twist
If I ever tell it to you, you’ll admit
That I just wanna lighten up my freedom
No, no, no, I don’t wanna end up in martyrdom
If freedom will be rounded up for interrogation
I’m afraid I’ll loose my fifty pounds salvation

Where do you think the freedom will end?
When she’s let loose she got no one to offend.
An I ‘m sitting on a lonely park bench
with the pinch of freedom in my heart’s content
My freedom and I are never apart
An I’m not selling you my golden autumn ache-heart

Friday 7 October 2011

I MET YOU ON THE FAST TRACK OF TIME

I MET YOU ON THE FAST TRACK OF TIME
Seema Gill

I met you on the fast track of time
I, in my whithering elegance
And you in your divine prime
Like a shuddering sunray
Your image tickled my minds doubt
The glint in your eyes made me sway

Beneath the words we spoke
Between the lines we wrote
From the lines we didn’t cross
Freedom was caught
in desires golden cage

Without my wish
The concepts were drawn
On the battlefield of life
The distance is spread like dragon’s wing
Before the opening of my heart
Thursting to enter when we’re apart

Behind the walls of norms
Ritual was never performed
In between the canvas of trust
Images were yet drawn
Choices were never made
So the freedom didn’t bleed
And yet I ask this question
Why didn’t we feel the need?

I cage my golden wish
Hold it suspended in the air
My wish a razor blade
Ready but doesn’t dare
I met you on a fast track
That lights the fire in my heart
Pulls me back and yet we’re apart

Saturday 1 October 2011

FISHER WOMAN OF KERALA

FISHER WOMAN OF KERALA
By Seema Gill

She is not walking
She’s churning the sea
Sculpting hope
Each step cast on the tight rope
As sharp as the edge of a tidal wave!

She is not watching
Her eyes shower stars and dreams
hung upon the barbed wire
of survival!

She is not breathing
She’s melting the ring of fire
Each flame drips the sweat of her labour
into the fat belly of a shark!

She is not living
She is clothed in the layers of misconception
chasing the light and shadow
as they squeeze her body in a python grip!

She is not sleeping
She’s getting ready
to swim the life’s unglazed clay pot
risking her self
desperate for salvation!

She is not rising
She’s fuming with discontent
fighting to get free
from the claws of slavery
Wrapped in her arms is a bundle of hungry children!

And yet the roof over her head is a tattered norm
as fragile as the ray of Sun
hitting her conscience with an iron glow!