The song in the restaurant
warbled -
'but it's over now'
whatever it was.
From a platter of kebabs
turning rubbery before waning appetites
a trembling voice fell -
salty
stripped
drowned
in a placid green dip.
there was no fragrance at our table.
All spices were cautious
not to numb or burn
and the rehearsed words -
'leaving' 'failing' 'explain' 'not your fault' -
bubbled, soda-like,
and fell flat.
the song changed, as if on cue.
I didn't ask for anything
sweet.
You didn't wait for coffee.
and that was that.
(C) Annie Zaidi, January 2007
choosing to leave your
city was a bad idea;
leaving never cures the heart, or
even the head.
all it does,
really, is to
let you believe that
you've begun afresh, that
it is possible to begin afresh, that
hope was not the last vicious demon to trick Pandora's ear.
a city away, it is easy to see it was -
volatile, worn-out rag of a sickness from which
escape is as inconceivable as cure.
nevertheless, leaving your city was
one of those impulsive, abortive ideas
that you are possessed by, like a spirit, like
hope, or like a moment one cannot argue with;
in retrospect, it is easy to see, but
now that you have left your city,
gone off a quietened cliff with a
bubble of green dream between your teeth and
edgy caves giving in
to your knuckles, and
the twine of bohemia wiggling up your
elastic nights, now that a
raw finale no longer nips at your heel,
to have left your city remains
one of those bad ideas that keep you alive
despite the city hissing at you to get lost, go,
or else!
[This is an acrostic, with a code embedded in the first letter of each line]
(C) Annie Zaidi, September 2006
I do not know what it does
for you
but this, I can guess -
It is vital to you, as vitality goes
(and I? I suspect, am less).
They say, it is almost more
than just an organ part.
It has a head, a body, a tail -
(does it even have a heart?)
Insulin and Glucagon and
Polypeptide cells -
who would've thought of pan-creation
as a river of alkali hells?
They say, it is imperative
if you must live and lie.
(For if you live, lie you must;
you're just that kind of guy)
Now you're in need and I can't help;
I don't have healing powers.
And I'd give my heart, had you asked,
but not my pancreas.
(C) Annie Zaidi, July 2006
If I could meet Achilles,
I'd hold his foot
against the heel of my palm
to weigh the skin of trust
against
a half-breed's eternally pierced ambition.
(C) Annie Zaidi, October 2006
A heart can come alive
in the dead of night,
can drag you
up the cliff of a nightmare
and forget to push.
A heart can fail
in so many ways
you cannot count the cracks
on the mashed-up face
of this demented thing
that just will not see.
A heart can break twice-over, thrice-over,
over and over
and go on breaking even when
it is gone - all of it
is accounted for,
each square millimeter,
in this or that or before-that accident,
mishandle-ment, unforeseen-ment, saw-it-coming-but-tried-to-defy-destiny
moment.
A heart shouldn't be there,
but it is.
Like a phoenix of mist and dew
picking itself up out of ash, melding,
it sits at the cusp of life,
dawn-like,
eternally breaking.
(C) Annie Zaidi, October 2006
Celebration/ Happy
Birthday – 3
Often, I go looking
for excuses to celebrate,
for reasons
to
kiss the day awake,
draw back the curtains on a slipping youth.
I go looking
for crumbling walls,
honeysuckling a perfumed night.
I go looking
for back-lanes, determined
to stay decrepit,
dazed in the face of too much light.
Often, I go looking
for patterns, for pleasure, for grace, for inspiration, for a minute alone:
in cafes, in distant parts of town
in urban myths of endurance
in rooms decorated with personal history
in translations of violently a-rythmic poetry.
I go looking
for a silence as shallow
as ambition
for a voice as deep as
sorrow
for a liquid destiny
for a moment of deja vu.
Often, I go looking
for God,
or a clue,
or a salve, or salvation, or God-knows-what?
But often,
I stumble onto you...
And that is often
excuse enough.
(C) Annie Zaidi. Oct 5, 2005
I want to talk today
about roses.
Red ones.
Roses that I am not in the habit of buying, sending, receiving, sniffing at,
or even squashing inside the fat Oxford dictionary -
just for the pleasure
of watching them lose the habit
of enchantment.
I want to talk today
about that shade of
memory:
crackly, sour, brittle,
one-dimensionally
intact -
inside the fat, hard-cover Oxford dictionary.
I want to talk today
about fat dictionaries
that cling to rose-wood shelves,
in denimesque hard covers:
the kind I no longer buy.
I want to talk today
about the things I no longer buy:
because I need not,
because I must not,
because so many others cannot,
because nobody tells me 'It's a gift... please'.
I want to talk today
about the gifts I do not accept
on account of
space issues
fabric and texture and 'will-it-last' issues
memory issues
retrieval and retractment issues.
I want to talk
of issues that have nothing to do with today
or everyday.
I do not want to talk today.
I do
not want to talk today.
(C) Annie Zaidi, August 2005
Grow your hair a little
longer.
So you may learn
how strong shoulders
can make vicious strands of death
curl.
Grow your hair a wayward length -
just a finger below your jaw
So your laughter is clouded
and an eternal fall
lies, listless, on your
ear.
Grow some hair too on your chin:
let the rebellion of stubble
morph into the wisdom of a beard.
Let your hair grow in
to the challenge of collared shirts.
Let your hair grow out
of the habit of finesse.
Grow your hair
new rebel
wistful poet
dreadlocked hermit
braided tribal warlord.
Grow your hair until
you grow
into the skin of my
dreams.
(C) Annie Zaidi, March
2005