Skewed

by Umm-e-Aiman Vejlani

The parrot puts on its green
coat – lime, unspotted, smooth,
even-coloured, featherless,
a neck long and graceful unlike any
other parrot’s, steps out of its keep
with the aplomb of a ballerina,
onto the sill sitting its trough
of nectar;

the heat doesn’t refrain its beak
as it pouts at the albino pigeon
struggling sight against the sun,
watching the trough longingly;

the only difference of distance
between my grilled enclosing
and the parrot’s is the colour
of feet

and the quality of the white-wash –
mine not having withstood

the weight of summer.

Training in an afternoon,

by Umm-e-Aiman Vejlani

you poised on a cushion chair
fit for a queen. I sit attractive,
primly balancing my aching back
on the edge of my seat, identical
ivory white, my legs crossed
like a lady of grace, feet tucked
the way it should be, in the plush
dining room of your tasteful villa
narrating to me tales of Neverland –
the adventures of misfit dares –
through coughed up giggles
a toned nasality, not too loud
dying down to soft snorting,
your eyes, all the while, glinting
what cannot be told. I wonder,
the ache in my feet turning sharp,
distracted by the glowing silver
between your strands of white,
and lips perked in impish defiance
to laws for the girls governing
your days of time, of the nights
you gloat were spent illustrious
under starry roofs, keeping a man
bent on one knee, serenading
his heart out, whilst you amused  
the hours away bathing in praise.
I shift a foot to allow it a groan
as your meticulous eye overtly
disapproves the human erring
and I suck a long breath in,
my youth just breaking out,
resuming position. The planets,
I imagine, cause mayhem
like temperamental tempests
and be awed for raw displays,
be exalted for imperfections
bringing storms and solstices
stirring the mind of a man
without powders or perfumes,
gentle movements or coyness;
and here we are, you teaching
my mind and body
to lay still
of essence.

I found the water in pieces

by Umm-e-Aiman Vejlani

that weren’t ripples, capillaries or waves;
she moved with the agility of a new-born fish,

revealing nothing of her characteristics,
her fins not fully developed to the system

of sharing without telling;
her jaunty curious expeditions,

miles of space in front of her, beneath
the grace in grace, letting it be;

the wisdom only the water she consumed
unknowing if her scales would grow even

and that losing was not the same as shedding,
what broke off couldn’t re-journey

but hybrids like pieces travelling backwards

it didn’t matter how far to go,
the water would chisel to refinement

until nothing remained but a cloud
(in water)

that smelt and tasted different.

Revolution

by Umm-e-Aiman Vejlani

A new day begins sounding out the bugle
of change that was to rise in the usual rut;
converting methods for altering thoughts
blown like a bubble through a game loop
plastic in aesthetic yet to be bent or tried
there were eager witnesses that watched,
waiting by the sun to rise or set in gamble,
of a beguiling truth over energized fallacies
by posturing sanity in guise of a faith green.
The day revealed a mettle raging loud
to suppress entitlements of a mind free
of ideals, uniting a voice in absent choices
of change: can be a thing true or just fancy
vocabulary accrued by tongues used to
impede or compel the birth of
yet another rebellion.

Seekers

by Umm-e-Aiman Vejlani

Humans chase prophecies;

they pretend to be brave,
speak in loud tones,

swear by names of ancestors’,
calling upon the scry,

paying in heaps of wealth
borrowed or loaned,

only for a peek into the future.

Yet, they chase away crows
from their windows

at noon, calling their sounds
hauntings of stray souls, ghosts

deprived of proper burial rites.
Humans chase superstitions,

just the way the crow selects
its window for breaking news to;

I watch it open its beak

to make me a prediction
but eats its voice in its throat

before belching, as it watches
from its peripheral vision

my approaching menacing shadow.

Without turning its head,
vision fixed on me, it hops off

leaving me chasing empty
myths, the crow may have

endorsed – probably right
from the horse’s mouth –

message from the future,
about my today.

Uneven

by Umm-e-Aiman Vejlani

Standing afore split frequencies,
Watching each other in sequences
from separate vestibules of faith,
While they mull and cull us figures
foolish; emaciated of coherence.

We are linear, parallel but serrated
in evenness; while the world pulses
of the ordinary, sifting from the rare,
our defiance flares, resilience tears,
we become a monument of debate.

You and I will inspire forms of art
to celebrate us; the uneven, canvas
or sculpture will don the admiration
that we were plainness, like mail
of the everyday; slipped under
the doorway of conventions many.

There will be no study of realness,
Only musings and silent greetings,
We will become carefully guarded,
Tagged and priced, dutifully dusted,
Elevated in value transcendent
of beauty itself; in irony, after its end.

Now we exist as an after thought
 in the same world, same unevenness
with different voices defending us over
wine and cigars or rap and graffiti.