2 poems
by Hibah Shabkhez
eye doctor
The rods of the machines are guitar strings
My drumstick fingers chase in vain. I wait
For the eye-doctor who is to make straight
All the weaving, flickering, rippling things
Of this office, this hospital, this life.
Ah, mais c’est une guerre, une guerre d’ombres,
Une guerre ingagnable -
The eye-doctor must teach me how to see
Stool-tops, and not these earth-quaking mountains,
Forbid the curtains to tread their stately
Measures beside their own shadow-fountains;
Ban the light and fan their eternal strife.
Ah, mais c’est une guerre, une guerre d’ombres,
Vitale et impitoyable;
The eye-doctor brings forth a battery
Of frames and lense-glass, but the fan fights
Back, swishes across the flickering lights,
And makes all the machines dance in the scree-
Shadows of an imaginary knife.
Ah, mais c’est une guerre, une guerre d’ombres
Une révolte ingérable.
Holiday Homework
You'll stand at the skylight in the gloaming
That makes lonely mountains of the rooftops,
Singing of love and loss, of hearts breaking
For burnt pains au chocolat, for lamb chops,
And the summer-worlds where mangoes reign.
You'll pirate and wrench love-songs to lament
All things lorn, ludicrous and lame that tug
The tears out, then pour all the laughter meant
For great joys on them like mayo. You'll hug
And guard it like a last unspoilt seed-grain.
You’ll go on smashing vases, to piece them
Back with strong glue and genuine regret,
Until you learn to graft memory’s stem
Seamlessly onto the branch that will let
Exile's stony clay turn homeward again.
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Black Bough, Zin Daily, London Grip, The Madrigal, Acropolis Journal, Lucent Dreaming, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her. Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez
