Tag: literature

I was always far away from you, living in a different city
When that distance grew during my global going
I smiled and said,
I love this “no eyes, no tears” position, as our Bangla proverb says.

But who knew then that
If you don’t have eyes,
Your eye-pots would become a void mine
Who knew then that the more you go far away
Along the bank of the river Brisbane
The more your eye-pots refill
And your heart sob like the river Karnafuli!

A holiday, a seclusion, a silence make me homesick
Unfamiliar faces, voices, and dialects
Create cravings for the lost and the left out

To restore
I immediately make phone calls
And seek to hide in the distant familiar
And seek to cabbage my days with the digital love

But calls are to end
The digital is to drop
Then again the void reopens
seclusion unwraps the heart
I feel like a bare banana
And tremor like the river Chotofeni
In the fold of Brisbane.

===x===

Umme Salma, 2016, July

Something was burning
My daughters ran into my room,
“Ah! what a nasty, smoky smell!”
I hugged them and said,
It’s nothing but my burning heart.

Something was burning
My neighbours got alarmed,
“Alas, alas, what a terrible event!”
I assured them and said,
It’s nothing but my burning heart.

Something was burning
The whole nation was shocked
“We’re undone; we’re undone.”
I calmed my country and said,
Oh! It’s nothing but my burning heart.

Umme Salma, Toowong, 2016
 

“Are you unwell?” “No, thank you.”
“Is everything okay, honey? Sure?” “Yep, alright.”
“Then, why? Why are you looking so keyed up?
The world seems to be topsy-turvy and
You look like a fretting, patchy stone
scattering sharp shards all around?”

I don’t have any answers to these queries
except shooting the sight
towards the purple jacaranda and scarlet flame trees
Spring is here
Beauty clutches the spooky branches
Petals are timely, flying down in the light breeze
Carpeting the ground with unique colours
We are elated and revel in every moment with the bloom

But who is there to see the sob of the fallen petals,
Which, wiggling at our feet,
have made the ground pretty for frequent clicks!

Umme Salma, published,

Whilst I stare at you
I write buzzing rhymes quite a few.

Seas, hills, skies, rivers
All move far, far away
Only the light breeze rings
A multiple sob rapidly springs

In me, shivering deep in my core
A black cuckoo also sails her lore
Calls the Spring and joyfully sings
And does waltz me in rainbowing

Whilst I stare at you
At once, I write buzzing rhymes quite a few.

Umme Salma, 2022

My fury flattens the hilly dough with a roller!
My anger cut the timid vegetables into pieces!
The vicious green/red chilli seems enraged
but cannot cope with me
The scented cardamon spreads its aroma to flatter me
but my furious heart smashes them and throw in broth
I am ruthless, carry out mayhem in the kitchen every day.

You do not see this me
The colourful, delicious meals please you.
You burp over sumptuous cuisine and a wife…

O, no, you are not Agamemnon
who is setting off his fleet to rescue a Helen
You are not going to sacrifice Clytemenstra’s Ifigenia
to give life to the still ships on the bank of Aegean
You are just a timeless patriarch
who move over every land from time to time
to dip the sunray in your dark, narcissistic world

Lest I should excel you with my artistic promise.

Umme Salma

Published in Hecate in 2022

I went far, far away from you
I hate even seeing your shadow
You are the one, still…though
For whom, my songs slowly flow

Still
Your winters sadden me
Your griefs burn the heap of glee
Who? … no no…What are you?
An absence presence, a blurring hue?

When the string of a sitar is torn
Tear drops; new sores are born
Couldn’t you be
A sweet numbness in my me?
A numbness that removes all pain
A solid wash with no stain

Anyway…keep smiling, shine through life
All steps be blissful, all efforts mellowing rife
Ah! I am alone,
Lover goes, leaving behind love’s clone,
Living cyclone…

Umme Salma, 2023, Toowong

Just like you, dear, I had two lips
They used to do what I loved—
pursing, pouting, sulking or mocking
They used to release sounds that I loved
like the sweet honey oozing from a fallen jar
like an irate flame bouncing from a burning hearth.

But
now
My lips are no more than a pair of red flesh
Structured on a plastered face
They dangle a fake smile in one corner
and shed a sly shimmer like a misplaced dash
No rule shines there
No norm dances
And no sweet tweets follow even.

Are they now the lips of Dracula’s lovers
Do they sprout rage and revenge
Swelling the cheeks and wrinkling the nose
Suck your lifeblood in the dark night?

This is then your earnings, honey,
This is the return
Of stomping on my lips
on my words infinite

Umme Salma, Toowong

On a rainy day
I was about to serve on a designer tray
Some sweet nothings
To my love
Always, who craves the sunray
Who craves something
High above.

But
I am a dot, too tiny
A world bland, no shiny.
So
I’ve no sunshine, no blooming ray
I have only rough dog days
Rainy and grey

I wanted to offer those in a pinkish tray
To my love
A heart, torn, tatty, trembling
On a rainy day

But who wants woe during this YouTube time?
My love closed the rhyme we used to write

===x===

Umme Salma, Toowong, forgot the year…
 

আমি আজ আত্মভোলা তোমাকে ভুলে
আমার গোলাপে নেই আর কোন রঙ
আমি আজ পথহারা তোমাকে হারিয়ে
আমার ক্যাকটাস আর খুলেনা আড়ং।

ভুল শব্দটির এমন মানে হতে পারে কখনো বুঝিনি
আমার সত্তায় জড়িয়ে এনে দিয়ে পারে আত্নার জরা
কখনো ভাবিনি হারিয়ে যাবে যে পথ বড় বেশী চিনি
আমার সত্ততায় এসে যাবে দুনিয়াবী মোহময় খরা ।

আমি আজ তাই
বড্ড বেদনায় অসীম কান্নায়
লোপাট হয়ে যাই।

আমি আজ তাই
রঙহীন তরঙ্গে দৃষ্টি আড়ঙে
ধুসর হয়ে যাই।

ঊম্মে সালমা, ২০১৬, টুওং

Stop 
Wait a sec 
Let the red light flash
The lines of cars pause
And the zebra crossing trudge

Stop...hang on...for a sec

What ghosts are chasing you that
You run and turn so madly pushing 
Safety and security down your to-do list! 

What hooligans are running after you that 
You slid and slide so unwittingly erasing 
Reasoning and seasoning from your manual! 

No citizen of the soul can live in a rush
No citizen of the heart can love in a hurry 

They need to delay for the body to bleed hormones 
They need to defer for the heart to tweet 
The pining gorgones warm greetings

Otherwise 

How will you hear 
my sweetest nothings?
How will you know that 
The fire that blows me is your making?
Your painting of an abstract art 

That can be damaged by an unrequited fury
unsauced steps tasteless touch...

Umme Salma, Toowong, 20/09/2025