Here are a few poems that I had tucked away;

A Mind

I invite you to a mind, open.
Inviting a select few who all,
may wish to see,
A light dispersed with colours enveloping the chosen scene.
Each emotion in its own secret box, clear the way.
The grand opening only happens once.
We do not know, just how long they are here to stay,
But for just a while, we will sit, watch and listen, to this special display.

And so we clear the way,
Aroused and prickled by twisted anticipation
Pondering and yearning for whatever it is that may be coming our way.

An image slowly proceeds with a flashing caution
As the new air presses against the blue rims.
A minute or two later, it declares, ‘I am what you have hidden from others and the reason why you burn inside’.
At first, unsure and unable to distinguish whether the image had a face or not,
Curiosity slowly diminished as you became completely hypnotized by it’s cautioning
presence.

A crawling creeping crying sensation began to empty and pour down everyone’s spines
Another image began to form,
This is your mind closed
This is your mind unaware,
An image blurred,
A sickening feeling, a mighty despair.

A Disease of known origin,
Yet once, near the jugular,
A splitter of shame, in order to prevent it from vacating its shell;
Leaving all to suffer their own chosen hell
Which crumbles at the sound of the blackened bell.

Once all the shaking has seized,
A breeze blows in a promised deed.
A declaration of one’s own choice to understand and deal with the plans, laid out ahead,
An acceptance, and love for the one without a mind,
Or the mind that has become askew
With different interpretations of the life holding sun.

The earth remains within the dancing movement that it has known and understood for so long,
Pushing back these parts and essences’ of the splintered mind, into their boxes, that has become far too dangerous to bear.

Until unlocked with a passionate hand that,
Will once again be swallowed whole
Where everything will once more return to the beginning.

A mind closed.

© Zehra Mustafa

The Crazy Prayer

I am a crazy person,
It is all I have ever known,
Nobody knows this, but it is all I have ever been shown.
I am a crazy person,
Amen.

I shall always eat my corn with my long fork one by one
I will forever ruin the fun that is me, I am the one,
I bathe in the dying winter sun after the rain has been and done
I am the crazy person
Amen.

I will always devour my cereal in the purity of hot water
I pray to remain that crazy daughter
“Who is that crazy person”?
I am that crazy person
Amen

My little crazy prayer is uttered in to the ears of the crazy ones
So here I am
Placed upon their throne
Bound by my little crazy ones,
Knitted to their chair by their finest scarlet red wool

The love of my crazy ones permit a breathing space in the fine knit wool to leave a hole for my big toe to fall out of
This is the love from the crazy ones
They make me the crazy one
Amen
Amen
Amen

© Zehra Mustafa

Potions (An Ode to Marriage)

Add three young bluebells, my mother had taught me;
Five stems: no more, no less from the ancient Japanese maple tree,
A lesson will be learnt here, so listen to me.
Entwined with the lilies and a flashing snicker is always an appropriate and likely trigger

Shake them and stir them on a cool breezy summer’s day,
You, my dear have captured the very essence
The paradise that belongs to the housewife’s soul.

The swing on the swept porch and
A chain waits for you in Hell’s Kitchen.
Along with White picket fences and
Smouldering furnaces

The crows are cawing and
There sits a lonely magpie
Hell vibrating within the small screaming child

Breakfast
Brunch
Lunch
Dinner
A prayer on my knees to no longer be a sinner,
A husband wants loving, and praising at dinner

Hide in the garden,
When the night is still,
And hide in the stars.
Pray for the night breeze to take away the sticky maple stem, and forget the petals one by one
Just so that they can be free.

A shell
Waves and blood
A vision surrounded by little hands letting go
A voice crashing and heaving on, slipping in,
The sickness edges forward.

When did the trees turn into that luscious green?
Now I can see that I have missed the daffodils.
Everyone forgot to tell me, that life, somehow goes on
No worries, no worry
All of this, I shall let go.

The sun came through the window
A sweet unknown breeze played with me as it swept across my tiered, aching breasts
The smell of jasmine filled my clear head
No need to fret,
There are no more chores that need to be met
Today I am free.

The small child and his father, like and alike
Locked down bellow.

The small glinting key rests against my white pillow
It wasn’t too hard
A slip of rat
An eye of newt engorged in the blood of a hemorrhaging bat.

Poisoning and burning is a small price to play
For a moment’s silence, and breath
In the sun
To finally exist,
To be someone.

© Zehra Mustafa