POETS’ CORNER
“Love is a smoke and is made with the fume of sighs.”
— William Shakespeare
“Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.”
— Franklin P. Jones
“It is better to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.”
— William Makepeace Thackeray?
“Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby: awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.”
— Lemony Snicket
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
— Aristotle
“Love is a serious mental disease.”
— Plato
Wallflower
By Suhd Nazeer
Water-muffled screams
don’t climb above and far. It mustn’t.
Sorrow weighed her down,
she couldn’t get rid of the creature
Gnawing at her pretty neck
after chewing up her silly smile.
As crazy people do
She fought. She succumbed
to layers of smoke— No clue
throws the dusky room.
Unsettling ’twas, at the sight
of waltz she gasped,
Or were they purely happy?
There spent she a life sipping
at her drink — feeling cold
waters against her skin.
Toward her the walls rushed
and the sea dashed in as she heard
A voice uncanny,
‘Would you dance with me mademoiselle?’
Faces in the magazine
By Haseeb Sultan
My eyes have seen too much makeup to believe,
that that’s what is reality.
So I’m trying to rub the contouring of my vision away
and finding out what beauty means.
What beauty was.
Is.
What it shouldn’t be,
and should be.
An ode to the
beloved’s abode
By SM Hassan Raza
Lurching in the lane of dread, drawn by the serpent’s scent,
Head over heels at your threshold, deep in prostration bent,
Renounce the robes or rouse the sentinel’s suspicion,
Masquerade as a mendicant, fulfil the longed ambition,
The well of Zamzam or the blood of Christ,
What is holier than such an enterprise?
On glazed glass, gleams glitter as the sun ascends,
Ghastly grey on moonlit night, but, a shadow descends,
Dust beneath the beloved’s feet, pearls of lover devout,
Blessing for the sanctuary, her presence, the dwellers gloat,
Grandeur of the façade, vines of wisteria laced,
But the apparition behind the blinds ajar we blankly gazed,
May the household’s prosperity repel the envious eye!
If once granted ingress, with paroxysm of joy I shall die.
The eminent element
By Mehma Kunwar
Climb the trees, swim in water
Or dive through the air that’s hotter
The heart itself of the tested being
Would find inside the invisible king
Dressed in the shroud of leaves
I walked into the thickest of forests
And I found the way
Carrying just a handful of straws
I jumped in the deepest of oceans
And I became the island
Attaching the flames as my wings
I flew in the deadliest of winds
And I became the sun
They thought their fire
Would burn the entire
Existence of mine
But, I stand roaring here
Bright, firm and crystal clear
Compiled by SK
