Half a Night

terrorists in cyberspace........

......... i sure am glad i don`t have to take a test on this poem ......... years ago i learned to hate poetry because you always had to guess what the poet was trying to say ............ trying to say?....... i often wondered, ``why the heck doesn`t the poet just come out and say it?.... goddamn it!.........what is holding her back from pouring it all out ...........cat got your tongue?....... get on with it, save us the suspense!............. what is this?.... some kind of sadistic and systematic torture for schoolboys who have dirty thoughts during algebra class ?............

............ and then you grow up and think your worst days are over and you never have to read one more unbalanced line of poetry ......... and you begin to think that maybe, just maybe, now that you are all grown up, you don`t have eat spinach or read the koran which is perhaps the worst book of poetry ever written by a man with wings .............but no, sir!...... it seems that these poets just won`t go away !............ they follow you around, torturing you with their wretched tortured thoughts .......... everywhere; they are everywhere - on the backs of busses and rickshaws, on the walls of public toilets, on bubble gum wrappers and inside fortune cookies ................and now they are in cyberspace ............

No, there need not be one interpretation...I just have a problem with the idea that anything strongly worded automatically means its ``lesbian``. And on top of that, whats up with all these folks with gaydar? Everyone`s an authority in attributing the most extreme behavior to a group they dont belong to...

The poem itself is confusing, although as I wrote before, it has some strong moments. ``Flaky crust`` is a phrase used for pie ads in the US, for example. It doesnt have the same resonances as other phrases in the poem.

but then again. . .must it be just one interpretation?

when a poem is read `literally` it stops making sense. as does fiction. heck, life as some of us know it.

half a night, half a life. . .

How in goddess`s name was this confused for a lesbian parable?

Does one need to belong to a group to read its literature?

Finally, Farzana, while there are some interesting moments in this poem, I think the confusion of the readership of the meanings of the poem should be a cue to revise this.

best,

People are reading too much into this poem, wondering about the symbolism and what it can mean in an abstract sense. I think you are barking up the wrong tree. This is a literal poem about Necrophilia. About a man that likes to f**k corpses.

Right?

The Dead Gal has made all the difference!!

Brilliant indeed :)

ferz:

hamesha ki tarah:)?…you leave me no choice…so I scramble down to the baithak to look up a quote in a heavenly book…cannot find it…you know the one that runs something like this …“Go, tell them they will always act like men; for they know naught! Go, tell them that She will (always) have the final word.”

hermeneutists are still arguing whether it is a small s or capital…but either way…our fate is sealed…(hamidm bro feel free to ruminate)...

bspnd

t

A few more thanks...and am glad that there are women and men who do not feel the necessity to trap you in slots. I am not the kind to hide from anything and certainly not from what I am...

maryam:

I do not think one can write this sort of poetry without either being a part of the experience or a witness to it. However, words give the experience/witnessing a sharper edge.

temp:

``sans soul`` certainly has many possibilities, but I felt the reference to the ``she`` in my poem would do with my definition. But then you can always add to her...hamesha ki tarah:)

Faiza:

This is not about women in prostitution; it is not even about the exploitation of the body, but the often observed nullification of a woman`s being - she becomes a creature of the past, a ghost, and instead of haunting she becomes the haunted. I have used the physicality to underline what lies beneath...I could have used emotional language, been more suble, but it would not have worked...

PS: Hope it is smiling time again for you...you shall overcome!

kyla:

I guess the ``trickiness`` worked:-)

F

Ferzana!!!!

“Had this been a lesbian poem, then the `she` would not be talking to a ``dog``, but another b!tch. “

The word should have been “Pig” instead of dog. Bich has no meaning in the milieu. “Dog” is mildly admonishing and mostly endearing. People often say “you dog!” sounds so gay. You may hear “you pig” too but that is pure reproach.


“Roll over, dog”

Rollover is one word.

Roll over in two words is used in financial context.

“memories in rigor mortis?”

“Is it death you take to bed”

I will be as discreet as I can. If I am not, I am not!
Occasionally, gay girls go on rebound and on a binge. Men often sense at the point of contact, girls freeze for a sec and constrict.
Like a virgin would do the first time. The diff being a virgin is in anticipation and a gay woman is drowning in guilt. So the momentary death in your work sounds gay!

Words are too strong, not feminine at all.

“…gay literature...wonder why you are”
I reckon you don’t live in the US. Gay lit. Currently leads the lit. created in the US.

“since one is comfortable in one`s skin (and with it, I might ad),”

Ah ha!
Oprah Winfrey declares: ``I am not in the closet. I am not coming out of the closet. I am not gay.``


what could it be
that makes you see through me
allows you to view inside
to see the tears silently cried
oh my transparent soul
overshadowed by thoughts of control
inner visualizations of we
not wanting to believe the prophesy
craving the motivation to change
to escape the paranoia of blame
how quickly we are allowed to ignore
the good times that were there before
i foolishly thought that we were immune
but our relationship has been fire consumed
my eyes are no longer covered with a hood
your past pain is being understood
-anon

My eyes trickle over your sculpted hips
like cool spring water caressing
sun-warmed river rocks.
I marvel at the purity
of your ivory skin.
Your body,
so long untouched
is flawless like the landscape
after a midnight snowfall.
I want to walk across it
with feather-light fingertips;
careful to leave no blemish,
no sign I was ever here.
Only,
we would know.

Alright. Here we go. Dead girl has made sense to me now. And I love it even more, for its trickiness, its refusal to state the obvious and make you think about itself. Excellent work. ``half-baked desires``; ``flavoured lies``. It`s spot-on and brilliant. And this is my favourite:

It’s requiem for spring smiles
as she gathers autumn leaves
in the dirt roads
squeezing her thighs.

Hello Farzana Sahiba
Hope you are doing well. I was on a self-imposed exile from Chowk (which lasted a whole 2 days;) )but I came across your poem and had to ask one thing,
Is the poem in reference to women forced into prostitution?? ``She awaits another morgue night.`` She is forced into night after night of torture?

Or is this about women in general, because some do say ``marriage is a legal form of prostitution.``
Anyways, loved the vicious morbidity of your poem. Take care.

Faiza Hussain

ferzi:

sans soul also has more possibilities...am surprised you limited it to.....

khair


maryam:

a writer always lurks somewhere as the creator of the piece just as God can be seen behind everything in nature...

the onus is on the reader to search


...t

It would take a necrophiliac to enjoy this poem. Trust you to make even sex seem disgusting. This is the chowk version of the movie ``Monster``.

I liked the line ``obsessions are not certainties`` though. This line could come in handy sometime...

this poem is too complex for me.

i liked it farzana.
my favorite line was

`You are too drenched to notice
she rains too. `

are you anywhere in this poem? i mean, besides being the author, character wise..if yes, how much would you say?
lallaalalalalalaaaaa

peace

Jang:
[Unfortunately the reality is not that poetic..kind of feels dirty to like literature based on suffering.]

This is an interesting subject. Is the reader a voyeur for reading such lines or is the writer an exhibitionist? Do either of these take away from the inherent suffering and its projection? Does the suffering get exaggerated in its saying and can catharsis truly be a collective purge? One must not see all poetry as `poetic` in the mould of it being romanticised. This one clearly is not.

If it feels ``dirty``, then one is sensitive to its resonances.
- - -

warpster:
[What did you have in mind with

It takes a lifetime
to realise
obsessions are not certainties.]

An obsession is when you want something badly, are in a constant state of craving for that to the point the `object` makes you self-absorbed (as it does to the ``you`` in the poem...the preceding line explained that ``you are too drenched to notice she rains too``) or in the case of her, the obsession turns into a dead-end from where she has to return. This going towards the cul de sac and having to trace her steps back is part of the self-destructive obsessiveness. Which is why it takes a lifetime and not merely an experience. (Hope this has not complicated things further!)
- - -

temp:

This is the first time I have used the third person in a poem and although I was initially uncomfortable, I now feel that I can relate to ``her`` with some amount of compassion and an equal measure of disgust. In your poem you have said that she is ``sans soul``...I would not think so. I do not need to explain to you that she is not dead, she comes with the residue of the past and her awakening becomes a harbinger of a return to it...the future is another morque, another past. If she were without a soul, or a body, she would not have been so tactile and so `alive` to the possibility and potential of death. Don`t you think so?

Love,
F