Shwot

Its always great to read something so angrily refreshing-tends to break the monotony.

Brilliant as usual.

Shandy, if I may call you that - your honesty is as refreshing, as your neologisms fascinating.

Here`s to hoping you find some true women friends.

Cheers,

Anita

re anita: you have hit the proverbial nail on the head (infact at this very minute it`s probably reeling around cursing you :). this poem was written was at a time when i was floating through life, rudderless and practically friendless, listening to lots of people (family and otherwise) tell me how i was wasting my time and energy doing nothing. the female thing is because in my experience women here tend to be more critical of other womens shortcomings. men tend to take you for what you are, women always judge you. a gross generalization i know, but like i said, that has been my experience.

i`ve actually just realized that most of my pieces tend to seem very anti-woman,even when i dont consciously mean them to be. call it catharsis if you will :) i`ve had to listen to a lot of female bitching and do the `i dont care what you say` thing, but i guess it marked me more deeply than i let on at the time :)

re zehra: i love rhyme. this was actually one of the first poems i wrote, rhyming or otherwise, and it continues to be one of my favourites. i recite it in the shower as often as i can.

thank you all for bothering to register your reaction

shandana

Shandana,

I really enjoy your stuff. Can`t help asking though - why does this piece remind me of ``the other woman``. There is something anti-woman here, although the cat is identified as an ``it``, you go on to refer to it as a bitc`h at the end, so you must have a female creature in mind - the poem seems to be a parable - an account of a betrayed friendship perhaps, or a relationship with a close relative that is perceived as too intrusive, even destructive. To me that comes across brutally. It is an emotive read.

Keep writing!

Anita

In the blackness that was drowning me at reading your words of not writing material like this, i almost forgot, well i DID forget, to share my reaction with you. i was surprised to see a ``rhyming poem`` and was so pleased after i read it. ryhming strikes me as chessy at times but you made it flow in this wonderful hey diddle diddle way. i loved it :) it made me feel happy, cheery and is sure as hell gonna help in the next four and half hours left to work :))

can i be in your shagirdi plz?

:P

thank you.

z.rizvi.

re: slink

what do you mean chastened and promising to never write non serious stuff again?

NOoooooooooooooooo, you CANT do that! noooooooooooooooooo...

what will become of us?

Z. (almost dead from grief) Rizvi.

as the last drops of feline life trickled from her veins, she looked through her velvet eyes in vain.

at shandy into whose room she had pranced, with the least disdain.

from hasty praise, she`ll now refrain.

and in her second, a silent well-wisher remain.

all the blood and the stain, worst was the pain.

she spoke and was misunderstood, or judged rather plain.

it was nice to see you, but you killed me --- till we meet again.

Dr. Seuss meets Edgar Allan Poe meets Henry Miller...

Meeoow!

BRILLIANT !!

... draws appreciation from amazingly varied perspectives.

dear aspiring lizard..no it wasn`t the fag (or even the tequila). beach brewery (chotu if you`e reading this it`s a brewery in karachi) has this potent lemon and pineapple vodka..but i digress :) the point is,it`s very nice of you to blame those of my pieces you dont like on my being tun at the time but it`s simply not true. i was very very sober when i wrote that.

re temporal: thank you for pointing out the fact that there are lots of things in shwot that need to be pointed out so i can spell `em right

thanks anita, amin and co :))

shandana (suitably chastened and promising to never write anything non-serious again)) minhas

I am no poet, and know little about whats good poetry, but that was a fun fun fun thing to read.

Aliya

We know that you can write much better then

this. And that has nothing to do with the

ending. That ``fag`` or tequila was just much too potent.

Ras

(Aspiring Lizard)

Assumption: the typos are unintentional-- they mar and jar an otherwise good read. And the same effect if they are intentional.

regards,

:).

Thats some serious creativity

at least in how we see it

you might well be pouring forth

yourself

something about in the end we`re all dead

comes to mind !

i could almost visualize the

electrical impulses

darting

across neurons

good stuff