Serial Poems
By: Kazi Niaz Ahmed
Tags: Poetry Writing, Literature, Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Poems On Medium

№1

It’s the wee hours of the morning, I look for two blue diamond stones fixed on a sea of expressions, a row of pearls giggling in calling me “silly”. I try to touch her delicate nails and hold her expert hands, but she remains distant like the reflection on a disturbed pond. And I fall asleep listening to the footsteps of her long-awaited coming. Halifax, 08.08.20.

№2

Aloof and alone, like a hidden gem in a secret silky cocoon, waiting to be free as though a newly minted butterfly, only the truth of her heart outshines the glow of her buttery velvet skin. Halifax, 08.08.20.

№3

I met Ms. Monroe today, in all her melancholy beauty. Her lips gripped me like the hands of Aphrodite, hence this little tribute to the soul of the goddess. When she returns from the alt-world to dream away the night, may the holy trinity comfort her home and toil. Halifax, 11.08.20.

№4

Though I knew the road was long and treacherous, I thought I had found a companion in you. It was a good start while it lasted; however, the morning doesn’t always show the day. By no fault of ours but in our stars, your inertia and my incompetence made a deadly cocktail. Now we doubt, hesitate or avoid; money can’t buy peace of mind forever. Should I see you again or take a hiatus? Would it be wiser to forget before confronting our mutual fears? Or is it prudent to try until the Great Wall falls in tatters? Halifax, 15.08.20.

№5

She had a few stock English but just enough to communicate passion and pleasure. Like a bohemian Gypsie-lady, she stops from townships to townships; her dedication to the trade makes the sudden feelings last much longer than the shadows of the sun. I am not the one to judge by her accent for I utter a heavy one as well, but I will surely judge her eyes. Are they benign or do I see the red eyes of the devil as though the constant brake lights of the preceding vehicle on the plains of the Canadian prairie nights? At times I detect love in her eyes, sometimes I find the fires of greed! Halifax, 18.08.20.

№6

I was alone for a long, long time, lost in the chain of my own thoughts. I was trying to discover something that always came to the back of my mind but never to the tip of my expressions. That ‘thing’ I saw in my dreams, that feeling during feverish deliriums, that taste that I carried over as if from my previous life; always just above the surface like the nostrils of a crocodile underwater, but never to be seen unless one is shaking hands with danger. I was looking for that ‘thing’ in the yonder when I suddenly remembered a verse from Tagore. Like a bolt of lightning, I understood the true meaning of it and I understood the ‘thing’. I know now what it means to find something that is hidden away in the vaults of one’s own mind, I can fathom what looking inwards entails. I have discovered ‘you’ finally, the radar of my life; and all my doubts, trepidations, confusions, disorientation, and unhappiness have melted away like the winter ice under a brilliant spring sun. Halifax, 20.08.20.

№7

She is beautiful yet horrible, which makes my spirits gay yet miserable. I guess I failed to understand the subtle differences between the tunes of a Sitar and a Sarod: the former stringy and wavy while the latter like a coin in an empty tin-pot. I see that Acadian beauties are often tall and precarious. However, my secret companion, which one of Tolstoy’s four lives are you living: suicidal, epicurean, ignorant, or wretched? Halifax, 21.08.20.

№8

It takes a lot of calories to make a mental connection; at times, far more than physical labour. Sometimes, we fall into the sunk cost fallacy and stay in a relationship due to the fear of losing that established, predictable, safe, and comfortable connection. Worse still, we are gripped by the greater fear of having to form new ones; for there could be no ecstasy without intimacy. Every so often, I wonder, how does a promiscuous person find the mental agility to move about from connections to connections as if a glider in the air: with effortless acrobatics? Perhaps, they have a depository compartment in their souls to store away the innermost memories like the embalmed corpses of ancient Egyptian tombs. Halifax, 24.08.2020.

№9

To her, I said, “how do you do?”

Replied she, “might forget thee, I too.”

That’s alright, so far as you treat me

Like the king of the heavens and with glee.

Though with you my audiences are short,

Accept my tributes and sincere thought.

At the sight of your brunette and of my coming,

when testosterone and estrogen cometh running,

Promise to kiss and stiffen me by thy caress

And allow me to enter the sweetest recess

Of your Temple, and I shan’t complain,

Even if you throw me out like damaged grain.

Halifax, 25.08.2020.

№10

They say thou have moved on from here;

But where have you vanished to, my fair?

I lied to myself that I didn’t write for thee,

And my poems are dedicated only to me.

Now I realize, o my shooting star!

My verses shall be elongated far

Unto your abbey, where you contemplate

A discreet future and shred

Thy past’s negative template.

Your departure has been one that is strange,

Sudden, and made me sorry;

For no one so willingly gives up one’s glory.

I knew your kith was not

The most responsive or reliable,

Yet I thought our interviews were tenable.

Now you’ve fleeted as though candy made of floss;

Never to be heard from again,

Never again shall I watch your eyes gloss.

Halifax, 27.08.2020

№11

I know I matter to you not.

I am but a number for you,

As if a dollar bill in the hands of a bank clerk.

Like flipping another burger at a fast food joint,

You care not for me, I know that.

I’m, as though, a snail on the rocky shores

Of a sea that children pick up in wonder,

Play with, and throw away carelessly.

I am that cold sales call,

The rat in the barn,

The ant on the sleeve,

The bug in the backyard.

If you wish you can make

Apple pie of me or can

Dump me in the bin like

A bag of rotten okra.

I know I don’t exist for you,

Like the spam email folder of your Yahoo.

Halifax, 27.08.20.

№12

I saw you through the window;

There weren’t any blinds on.

You were wearing a pair of shorts

And a t-shirt.

Next time, when you invited me,

You were standing behind the door,

As is customary,

Wearing a long black gown

Matching your long black hair,

And dark, piercing eyes.

Now, whenever I am in a crowded place,

Jolly or otherwise,

I always excuse myself

And walk away for a bit;

Pretending to climb the hill,

Or observe the oaks,

Or examine the tiny grass-flowers,

Or listen to the sweet, soft rhythm of the waves,

Like the ones Alexa fetches from the air when I sleep.

Under the guise of such innocuous activities,

I, actually, take the time to remember you,

To mourn you,

To imagine you,

To converse with you,

To taste you again,

And to long for you.

Halifax, 16.09.2020.