The Room

(first moment)

There was a white door

Lurking the other end of the corridor

Entrance to a room tacked on

To the end of the colonial house

That was his room and locked

He was in Hong Kong he said

And in the soft summer

And lazy Zambian heat

It tempted. So I reached for it.

It swung slightly ajar

The lock slipping open

And drew me in.

There was no light save a single shaft

Pouring in from the one window

The other four were shuttered

With plans and drawings tacked on

The dust swam circles in the light pillar

Shelves stacked with books

Piles of paper leaning against the wall

Pens in glasses and ink on everything

Chaos was ordered if you looked

Jumbles had names and numbers

Set into rough readiness

Marked “Powder”, “Artillery”

I snuck out my short self

A little wiser about those hours

He would spend in there.

I would later call it Alchemy



By Ali.A.Naqvi


NOTE This is the end of a cycle of twelve poems written that explore the relationship I had with my father. I call this cycle the Twelve Moments. This may be personal but please comment. Also, the order is going to be chronologically backwards on the blog. So the last poem to the first. The aim is to walk back through my life to the first moment from the most recent. If you're reading this, you're at the end of the cycle.

Interactive

So, sometimes turn to the music

Maybe, it will help the chill

In dousing, in saving, in dealing

So, sometimes turn to editing

Setting those old films to score

As if you could recast it all

So, sometimes turn to writing

Listing, cutting and pasting

But words you spilt ran long ago

So, sometimes you just look

Gazing into corners for ghosts

But you haunt only yourself

So, sometimes you flick through albums

And each turn sets you away

From the familiarity of your present

So, sometimes it matters little

For you, the in-completion,

Stuttering and starting onwards.

By

Ali.A.Naqvi

Sallow

One day voices will be sallow

Less of the cut and the thrust

Too many streams to follow

Too much rancour and shale

Sit quietly in a storm of signal

Wait for it to settle somewhat

Figure out the essential

And hope it will be accepted

So I know now there's no notion

Of where to base myself

If everything is high definition

Chasms are as clear as colours.

By Ali A. Naqvi

Drift

Simply put, I don’t do drift well.
Innocent enough to say,
Like adjusting your lapel
Before they call reveilles .
It’s the cloying, the waxiness
That makes me burrow in
Mindworming narrowness
Of this semblance of stasis

Maybe I consigned it so
Let the moorings fray
Better not to know
What I could have been
If I had been more than,
And to find you have to lose
So let the moments slide on
And hold nothing, just drift.

By Ali.A.Naqvi

Search String

Algorithms make this easy
A flick with a hand and find
Somewhere, super-cooled,
Snorkelling microseconds

There was this time, where
Myth building was what you did
You penned quavers and rests
You thought you would play again

But those aren’t the things you see
Just like the computation, things,
Meanings rolled forward by rote.
You could have been, but weren’t.

By Ali A. Naqvi

Fourteenth Day in February

So slopes confetti, kissing the floor

Sighing in time with the “assistant”

Who also slopes at the door

Stasis in the midst of a fluster

Of husbands in at quarter-to- four

While girls trill in, shrill with glee

At clutter and tack marked “amour”

Stitched by shadows in south sea shacks

The same place was dank that day

While he scuffed open boxes of riot

For the inevitable sales display

He paused, then popped upstairs

Parked her wheelchair in its bay

Cleaned her plates, brushed her hair,

Leaned forward to hear her say

“Time t’open up Love, be on your way.”

By

Ali A. Naqvi

On Arctic Light

See Scuttle sun,

On mirrored runs.

Sculpted stones,

Bleached bones,

Form fortresses,

Or green terraces

Soaked in blue,

Steeped in dew.

See now Saqi

In artic light free

Sift me tomorrows.

To find me Firdos.

By

Ali A. Naqvi

P.S This poem is inspired by this sequence found on Vimeo which was filmed by TSO Photography and music by Marika Takeuchi.

Here is the video

The Arctic Light from TSO Photography on Vimeo.