Lifting Dims: A Poetry Collection



  Lifting Dims

  a poetry collection

  by

  Nada Ahmed

 

  Copyright ©2017 Nada Ahmed

  All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph courtesy of Mostafa Magdy

  E-book designed by Nada Ahmed

 

  for the family I once had.

  Contents

  Song for the Heartless

  Lands Apart

  In Regione Caecorum Rex Est Luscus

  Black in Blue

  Pried

  I’ve Chosen the Darkness

  Cutter

  World Suicidal

  Faces upon the Waters

  Toughness

  Geminate

  The Abyss

  Animus

  Nightgazer

  Fletcherism

  Dither

  Essence

  Cavity

  Infinite Circle

  Silver Lines

  Ethereal

  Content

  The Veil

  Walls

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  ABOUT THE POET:

  part I:

  Depth of Blue

  Song for the Heartless

  You speak as of heaven you are

  yet to me, hell is raining immorality

  amply making promises

  when only with hatred you cram me

  I let it be

  I let you chop the smile off my face

  to scatter my years onto seclusion

  onto bizarre conclusions

  you are no man of devotion

  nor am I woman of heresy

  but you have taken the wrong turn

  to indulge a life of dismay and hypocrisy

  I don’t let it be

  I don’t let you reign over me

  to wander my years impetuously

  you’re not the one who keeps me alive

  and you won’t be the one to kill me!

  Lands Apart

  Swift as the autumn wind are your words

  like poison, running through my veins

  treacherous as the sea, keeping secrets

  shadowing down my mind

  I don’t call out for anything but mercy

  upon this wildness

  this lank insanity

  my hands apart,

  so spare your vicious mouthful to somebody else

  unless God humbles and comes back to earth

  under the name of mortality

  as if it wasn’t enough what you’ve stolen

  out of Mother and the spinningly token

  my lands apart.

  In Regione Caecorum Rex Est Luscus

  A spacious meadow, a rose grew in

  ivory tower, eye is sole

  one, what I see: a world to me

  envy of the blind blinds me

  the rose, by the wronging wind has withered

  growing pale, yet preserved above 'em all

  ivory failing to be maintained

  for they kill mammoths in the rose's land

  to the leas, toward defacement it led me

  to the graves, I dared to carry my fascist dreams

  to the bones, have I ached for the foretold end

  end where to the blind's kingdom and soul

  unlikely seen, improbably said

  I am king

  I am no king

  but of the fool.

  Black in Blue

  Black in blue

  life, a subtle denial

  die over to live

  suffer a constant defile

  make disbelieve.

  Pried

  She’s got her senses bent down at her feet

  she’s got her thoughts ensilenced

  her words defined

  and whispers into her mind unleashed

  she’s got her lurk presence keeping company

  she’s got her absence in pending stiffly

  this slender wait

  and wonders of her retorted agony

  she’s got a sheen pale

  the moonlight

  the clouds afloat

  over her said and thought

  she’s got a fear in motion

  the swindling ocean

  her self pried

  when self was all she sought.

  I’ve Chosen the Darkness

  Depth of blue

  tonight she falls

  amongst suns and moons

  tears to scars

  on face so gloom

  skin so dry

  craving dreary fires

  demon’s growls

  heard at night

  she, not screaming

  it is the dark

  for path untrodden

  opting out of all wrong

  all falls in darkness

  all righteous

  I don’t hate you

  I’ve chosen the darkness.

  Cutter

  I threw my papers away,

  shoved the pen in one eye

  and with the other I watched you coming by,

  doling my organs away

  I only wanted to look pretty

  with no make-up, no self-pity,

  wanted the mild mask on

  please, Mr. Surgeon,

  easy on the cutting

  for wounds are getting deep,

  deep into my eyes

  why can’t you make me look pretty?

  like a fairy so sleek and witty?

  why can’t you just make me die?

  World Suicidal

  Fluted steps we are walking

  pleaded in fear

  by the palest sunshine

  the moon is gone

  beyond spaces of emptiness

  the stars no longer shine

  suicidal in their ever-nights

  let us not cry over fate

  and remorse our past cruelty

  this calamitous game

  of death and revival

  could never release our hearts

  I am bound to you

  you are bound to me

  universe's unjust for such a doomed reality.

  Faces upon the Waters

  Face upon the waters

  I eat no lotuses, no

  I, the exiting race

  reigning

  beams of furring birds

  flee…but never free

  swept aside

  followed to no side

  birds in a sly cage

  time in a hurry

  aging…sucking hole

  not fair nor yet fairly

  to fear the times

  bright afflictions

  lifting dims…bleaks

  divine by the night

  assemblize

  gaze justly at life

  limp, jump, haste

  rebel, rebel, rebel

  the sleeping gods

  ladders upwards mind

  ascend and walk

  do sell

  the no-dreams

  to the no-ones.

  Toughness

  Bounced back to the bitter past, haven't we?

  spreading those sharp words so evenly

  carefully we hold each other's hands

  not to recall what might have come of us

  patience departs as we think

  I hope you mean what you say.

  Geminate

  Who said of paradise I did not daydream?

  about fires and our loudest screams?

  for the strength I show

  in which I’ve hidden my humanity

  my capability to feel,

  so please, sir,

  do not mistake my stubborn
head

  and eloquent tongue

  with my idiotically chaotic heart.

  The Abyss

  In company, all is fair

  but when sole

  I am tripped

  by my thoughts of you

  my abyss.

  part II:

  Passion Crime

  Animus

  Ever I grow restless of your rigid breaths?

  ever you never cease?

  and of hearts, of passion we shall not confess

  are thoughts built not to please

  stirred we fall as to tempt the animus

  boiling soils, waters in hell

  delusions tumbling like castles of sand

  the reeling voids we ought to fill

  after all, these vices shall wittily smolder

  for my ego I cannot swallow

  hunger do I for your frozen shoulder

  care do you for a light in the morrow?

  Nightgazer

  Consciousness could not go to sleep

  when heart was the eyes, wide awake

  observing your beauty that flickered

  and as the sun set

  I gazed into the horizon

  only to find it gone!

  Fletcherism

  If I let the lights take you

  to the paths of deathly desires

  the nothing left cannot make you

  any closer

  if I am to sleep for eternity

  will wake in low heavens not to see

  my debris onto the hells of Utopia

  any farther

  and if I subdue my fires and flames

  I shall crave all credits and fames

  that my name is carved upon your heart

  never fader

  but if I revive you to down here

  for all my endings to draw near

  the earth blossoms in red and black

  never sadder

  and you turn me down

  not!

  Dither

  Of which cold doth the shiver linger along?

  for a night, only a night sees its fairest song

  on thy charms and thy nestles I bear no more

  a hold so bitter, that it leaves me so sore

  if trembling, the words you utter as to fear

  words of mine, as to affections be way near—

  farewell, alleged valor!

  alas! here fall’th a tear.

  Essence

  Crawl into me and do fill

  for void is my essence and I

  the air, searing in your lungs

  if you don't exist,

  then how can I?

  Cavity

  But after all she slept on her own

  though he was stalking her redly doors

  looking through the holes

  and hers was wide open

  ready to comprise

  with the devil and his rousing ties

  he listened to the hands ticking

  ‘cause time did not fly by

  while he hid under her bed

  the boogeyman was what she thought

  to scare herself this often

  overlook these holes in the wall

  though his hands, at last, could reach

  and the ties would finally bind

  but it was too late

  for there were no more holes to find!

  Infinite Circle

  Once the infinite circle of doubt subsided in his heed,

  once I broke my silence and threw my troubles aside

  the anticipation shattered those chances I might fight

  against his helping hands nearing in my time of need

  now the liquids run soft and slow over my belly

  and the curves of his waiting hands

  fit around the curves of my delicate body

  bringing me peace while they feed.

  Silver Lines

  Skins of silver lines

  my plain dress, you stripped

  figures divine

  and if averse,

  your roots reach out to mine.

  Ethereal

  Do fossils acclaim the joy in hand

  when the sea merrier pleas his widows to hoard?

  of merry dreams they art made

  upon lousy laments he finds in love

  lov'th do me, my navy appeal

  lov'th do thee, thy whining queen

  beneath castles of sand shall I confer my heart

  and whistling birds in midst heavens…to heavens

  liberty howling that we can hear

  and in gayest dreams of mine

  I beheld thine beloved ivory

  through the nail, through the hair

  such a passion crime!

  Content

  If only it wasn't for the fear of losing

  I would have conquered your within

  I would have extinguished this fire in your soul

  with water flowing down my womb

  I would have stolen the good in you

  left you to nothing but ashes and bones

  if only it wasn't for the fear of falling

  I would have come ease your pain

  and mine, you would have done the same

  but that you are close, but not here

  I am content

  or my heart only tells me so!

  The Veil

  A night is

  but a veil

  hide our failure

  but to collide

  through our bodies

  I don't feel

  the you above

  the me inside.

  Walls

  Why do I always miss

  those I never met?

  faces engraved

  upon my heart

  yet I keep building walls

  against the ones already exist!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  I would like to thank the talented photographer Mostafa Magdy who generously contributed his work to the making of the book cover.

  I would like to also thank my amazing husband Kaml Rajab who has long endured my ‘mad writer’ moments and partook in the editing of my poems.

  And many thanks go to my courageous mother and sisters whose incredible strength and persistence to go on have been of much inspiration to me.

  ABOUT THE POET:

  Nada Ahmed is an Egypt-based poetess, short-story writer and spoken-word performer. Born and lived in Cairo, her daily endeavors to resist social and political hindrances were always translated in classical poetry inspirations. Although her early writings leaned toward the traditional, Old English mode of literature, her current productions are inspired from modern American female writings. She took up English literature and linguistics as her collage major for five years, and has been active as an article writer for the past nine years.

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