This week’s poem is a response to the claim that women and girls need protection, even when this protection means a great loss of personal choice and freedom.

Her Freedom

Spare her please

Your innocent assumptions

Of her assumed innocence.

The honour of your protection,

Protecting her honour

Which by a patriarchal twist of logic

Becomes your own.

Spare her kindly

The kindness of your attention

The intrusive attention of your kind.

The beauty of your expectations

In expecting her feminine beauty

With no room for strength or uniqueness.

Spare her your considerate sensitivity

For her delicate female condition.

Her monthly blood, her pregnancies

Are also your cycle of life.

Your puritanical assumption

Of her fear of masculine passion.

Show her the respect of believing

She has passions and wants of her own.

Spare her your wisdom on her needs

On drawing her plans

Believe she knows more than you ever can.

Dhaka 2016

I am proud and happy to report a successful launch of a collection of my poems, Talking Trees. The event was at the Nordic Club Dhaka this Saturday evening and was well attended and I think thoroughly enjoyable. Here are a few pictures:

This week poem, inspired by the ups and downs of life at a time of change and decisions and how the way you choose to look at the future affects your perception of opportunities and risks.

Tunnel Vision

Fade and glow

Shrink and grow

Light I seek to reach.

Not mist or sleet

Approach, retreat

Firm step of weary feet

 But how I choose to see my sights

Interpret shadows

Read the lights.

Dhaka 2016

A poem inspired by Buddha’s birthday, the peace of mediation and the seven chakras, or the centers of power in the body.

Buddha’s birthday

Oneness

Crown of glowing white

Eternally into the ether

Consciousness

Third eye of awareness

Wisdom, creativity

Communication

Blue sound-waves

Expression, interaction

Compassion

Living connections, empathy

Love and sympathy

Instinct

Intensity of inner self

Power and impulse

Passion

Sensation and desire

Duality, contradiction

Belonging

Both feet on living ground

Roots in Mother Earth

Dhaka 2016

This week’s poem, inspired by resurgent positivity in the face of an uncertain future.

Reboot

Despite riot and commotion

I had somehow got the notion

That my life has lost its motion.

Until sunrise in rotation

In its message of creation,

Without cause or explanation

Reminded me that this world does not stand still.

Dhaka 2016

This week’s poem, a slight rewrite of an earlier poem. A special time for many people. I hope to follow up with one just for Kristian.

Summer

This, a summer of your spring time

World opening oyster-like.

You, a perfect grain of sand.

Paths display before you

A peacock train of lines and twirls

Aching for your tread.

Limitless sky blue and bold

Above youths days

That promise not to end.

Afternoons on green slopes

Lolling with beers, squinting at sunlight

And all those brilliant girls.

So much laughter

So many friends

And every option open.

Free from academic obligations

Now it’s all your choice,

Your own voice.

Intoxicating afternoons

With only the itch

Of grass to irritate.

And all the world stretched

Fresh and tempting

At your impatient feet.

2016

This week’s poem inspired by the surprise that sometimes awaits when you take a close look at yourself in the mirror, and see things you were not expecting to see.

Morning Face

Mirrored morning face

Looks unexpectedly

Like my mothers.

Startlingly pale

After days with eyes focused

On dark-skinned farmers.

Barisal 2016

This week’s poem inspired by hot hours spent in Dhaka traffic on roads which are being bumpy, dusty and in the process of being dug up…. again!

Bad drive

Overheated from the start

Dusted dull grey, strewn

With ill-humored passengers

Humorless drivers.

A drive lumpy as flour-thickened soup.

Dhaka 2016

This week’s poem inspired by Boishakh or Bangla New Year celebrations in my favorite park, which is usually quiet on hot days, and always popular with crows.

Boishakh in the park

Above loud milling crowds

a weary mother crow

feeds her overgrown chick

Dhaka 2016

This week’s poem stirred by early morning thoughts and regrets… and resolutions. Memories of other lives, lived in a different light.

Unexercised

That part of myself

long ago put away, tinned,

with tightly screwed lid,

an icy corner behind flavors we don’t like.

Under fine dusting of neglect,

artistically articulated

 in outdated diaries,

stored in drawers behind extra keys to lost locks.

Despite lack of airing and exercise

I trust she will wake when called.

Dhaka 2016