NOORMOHAMED

Someone said if I looked hard at the sun, you’d be there. but the vision has been a kaleidoscope… ….haze..daze…hallucinogenic… so I waited till I sobered up, because I thought reality would be a prism of colour. But I was wrong. I see nothing. The sleeping pill has dreamt itself out. I’ve woken up now […]

So if I were knee deep in a river of passion you’d think I’d be scared of the torrents and run? Maybe I am scared. But if I have undressed and am naked I might as well bathe. Let the river carry me where it will Let it rise, let it flow, let it gush […]

Even with perfect hindsight we would properly make a sumptuous mess given all the years again a cat-and-mouse painting of delightful colour an elixir of youth to be drunk slowly, and then lived as we did, we pleasure seeking lotus-eaters venturing for energy and acceptable gods and then sending wish-you-were-here postcards over the hills and […]

I loved you, so I allowed madness take the heart to its furthest bounds to take the beatings and tempests that were the fruits of this desire and then release you little bird, to follow the mirage of peace that you seek, to the furthest cloud where perhaps you might see that what I had […]

They seem smaller goals now Kilimanjaro and Batian like the gods we made in our image a dozen years away from the college dreamers who would flag peaks and keeps paths open virile hopes preaching ambition, reaping the wind of a thousand hills but we don’t talk anymore our glittering successes just plastic mounts for […]

Poetry is the sea when it washes ashore a furtive whisper, I write of it my only love but ask me not anymore The sea hides in her bosom many lives–fishes and red coral- bloody wars of ripping sharks and hidden treasures, eels and darkness enchanting creatures and violent storms the sea steals, the sea […]

April 8 I would have called you today and it would have been our usual are you well, it’s been good, the things you did that I should never do have you heard from your brother? he’s fine ask him to call a silence would then follow, a deep hollow silence that is now a labyrinth […]

In the dark of night you wished hard to be naught content with your comfortable options in mediocrity my love irrelevant, my words superfluous how strange it felt, how strange   In the narrative of love, I have bled to dot having lost the battles in the war for reciprocity my love redundant, my loss […]

I want to let you know that it’s your fault that I never paid attention to your piano lessons. You hushed the boy’s words and never heard his dream. ‘Learn your key movements’, ‘raise your palms silly boy’, ‘practice the piece on page 76 till you can play it without looking.’ Boring boring boring.   […]

They’re at it again, like chokoras with misspelled placards making trouble, did you see them? We were driving to go pay for the licence at City Hall and I had to roll up the car window I was sooo scared They were sooo wild shouting like raving loonies That’s why I hate going to the […]

Aziz held my hand, as I waded, a five year old duck coming of age, deeper we walk, balancing, as the blunt edges of the reef’s coral were poking my virgin soles. Remember, he said, just let yourself float, close your mouth and – gwalop a wave hits my face and passes over the top […]

Here in a photo album beside the bed you will find your long-ago friend way back when he had just begun to read the book, when he was young with youth, dancing in the flamboyant air, walking in flamenco steps, hosanna, hosanna, my messiah is come.   If I could dry him in the sun, […]

Sometimes it’s not so sweet, But to squeeze any more would taste like lemon I’m not always so nice, I know, But look, I saved your number, and your birthday, And between sips of water I say your name. Coriander is my favourite herb.   Life is a broth brewing with disappointment, Take it, with […]

History’s a tale somebody was told Wisdom are teeth that grow when we’re old Age is just a number, of stone and ice Truth is so boring, we’d rather the lies   We worship our hopes, that we call God Peace is a state at the edge of a sword Life is a house that hasn’t […]

Hooker pipe, and hush, there’s a dome in my sight, I’m keeping it kosher in the casbah tonight The music’s from New York, but who’s listening to that? The rug is so enchanting it could fly me to Rabat   Inhale, exhale, I’m smoking, puff puff, in Arabic My camel’s parked outside, it’s time to […]

are you the lord budha, he asked the boy set silent in his cross-legged pose unperturbed two houseflies hovered over his head and landed on its shaven top sweat beads had formed on the top of his mouth   then he moved his lips you are of what you think and I would have loved […]

down on you and you fear it may dissolve your brain just when    you    need    you    it    the    most so      you     run     away       from      the   d           r               o             p            s like a madman thro- wing bits and p   i  e   c   e   s             of your thoughts all around. Trying to remember what it was […]

It always starts with violins and I open my eyes thinking it is heaven; just the alarm set to Vivaldi’s Spring Allegro I I walk out grumpy looking like I’ve dressed for Whitehall. My day is set, red, amber, go. The morning dawns in traffic jam, so this is my rock n’ roll beginning Car […]