Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/aurora-borealis-during-winter-9KZ0dP7CTPE) 4. 5. 2024.
Geostorm
White storks on black pillars –
he sees floating sculptures of fire
crawling over crouched walls of a prayer
home. We break lemons and smear salt
all over his dreams. He carves torches
into nights that hang sleep on brass hooks –
his blood erodes in viscous stew.
The light inside the wind drowned
in a water well; his organs floated
lifeless in the river he had created
inside his body – calm unfurling
like wings of a dawn swan. Thin fog
on the perimeter, he didn’t need to see
till the end of the sky to notice the gate –
congress of beaks heralding the path maker.
The stillness of particles when in seizure;
his voice, layers of intangible lucidity.
We hung metal over his arid thoughts
and made it rain all over his legible omens.
The shape of wind in the sphere of his life;
the flickering of light from tombs in the sky,
the force of ceasing in plasma of his being.
Northern Arch
This is where storms breathe
with heavy chests; fire-mouth
whispers trigger his ailing body.
He will know of calm winds;
heat shivers inside his bones –
synthetic ribbons wrap sky
in maypole dance. Solar light
spreads like flames of lament.
He will see the threshold expose –
night faint into serene embrace.
Aurora
Snow has nested in his strands –
voices are getting louder – his last
stop. This house will set him free
between waves of dust and mould.
His gaze never leaves the walls,
and the sky outside is foaming
like green skim on ocean sleeves;
the brown sand shapes into hands,
and fish no longer hiss of abandon.
Drift corals float on dormant sheets –
subjects lose definition – light fills
the dark spaces in his fragile fears.
He has begun reading stars; night
in full bloom of a burst of colours.
This house will send him far away.
About the Author: Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her work appears in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Recent publications have been Strange Horizons, Pedestal Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Silver Birch Press, Abyss and Apex, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been translated into Spanish, Greek, Albanian, Italian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Polish and Persian. More about her published works can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com
