Inheritance and other poems by Syeda S. Jeenat S
Poetry Editor Ananya S Guha’s Note: Syeda Jeenat’s poems have a quiet lyricism about them. Love is her main concern although her poems are also imbued with a touch of irony. There is cadence in her poems, swift movements which beguile the reader.
—
Inheritance
My mother inherited
Half of her soul
From her mother,
Made up of motherly things
And womanly ‘nothings’.
I inherited half of hers’.
The ‘nothings’ are varied,
Myriad and mystical,
And secrets carried to grave.
My mother inherited
Half of her role
From her father,
Made up of fatherly things
And manly ‘measures’.
I did not inherit half of hers’.
The ‘measures’ are arid,
Cryptic and hypothetical,
And served up on platters of opinions.
My mother inherited
Herself
From the bosom of love and laughter,
From the valleys of nature and nurture,
From the form of a goddess,
From the sole of a star.
I inherited some of her beauty and her qualities.
She is my mother, I point and say,
None like her will ever be or may.
~
Prey
Your limbs dangling from the edge of the bed,
Limp but beaded in sweat;
Your sounds, lyrical, linger,
And I stand at your feet.
To me the sun has come
To cajole and celebrate this occasion,
And to shy me out of my shame-
But I am shamelessly in love;
Shamelessly so.
You have become the soul of me,
Sell it or call it,
You have caught your prey.
~
Cat-II
She came to me like a dream,
Like a mewling thing that
Couldn’t even cry out her agony
Or call on her anger
Her pads the softest cotton,
She was a ball of void,
And I held her in my hands
And thrummed to her purr
She sat on my lap and licked
My meandering fingers
And I cooed
What a pretty kitty
I was gifted with a bite.
~
Love – IV
Love me for what I am
Seek not to change
See me in love
I am changed
Do not damage me anyway
I am but still inexperienced
Still not in the know
But I yearn oh how I yearn
Won’t you take it slow?
Love me kindly, with kindness,
And see me beautifully bloom
Leave me with words harsh
And see me broken down
But love me still, oh, love me, do,
I yearn to be loved
And if you love me
This I promise you,
You I will love back too.
~
Nightingale
Your blood drips like rain
Your veins asung awild
The rush is heaven
And the high betoken.
When the little pill passed your lips
I wish it was I flooding you
Freezing you to the frame
Of the earth you stand.
You sing, aloud, awake
And I listen and dance to the cadence
You sing the loveliest love song
And I am gone, done.
You writhe in ecstasy
And you bellow out your pain
As your nerves set you on fire
You make a beautiful pyre
And your rain drains
The life out of you;
But how brilliant you sang
Like a nightingale singed
— Syeda S. Jeenat S. is 33 years old and has done her masters in Mass Communication and Journalism from Tezpur University. She has been writing poems since she was 10 yeas old and has over 40 published poems in English Dailys of the state. She has written hundreds of them and hopes to amass them into a book soon. She currently lives and works in Dimapur, Nagaland.