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.