Conversazione

Rehan Qayoom

She, too, pursues her ends,
Brutal as the stars of this month,
Her pale head heavy as metal.

         Ted Hughes, 'Snowdrop'

You are the poison
I would drink
The death
I would die

Unshipped in words that fall withering
Like these that fail, falter
And now blaze, blaze, penetrate, evaporate

People like words
Are deceptive, temporary, forgettable – Just because they can be

The story you told
Is the story
I am

O little wee soul with the body of an angel
O body of water
That dares and dithers
Between this rose and that rose
Eating the petals - Taking infusions of the petals
Little pink things, cherubim broth
The petals of the blush rose and the petals of the dog rose
To feel how the bud opens to receive sunlight and water

Perhaps you don’t want to keep running back into books?
Perchance you won’t?
Perhaps you want to fold back into your little-big Zen heavens?
The ones where you don’t remember someone, anyone
Because nobody remembers you

The story you told
Is the story
I live

The familiar, speculative, I divagate
To calibrate the love and mourn the life
In languages less spoken
And words never said
Screeding across the Brandywine on the Bucklebury Ferry
​
Be silent when I speak if you will hear
Love’s perspicacious promissories
Be still when I am silent -
You will see time’s univocal
Peonies
​Foxgloves


Read the 'Contextual Notes' to the poem here.

Rehan Qayoom is a poet of English and Urdu, editor, translator and archivist.  Educated at Birkbeck College, University of London, he has featured in numerous literary publications and performed his work internationally. He is the author of 2 books of poetry and several works of prose and criticism.  He lives in London.