Published September 15th, 2024
Socially Engaged Poetry Contest #10 – First Place
by Sheharyar Kashmiri
My broken sole scrapes the silence
Of these cold inhospitable streets,
That I have journeyed upon for days
Without food, water, or a kind hello
I see the corpse on yonder hill
Eyeing my movements with suspicion
As I walk past a field of cairns
While fumes of algae from the graveyard pond
Blended into the night's velvet brume
Wrapped around hearts and houses
Coil in disgust as a pariah makes through.
And yet I walk
Without clock or compass
Without artifice or affect
Without hosts at my behest
Nor the light of revelations
Handed down mountains to show the way
I walk
Through towns and villages groveling
At the feet of citadels and watchtowers
Where obliviousness and cowardice are the order of the day
Knowing that as in days past, in the days beyond
The odd candle in the window is enough for me.
The odd candle that carries in its drip
The tears of a grieving mother
Or a woman who is neither wife nor widow
Awaiting the return of one who was
Plucked out of his bed by ghouls of the state
And swallowed into the hush of the night.
Or the man of letters whose very vitality
Stands poured into that wraithly halo
Who charts his way through the wisdom
Of sages past and present in a solemn quest
To deriddle the administration of justice
From the justice of administrators
Now rubs his aching eyes.
Or perhaps that humble chronicler who
Without prejudice, judgment, or malice
Struggles to hold on till daybreak
To balance the deafening darkness
Of this sulfurous night
With the scribble of his pen
Or the clatter of his keyboard
And commits the unfashionable truth
To the sanctuary of a page.
This night
Whether it is the lull that precedes the Pentecost
The silence before the unveiling of the Kingdom of Heaven
Or merely the abyss that stands at the far end of history
The epoch between the last dot on the last page
And the The End that shall fold it all away
I walk knowing that
The candle in the window is enough for me.
About the Poet
Sheharyar Kashmiri resides in Topi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Read the poet's biography on Sheharyar Kashmiri's Artist Page.
Next in Wax Mag #5:
Gone But Not Forgotten
by Tilly Moodley
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