Remembrance

remembrance has filled my heart
the musk of your skin
lingers in my thoughts of you
I'm drinking from the memories you left me with
it is where I live now
in remembrance,
in remembrance,
I find you

Rang

A color 

woven out of colors

a color making another

a tint

a hue

a heaven 

and in heaven 

these colors

every shade a love story

a heaven

surkh blending with zard

a narangi sunset

firuzah, nila, and all the blues getting deeper

an ocean of colors

a reflection of the setting sky in the dark blue waters

surkh, surati, nila

a sharabi wave

in the gardens of paradise

a bed of flowers 

a gulabi dream

where the sabz and the zard meet

and where the colorless is colorful

safid in siyah, 

a surmayi

a heaven

Oh rangrez

color is within me

I am color

a heaven

A french film

It's summer

we're living in the countryside

where the greens meet the blues

ochre and gold, husk wheat fields
as far as the eyes can see

our home is a log cabin

wooden floors and fences

where I am always wearing white dresses

sheer, frills and laces

holding the laundry basket

on the curve of my waist

pinning wet clothes to the nylon rope.

Our room brimming with cream sheets

walls and floor drenched with paint

you're always puffing cigarettes

always making portraits

on canvasses

my chiseled bones,

soft curls tied in a bun,

balmy lips, soft, smooth

and sunlight a golden heaven on my breasts,

I'm so alive in your portraits

It's raining now

I rush

to pick the laundry

pouring rain washes me

and washes your portraits of me

I am alive in your arms, you say,
art

it's a feeling

our love
is a french film

A French film by Madiha Shams Khan

Somewhere where I am not (Extension)

How my mind takes me to different places and eras
and washes me in several cultures
around different people
people, all with opinions
and 
I'm always the woman
I want to be
I am here
and
I'm somewhere where I'm not.

An extension of somewhere where I'm not, By Madiha Shams Khan

Secret love affairs upon rooftops

On moonlit nights
I walk barefoot
on the raw floor of my rooftop
dust particles stick to my feet
and the sound of my pazaib 
rhymes with my throbbing heart
on my moist skin
your soft touches
the knots of my blouse
tied too tight
your fingers race
to loosen them
and you breathe 
your desires on my neck
in your hurried breaths
you say my name
like a holy prayer
and I ask you
if this worship
will forever
remain a secret.

- Secret love affairs on rooftops By Madiha Shams Khan

Daastaan-e-Pheran Zubaan-e-Qalam

Artwork by Madiha Shams Khan                              

Therapeutic aroma of my childhood memories 

chiseling the wood to make my reed 

Alif Laila stories my grandfather would read 

calligraphy curves on mashaq 

letters dipped in scents of longing 

crafting  envelopes, binding books 

assembling rose petals to make gulqand 

walking through the valleys in long homely pherans 

now

i weave my pheran with the threads of nostalgia 

And script the stories of my past with calligraphy

know

nothing is ever lost in time 

for those who live in nostalgia 

they can bring back hope 

they can bring back a destroyed city 

they can bring back the extinct art 

they can bring back a lost culture 

but

can you see

can you see

Written after listening to the narration of a very dear friend's personal experiences in context to his childhood memories in Kashmir.  

mashaq - a wooden tablet 

gulqand - a sweet preserve of rose petals

Alif Laila - tales from Arabian nights

Daastaan-e-pheran Zubaan-e-qalam By Madiha Shams Khan