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

Somewhere where I am not

People call me crazy, a mad woman
and I tell them that how my mind takes me to different places and washes me in different cultures

around different people Somewhere I am laying underneath the dark starry skies where all of me is consumed by the mystical moist air somewhere I am waiting for trains 
for people
for rains Somewhere I'm dancing in a silk slit gown for a lover and somewhere I'm singing songs of woman hood,
somewhere I'm a misunderstood woman walking out of a cheap pub and somewhere I'm puffing cigars with whores, listening to their melancholic stories
It's hard to stay in one place when my heart jumps to reach for infinite

My Beloved Departure

We live in a place for years and not document it's streets, the culture, the food, the people, their ideologies
the history and the art
the scents and the seas 
the warmth in the breeze 
and on departure we wish to soak all of it in, 
we creep around the pillars, 
we stop and stare at the land like it's gold 
with so much sand it glitters, 
we drench our selves in scents, in ouds and in lobans, 
we smell more like the city than ourselves 
and I think that's the thing about departures, 
they uproot our soul and plant seeds of treasuring, of longing and memories.

Women in the Sahras of Arab

women

under the massive palm trees 

where the mystical moist air blows

and their shiny skin glows

wearing holy scents and long skirts

bare feet drenched with desert sand

women

lay in the sahra

sand in the hair

facing the sky

romancing the stars

fingers in the air 

tracing constellations

talking about gods creations 

women

giggling, weeping, loving

alluring the whole nature

and you sit on that majlis,

slitting ripen dates

sipping kehwa

talking about how

women 

allure men

 Women In The Sahras Of Arab,  By Madiha Shams Khan

Doors that hold us

Will you open the door when my heart will harp your name, will you look at my hands and see how I held your smell your touch your stories while I walked through a storm, dived deep into an ocean my palms never tired of holding your pieces in a fist, tight pieces that I rushed to put together sitting next to the fire place my body drenched with rain water my eyes moving madly, constantly, my body shivering, my fingers shaking while putting your pieces together just to create an illusion of your love around myself will you open the door if I pour my eaten heart out, can you heal this piece of flesh, can you give me a part of yourself that no one has seen tell me how have you been Doors that hold us - By Madiha Shams Khan

Scents - of the sinful and the holy

Slow, she wakes up on a cold winter morning,

wrapped in white sheets and light of a holy day 

untying her oiled braids  

and the knots in her heart

soaking her body in

old fashioned lavenders and scented sandalwoods

slow, the sound of sweltering water

running across her body

like rivers and oceans 

and a sea where the moon cries

only to drench her long locks  

slow, the transition of her bare soul 

into a woman covered in long pherans, velvet, maroon

and antique rust earrings,

their shadow play like an old moroccan lantern 

slow, she walks across your home 

holding the oud stand, like a flambeau,

scenting every room, every corner 

but soon you say, 

oh she smells like a girl covered in sins,

perfuming her body

and asking strange men to light her cigarette

your scent, you say, soak me in your scent, you say

slow, she gives herself away

slow, along with her skin, her soul, she gives away

slow, you let her in,

her luring eyes, her sinful red dress, her long rebellious hair, her chewed cigarettes,

you let her in, woman of your dreams

but there is no mercy

men, you are so thirsty

slow, you say, obey,

slow, you crave a different smell, you say

these holy ouds, these velvet pherans

these lavenders, these sandalwoods

are womanhood, you say

you preach, she prays

you're bound to her spell

her smell

her scents,

her scents will drag you to hell.

Scents; of the sinful and the holy  By Madiha Shams Khan