Parveen Shakir Poems

Why should I be the first to phone?
He knows too:
last night came the first monsoon.
...

Will you too be like others:
put yesterday's dark against today's bright?
Well, please yourself . . . but bear in mind:
they also charge: the sun sleeps with night!
...

Midnight of my passing years . . . .
Did someone knock on the mute shutters
or was I scared in a dream?
...

Lord, I know the duty of a hostess,
but please let it be that this year
either rain clouds visit me
or my loneliness.
...

I hear
butterflies will again be banished,
and bees will get pollen mailed to
them—
"They mustn't flit from rose to rose!"
...

My son,
this curse is your fate too.
In a fathers' world you too, one day,
must pay a heavy price
...

Instead of keeping me tucked away
in some safe corner of your heart—
instead of struggling with Victorian manners,
...

How long did we sit engrossed in talk
under the flowering jacaranda tree?
I don't know. I only know,
the moon crept out from behind the tree
...

If
in the course of a conversation
gaps of silence begin to occur,
spoken words turn silent;
therefore, my eloquent friend,
...

Please tell our lord, the king's good friend,
that His Holiness came today and confirmed:
the crop of sinners is ripe again.
Tell him, his reapers stand ready.
...