Hibah Shabkhez

Dark spinning avius, fly into the sun
Icarus, Icarus, hold! Here we come
Upon the soaring black wings of life
To snatch my son from the Wave
...

Heal me slowly, O death, heal me slowly
Leave me the day's dying light
Come for me gently in the night
Heal me slowly, O death, heal me slowly
...

Set aside dull labour, set aside cold pleasure
We ride for the mountains, for the evergreen treasure
Ah! The call of the Lord of the Snows has come
We ride North, awaken! We ride North!
...

Here we lay etched upon the grass
The sun rained down in broken rays
Seared to smudges, fried-onion brass
The colour that will haunt our days
...

(First published in The Ravi 2015)
I flee the jaws of Time's story
As they snip me apart twig by twig
Black Roses nesting
...

Once upon that old green hill
I waited alone in the rain
Then, I cursed that bleak grey hill;
Now, I would buy it back with pain
...

The cloud-enshrined sun
The waves leaching away the sand
A whole world undone
...

See that little girl in white
With the golden locket?
She is what you could be
She is what you would be
...

Wrapt in the otiose aumbry of pride
A glede hythe a quiff will gust aside
Her folly selcouth
Binds herfast to her wanweird
...

"‘Civilisation shall stand in the dock
And answer for her ways!
My poesie binds her
The Guardian of my new age! '
...

By the gloating rocks once its refuge,
The sun wallows in scarlet rages;
Glovers at the ticky-tacky cages,
Who feel naught of the coming deluge
...

‘Angered seasons have ere now', creak the bones
Of the old, ‘laid cities to waste. Now time
Will uproot from our earth the enraged stones
And heap them upon our heads'. But the grime
...

Come we will an the road is open,
Come we will an the door swings ajar,
The land we glimpsed longing from fens afar,
Shall now be ours to make or mar!
...

All the long merry days of thy life, child

Shalt evermore do as thou art bid;
...

Dear Lord, Dear Lord,
Dear Lord, Dear Lord,
Give me a gift,
Give me the gift,
...

O my father, why do they bear thee hence?
O father, from this thy hearth and thy haven?

Thou, so tall, so proud, so brave, so strong!
...