Laala Kashef Alghata

Laala Kashef Alghata Poems

I thought that you were my Benedick
and I, your Beatrice, that we argued
against love into love, but oh! I was wrong.
...

These words are just pressed thoughts
upon a page, fragile like crumbling leaves,
golden on the ground and vulnerable;
stepped on so easily and disregarded,
...

I write beauty like light in glass,
fleeting and unique. I want to catch
your tears and put a stop to the sadness
that threatens to envelope us
...

You talk, and I listen.
I listen to the silence
behind your words,
the way the sun licks your grave
...

If asked to draw love
I would start at the basics.
A red crayon and a big,
full heart.
...

I love like the moon can wash me
anew, like the tide can take me away.
I love like the sun will kiss my skin
golden and confuse my eyes
...

'the great advantage to being alive
(instead of undying) is not so much
that mind no more can disprove than prove
what heart may feel and soul may touch
...

Dali doesn't need us. Doesn't need
our awe or our excitement at being
amongst his pieces in London or
St Petersburg. His clocks will melt
...

My heart is heavy but empty. I'm tired
of lugging it around, of leaving it hanging
like a pendulum with the string tied
somewhere near my throat.
...

I.

Michelangelo would be afraid to paint
my portrait, if he were asked
...

The rose hangs in the air,
in the balance of probability
...

This is a day to exchange hearts
dripping with fountains of your love
embroidered with roses and smiles,
filled to the brim with adoration
...

Shock. Horror.

A fresh wave of grief.
One shot. Two shots.
...

My senses are imbedded deep within my mind’s monastery
with monks scribbling in focus to copy texts of my emotions
to record feelings and lies into my subconscious and desert
me in my reality, to make me able to wake from dreams
...

Laala Kashef Alghata Biography

Laala Kashef Alghata was born in 1990. Her first book, 'Friendship in Knots' was written was published in 2003 as the first book written in English by a Bahraini writer. At 16, she published her second book, Behind the Mask: A Folded Heart, a poetry collection. She is a poet-in-residence on several online journals, including The Peregrine Muse and Other Voices International project. Her poetry has been published in various journals online and in print, including All Things Girl, Argotist Online, La Fenetre and The Blotter. In 2008, her poem, I Want to Feel Van Gogh's Night, was the focus of a month-long exhibit in Clemson, SC. She is also featured in Gathering The Tide, a contemporary anthology of Gulf poets. She is also the founder and editor of the online poetry journal, Write Me a Metaphor, which is currently in hiatus. On her writing: “[In] this stark and affecting portrait... like the portraits of the lost souls and disenfranchised who appear in Rilke’s great New Poems volumes, Alghata’s tone is at once coolly objective and yet somehow deeply empathic. This balance is achieved through various small but ruthlessly ironic details – the quietly savage lines about the flowers for sale being “something to decay, /fill the car with summer smells”; the nonchalance of the man who remains at the intersection after his companion has left the scene, and the deadpan closure. The social criticism is withering but always remains implicit. There is no need to mention the social injustice that sometimes lies behind the Gulf states’ glitz – an injustice most acutely felt by the vast number of ill-paid foreign guest workers whose labours allow the glitz to shine. We do not know for certain if the flower sellers are guest workers or native Bahrainis, but it is easy to conclude that they are the former. What we do know is that Alghata handles the scene masterfully, ” David Wojahn on ‘Roadside Flowers’)

The Best Poem Of Laala Kashef Alghata

Much Ado (About Nothing)

I thought that you were my Benedick
and I, your Beatrice, that we argued
against love into love, but oh! I was wrong.

Beatrice truly loved Benedick,
and he loved her. Their fights
were a vibrant cloak to veil their emotions.

No, darling, you were my Claudio,
and I, your Hero, for their love
was of the superficial kind.

Fair Hero, you only loved what your eyes
saw before you, you only loved
who you thought a great man.

Foolish Claudio! How you jump to conclusions
of the maiden you are to marry, how you break
her heart and cast her aside.

(And you killed her once but she came back
to life; no thanks to you and your selfish ways.)

Love is too tricky a treat to play with;
we are, none of us, fit to add to the ingredients
but are, all of us, allowed to stir.

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