The New Nation - Internet Edition

Of women

There are women we love whom we never see again.

Robert Bly

They are the swirls of snow on edges of the fields.

They melt in swing to the streams, and we do not

See them again for the dark of sun. They are

Riddles in hazel bodies ruptured in the breast of autumn.

Their body is a flesh is a sin is a fall.

Of their past we know very little or nothing:

Where were they born, with whom had they

Played their long seasons, and ripped the

Harvests to the last stalk for whom?

In Fargo, North Dakota, I loved a woman, whom

I cannot remember, I spen! a few nights with, or

In Beatrice, Nebraska, I cast my eyes upon a

Woman whom I loved but never made love to her,

And we fell off from each other one snowy evening

In Columbus, Mississippi, when the last autumn day flagged away.

When we grow old, and look at women we sometimes

Get a bit aphrodisiac; and they are blind alleys

We ride overhand never look back again through the dark.

Madonna of the rain

Rain yesterday. Rain today. More rain tomorrow.

Roads dark, half-sunk. No grass. Grasses deep under streams.

All eyes rain, waters, waters.

Against the window, pressed and punctilious, she

Stands facing the rain, and the wild wind wild,

Dances, dances about her unravelled hair.

Her silhouette is long, spread-eagled yet nonchalant,

Nebulous. Her arms across her breasts.

She croons a note, no syllable. Perhaps inaudible.

And it is all rain now, she prays for more.

And she stands there, all in rain,

And it is all rain now. Who is she?

Marianne? Michelle? Melanie?

I know them all? Perhaps. One of them.

I know her like the dreams I have not dreamt,

The falls I have not slipped,

The wrongs I have not done,

The lies I have not uttered,

The sins I have not committed.

Marianne! Marianne? Marianne?

Marianne, body in waters, eyes in clouds.

And it is all rain now, and through the rain

I will walk straight to the other end of the hamlet

To visit Marianne, who like an undine

Holds her water-filled breasts toward the invisible sun.

There was a time when I could

lend you a hand

I saw you take his kiss!

-Coventry Patmore

You sat facing the high bright sun.

The cloud overshadowed the light in your eyes.

A day was lost therein.

You sat facing the Ful1 Moon.

A cloud mopped out the flakes of silver on your golden cheeks.

A Beauty was spoiled therein, and a profile disturbed.

Who could tear the cloud to thousand bits?

Probably you knew the answer.

Someone waited on your cal1 that never came.

You liked him, the engulfing devil in disguise,

Many-faced serpent of nature,

Who robbed you of everything most precious

A woman should possess, and then left

You a destitute in a forlorn paradise all alone

With a million bitter memories that haunted you night and day.

You kissed him, and the serpent bit back your bosom,

Poisoned the plains of cream blue,

Reptile he was you knew yet bothered little.

This is not courage, no display of chaste womanhood.

You were a doll not board of a cruel game-

The string firmly held by him-

The visible God of your fate.

I was there-trapped, perplexed, hurt-watching

The game closing in-it is all over:

You are drowned in the quagmire of your sin.

Yes, there was a time when I could lend you a hand.

-Rabiul Hasan