Shades of Grey by Wardha Jawdat (best fiction novels txt) 📕

Thirst drove me down to the water
where I drank
the moon's reflection.

Rumi
1207 – 1273 A.D.

Index

Page....Content

10......Shades of grey
14......An idyllic love
15......A mother's anger
16......Let there be a beginning
18......And sadness
19......The night
21......The soldiers of life in the geriatric ward.
23......The diary of the abandoned
25......The muse
26......And the devil said
28......Futile...trapped!
29......Sunset in my soul
30......Too much to ask
31......I dub the 'Pain'
33......Ice
35......Do I love?
37......The Quest
39......Cold January mist
41......Come hither, my love!
43......Paper planes: Two

Index continued

45......Ode to your innocence
46......That be love
48......What this minute is worth
50......Annotations

* * * * *


BOOKS BY WARDHA JAWDAT

Poetry

Shades of Grey
Known Stranger

Fiction & Writings

A Summer in Black
Writing by Numbers

Short Stories

Kat & Sable

Folk Tales

Enchanted Lake

* * * * *

Prologue

Shades of grey

And I plucked a dream
Out of the garden of my night,
And I wondered why,
the colors were all
Grey.

Never quite black,
Never quite white,
But grey,
One shade,
Never too dull,
Never too bright.

And I looked around
At the sadness
And the blight,
And I never felt the tear fall
Silently, in the night.

I stood humbled,
By the vapid waste of my mind
The lusterless grayness,
In which I see my soul reside
I want to breathe some color


Defeat the monochrome palor,
Whisper some faith,
Into my opaque third eye.

I want to live;
I want to see;
I want to breathe;
I want to be free
Of this bleakness,
This impotent grayness,
This continuous lament,
That has become my being.

I want to take a pail of Orange
And fling it upon the canvas
Of my sub conscience,
Obliterate all the gray
That is so plaguing my soul,
And bring in the happiness,
The sun,
The spirit,
The moon.

The Canvas

An idyllic love

From the other side of sunshine,
From the village behind the stars,

I fancy your coming back to me,
I fancy you pulsating in my heart.

I fancy your eyes were sad,when you turned to go,
I fancy, and darling, I let those tears flow.

I fancy your lips trembled, as you muttered goodbye,
I fancy you even kissed me, and the pain flits by.

I fancy I hurt you, I fancy your heart even I broke,
I fancy that’s why you left...not because you chose to go.

I fancy the beauty of your desertion, I call it all love,
I fancy it because I have nothing, if not that trust.

Ah! My love,
Even on this lonely eve
I fancy,…
From the other side of midnight,
From the village behind the hills,

I fancy you beckon alluringly,
I fancy you loving me, still.

A mother's anger

You!
issue of mine,
borne with love,
birthed with care;
I look at you now,
the naughty gleam in your eye,
as your worrisome ministrations
wreck havoc with all order.

I look and marvel
at the miracle of your evolution,
from gurgles to mumbles
and thence, to comprehensions,
the actions, with anger
tempered by the pouts,
which dissolve my resolution to be firm.

You, little bundle of joy and woe!
all atwitter in a fit of
infantile anger..
I look at you, bewildered!
marveling as a mother
at what God had me do!

Let there be a beginning

I have ached for you,
since time began
to have any meaning;
since the world began
to make any sense;
I have hungered for your look;
that look, which will tell me
that I’ve been birthed,
and christened.
That I’ve been sun-kissed
and pocketed
in some recess
of your heart or mind...


I have lusted for your sentience;
for your lips to mouth a question
that will defeat my obscurity,
and define my existence to me.
for, since time began
to have any meaning,
and since the world began
to make any sense to me,


I have loved you;
and awaited you;
and dreamed you into godliness....
till, I have lost my soul,
till, I have lost my reflection,
till, I have lost all sense of reason.

…and sadness

The moon is so silent....
the air, so ominously still,
this night seems endless,
this sadness, tireless still.
My heart, does it beat?
I hear nothing in my mind,
no breathing even;
it's so silent,
I might be soulless tonight...
there’s no whispering fantasy,
to enlighten my sobriety,
no empty wanderings,
to chase away these morosities.
I feel alone...bereft,
tragically sad.
Without knowing, I’ve been met
with such a friend, as sadness,
who comes upon me ever so slow,
like a forgotten lover's memory...
which is slow in advent;
and ever reluctant to go.

The night

Music...
floating on the wind,
serenity,singing her ballad
of love ,hope, faith;
the night,wrapped around my senses
like a comforter,
hiding all things broken,
splintered,
shattered.
the night,
its gentle veil
pulled down over my eyes,
like a tangible lullaby,
wishing away all tears,
all disappointments,
all fears,
just for the night,
by the night.
I lie in her arms
surrendering all reason,
lids laden with defeated causes,
heart heavy with all the bruises,


that the day has burnt,
into my existence.
I shall heal tonight,
I shall forget myself
and sleep unencumbered tonight...
the night
hugs me to her bosom,
close,
sweet,
tight.

The soldiers of life
in the geriatric ward

Soundless as a ghost's whisper,
amongst semi-corpses.
Pulsating in pained rhythm
to the blue-green tracings,
in which agonized souls seem trapped.
We breathe, but only in catches,
between apathetic beeps
of inanimate machines.
Living, perched, upon the edge of sanity
which seems an elusive romantic dream.

We drug bodies in a state of semi-being,
treating their soulless shells,
and our own perception
of just how obscene
this business is,
of playing court to Izrael.
I look down upon countless
frail forms, which are, but mere
whispers of the men they used to be,
and I wonder: what am I soldiering for?


What have I saved?
Or, if anything at all!
Your skin is pasty
and waterlogged so,
that you seem to be forever
weeping, en masse,
body and soul...
I look down at you and wonder;
would you even know you?
And I find that I’m glad,
that you no longer know:
that life has abandoned you as redundant,
and that death
has not yet the mercy
to claim you as her own.

The diary of the abandoned

The mouths to feed
lie silent for now, but not for long;
he's been gone I’m afraid
for very, very, long.
Too long for my hopes to expect his return...
but not long enough for me to hate him, with a passion.


It’ll be dawn soon and hunger shall awaken the young;
the desperation to feed and clothe my flesh,
shall before long, return.
I know not which way to dig
or which direction to burn;
what part of myself do I sell,
to salvage the hungering soul.


Oh Lord!
“love” is the penultimate curse
upon a woman whose chosen the worst;
"dependence"
the devil's spell upon one
who slumbers, in the lap of another's festering scorn.
Ah! Daybreak I can't play with regret anymore,


self-pity is a luxury I shall bathe in
forever more.
But for now,
I shall scavenge,
and survive somehow,
the only respite is making it till dusk,
somehow.


There’re mouths to feed
and bodies to clothe,
and nothing more to guide me but the pain,
the instincts,
and the sheer brutal strain,
the anger,
the passion of having been deceived,
the desire to be heard,
and the need to be seen!

The muse

I want to court "discontent"

for a while longer yet.
I want to cavort with words,
utter some more sonnets to rivet.
Come “discontent”

, plague my soul
for thou art my muse

,
my nemesis, my ever oozing wound...
I need for the blue ink to flow
for my ache to blossom and grow
into poems, into verse, into song.
Come Muse, Pain, Plague!

Come play with my sanity some more.
I am not ready to resign my pen
I wish to play Devil

some more.

And the devil said

In my being
there's a rabbit hole, so deep,
It begins, like a vice
where your nightmares end;
I keep my eyes lowered,
and my hands folded,
so that you see it not,
in my eyes,
lapping up your soul.
And, feel it not atremble
in my hands,
as they desire to
bleed you whole.
You don’t even see it,
dont even think I exist.
Your mind can’t escape
the feeble
mazes you keep it trapped in,
the desires, the pathetic wants,
and simplistic needs,
you think will make you complete...
You see not that I enslave you,


that you are puppets for my treat.
You feel no regrets, no depravity,
no desire to escape my captivity...
I have you in the palm of my hand,
and I am bored now
with your sacrilegious seed.
Your ungodliness has ceased
to please me...
I wonder...
what else shall I
now disease?

Futile...trapped!

It’s all so futile,
all so meaningless,
if you don’t have the compass
that points to your best.
It’s all so futile;
Me standing,and wilting shadeless,
all so painfully useless,
when you couldn't care less.
All those many questions,
asked and reasked;
so many futile answers,
spanned over deaf years.
Your mind, so beautiful,
yet so dark to my ray of love;
your eyes, so brilliant,
yet dulled to my sheen of tears.
All so futile; this game we play.
No happy endings,
no smiles, no relief.
No escape!

Sunset in my Soul

Blood-red swords of light,
and flame-angry lava clouds;
I wonder why there's no pandemonium
when the sun goes down?

My soul screams for mercy,
even as you turn around,
to walk away from the wretched mess
of me lying on the ground...

Does your heart not ache?
Do my tears not sting your face?
Do my silent yearnings for your love
not melt your stone-cold restraint?

Maybe, it’s best I’m shattered;
Scattered, like ashes upon the wind.
Then, after the pain is done with me,
I’ll try to piece me back again.

Maybe, its best I understand;
you can't love the way I can.
And it’s best that I comprehend;
that this is how the story must end.

Too much