Facebook Twitter insta

•   A BIANNUAL LITERARY MAGAZINE BROUGHT TO YOU BY DESI WRITERS' LOUNGE   •

Volume 10


From Pulp To Postmodern: A Tribute - July 2012


Verse

Written by
Mir Elias

Mir Elias, née Mehrin Masud, is the pen name of Mehrin (“Mir”) Masud-Elias. Mir was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, came of age in the United States and found her voice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and their two dogs. Mir’s poems about her coming of age, the immigrant experience, love, loss and aging are often influenced by the Sufi poetic tradition, as well as Western myths, folk and fairy tales. Mir’s poetry has been published in Nothing But Red, a collection of artwork, poetry and short stories about violence against women, and in one of the recent online issues of Papercuts, the bi-annual literary magazine of Desi Writers' Lounge, an online workshop for writers of South Asian origin and writing on South Asia. Her first collection of poems is titled Glass Dreams. (Photo credit: Jamal J. Elias) 

        
      
       
            
              
Read more by this writer

              Read more from this section

              

            

            
            
      
            
            
          

              

                Two to Tango              

              

              
 papercut   SHARE THIS ARTICLE

              
History is something that happens to other people.


You seem like an old friend, my enemy.

I’ve kept you closer than any friend.

The conversations that we may have had

Were we to ever speak, play like a feedback loop,

Like a gramophone that insults

By being out of place and out of time,

That injures by being stuck on one well-worn groove.

Skip a track for a change!

Just do it and see what happens.

Maybe, instead of foes, we’ll be lovers, even friends,

Our orbits entwined in a slow tango to the

Cold, sparkling indifference of the cosmos.

Life is kind enough

To provide its own resolutions,

Cruel enough to let us

Suffer its consequences.

Will you be forced to repeat my past since I don’t know yours?

Will I be doomed to your future since you can’t guess mine?

To the victor belongs history,

Or what’s left of it after

Redactions, recreations, resurrections, repressions,

Deductions, revisions, elisions, regressions.

Mine will become yours, and yours mine.

What could you love about me?

What won’t I hate about you?

Perhaps, life will also arrange for its own surprises—

Dear love for an enemy.

            

        

        

           
          

            
 

            
 More in this Issue: « Previous Article       Next Article  » 

            
            		
        

      
    

  

  

  

  

  
  Desi Writers Lounge Back To Top