Can't it wait another day?

Flames engulf me, swallowing my body

My thoughts vanish, before my body breaks

And I dont know it, that I am no more.

By Tasnim Jivaji

At Ramadan Iftar dinner, Obama supports new mosque on private property near Ground Zero.

If I were to meet any one of you at a park and sat beside you, you would smile and make friends. The character that you are would shine through. You would never smear anyone with vile remarks, in fact, you would look around you and notice how nice it is today.

Yet, when hidden behind the keyboard and monitor, when you can say things you would not say in person, so much bitterness has poured out of your souls.

The people who did the bloodbath during the Crusades are gone. The people who began the unending pouring of innocent Christian blood in Ireland are history. The people who wiped out the entire original population of Tasmania are dead too. The people who made the horrendous slave trade happen are dust now. The people who demolished Palestine and gave it to the Jews are no more in power. The engineers of the African Genocide are not even remembered any more.

What is left is their legacy. We are the legacy of the horrors of our time on this planet. There is no place we humans have left without desecrating what we found there, leaving scars and trails of blood. There is no stone on this earth you can leave unturned that has not witnessed the horrible spark of the human mark. There is no human tribe that can truly testify that they are clean. That is why we found God. To cleanse the blemishes of our existence.

What are you all so angry about? The past that has already been writ? You are here today, make it better, use your now so that 100 years from now, no such remarks will be made. You dont know what it is like to wake up in the countries that war is waging, because you are not there. Buy a ticket, go to a war torn nation, any one or two, there are so many, go and live with them and see how you feel in an hour with them. Then sit down and write.

Remember, the dinosours were here, something happened and they are gone, and no one knows anything about what happened. I said 'remember', but do you?

Posted by: Tas in response to the comments received by Los Angeles Times 'Top of the Ticket' August 13, 2010
August 26, 2010 at 06:23 AM

For just one moment, can we do this, just once?

Blood - G, donno.

Hunger - er, we do not wear G strings.

Water - Great, why?

War - Google Terrorism.

Canada, let's treat G click, let's air lift, person bloodied, hungry, sheepskin water jug, child not waking to peace and plonk them with G#.

Next G to be held, oh, where gangs are rallying, where they line up for food for half a day, walk a marathon to dig their water and for sound effects, there is nothing like war.

Copyright, Tasnim Jivaji 22 June 2010.

Coma

It happened so suddenly,
I died, maybe
I am not here, but my mother is
And strangers
with knowledge
that I am somewhere
Its speckled
My perception
Of my journey to heaven
or to hell
I must be going anywhere
Or am I nowhere.

Send in the Prophets

The concept of killing is simple.
When will we be allowed to move on from the 6 million Jews in Concentration Camps?
So that we can start about what the Jews are doing to Arabs in the Mediterrean and count them.

The concept of dying is simple,
When will a member of the USA power house visit rendition posts?
So that we can start making more realistic news about what is happening here on Earth and view them as we did when they snuffed Saddam from a hole?

The concept of lies is old,
People accept that no one, not anyone at all, can come into your house and burn, rape and rob.
So when will we say, no, there is no question, no excuses, no reasons why we are in the heat and dust of a desert, hustling people who dont even have a tap of water, why our kids are bullying Arabs, even after their oppressor was hanged.

Does this world need another prophet to come and talk of love and forgiveness and throwing first stones, before we begin to let the blood run in our brains and think for ourselves?
So that we dont have the blood of that prophet also on our hands.

The day after.

For all the choices
unpredictably comes the inevitable
sometimes softly
sometimes tearing havoc

No matter how long we contemplate
cry
ask why
we still have to go

and open the place
the cupboards
and face the skeletons
of the passed

clear away the effects
read the mail
unfold things
that should have been buried

smell the odours of life
and lingering perfume
of the person of relevance
once indispensable

hearing a laugh near
the voice still
seeing the face and the features
in the light, on stranger's bodies

For all the choices we make
we dont prepare
to be ready
at the time to remember the choices.

By Tasnim

Is summer winning, really?

She comes breaking through the ice
Smothering the earth with her brilliance
Loving it back to life again
Softening the cold hearth

Even the clouds want in
melting in her warmth
raining down
on fresh delicate beginnings

Puddles are born
and then they die
where they go
they return as ice

And the sun spends endless hours
up there in the sky
so busy, ignoring
the heat waves

Soon the call of the South
pulls down the sun
days grow shorter
and winter comes.

By: Tasnim

Remembering my Father

i see my life running before my eyes
i see myself in mombasa, 1986
at home
a majestic sea-view mansion
draped in hot weather
big windows are open
but no curious breeze enters
only ununderstood sounds
night creatures
dogs and cats
domestic chicken
and the lapping sea
i am awake
blinking back at the stars
brightening the dark calm sky
it is 4 am
my father is awake
he is making me tea
i press my uniform
i dress
become gorgeous
for the kenya airways pick-up bus
to work
a 5 am shift
a small airport
at white beaches reach
fun blue seas
where food tastes like food
from heaven
dad, always there
always quietly there
nudging me
ever so gently
out of my small-town-girl skin
in an obscure african town
to look up from the chickens here
and find eagles
i leave when they hoot
outside
a spray of expensive duty-free perfume
from free trips around the globe
infuses the house
and he says
tasunim, ne ke jee
and i
bye dad.

PMS

As if I didn't know this will happen
it happens often enough
every lunar journey, is laborious for me

When the moon swells, I swell
When it darkens, I am gloom
When it swings, I flip

Werewolves are a joke
Nothing ever can beat this
I am murderous Unlovable Period

I don't have time to splurge

I am how old now? Never mind that ..
but now that I am older than before, that is.
I audit my life sometimes, right?
And if there is a waste of my time, ever.
I feel I wasted a big chunk of my life, you know.
With some really useless people, I swear.

Find me a wand

I hate my life!
People think that when they say these words
everyone will stop and listen.
Someone will be touched.
Maybe even gape!

Well, actually, everyone hates their lives.
Get used to it,

Everyone wants to be heard.
Get over it.

Everyone, in fact, has a great life,
We complicate it and then it hurts.

Not a migraine

So many hours are wasted,
on my depressed state

so many miles I've not tread
when i am deflated

So many thing not done,
because I am undone.

Who can mend
what I cannot tear?

tERRor

Who can resist the morning sun?
Who can stop the child from having fun?
How can another slash the lives The Giver has spun?
Which mother knew out of her womb a butcher comes?

Beautiful Earthen countries.
No future can be bright when the globe hates.
And how easy it is to hate, to not think that the same
wand may be waved and your end too can come

Lethargy

It is summer in full fledge. Everything is slow and tired and even messages to my brain are slack and limp. Like a thirsty messenger in the stark dry savanna back home who ran and ran and ran without stopping for food and drink to get the message to the receiver. Maybe to be shot dead for the bad news that came.
Only this sweltering heat has nothing to do with messages or running, it is just a hot and humid block of days before the freshness of winter come.
Ahh winter... it better snow this year !

Yahoo ! Yipee! Yay!

Ha! Someone out there finally liked my words. Finally someone out there wants to own some of my words! Oh God, finally someone out there is willing to put her buck where my pen is and make it work for me!
Now I need to keep at this and make sure it is not a lonesome wave, just carrying a burp from a whale, but that the tide has come in for me!
Thank you Doro!

Where'd the time go?

Ever wonder why we don't get worked up with ourselves when we waste our own time? I think the little voice inside us that stomps and curses whenever we while away the hours doing nothing is properly muted and now we don't even hear the clocks ticking as we slowly crawl to our graves having done little with our energies and brainpower. Sadly we are saving it for the worms to nourish their unable bodies as they chew on our remains recyling us back to dust.
About those clocks that we don't hear ticking, isn't it true though? We rarely have noisy clocks around us anymore, and that is a shame I am sure.
We let some of those smart people who use their time effectively to make new things to make clocks that tick silently so we don't hear our time slipping away and we buy those soundless time machines and agree that we are game for their plan.... as we let our plans go asunder into oblivion...Oh! Sorry.  Law and Order is on.... gotta go!