Today’s New Verse News: CLOUDS FALL
by Hiba Heba
for the flood victims of Pakistan
A heavily flooded home in Rajo Nizamani village, near Jhirk, Sept. 10. Credit: Hassaan Gondal for TIME.
You can help the UN World Food Programme—the world’s largest humanitarian agency—provide life-saving food to the most vulnerable families. CLICK HERE TO DONATE NOW.
*
*
Koyal chirps / in the dark street / Leaves / barks / magnolias / roofied by the dark street / The moon is blighting / the sky / in this poem / this poem is a dark street / We played cricket / in the same desolate / streets / I bled / between my legs / bled the size of a vat / in this dark street / Tonight I dangle / my legs over the railing / thinking / mourning / O Dark Street / how loud is your thunder / of desolateness / even the clouds / denounced it / they rained / raged / bled / In Urdu when it rains / we say / badal baras rahe hain: the clouds are falling / falling / tearing through / the fearful blue / of the dark street / Every night I call Daisy / home / from my kitchen’s old window / every night / she prances over the railing / then in my arms / I trust these long / misleading / dark streets / the streets hold / together / our tenderness / When a mother wades / through the cloudy / deluge / ululating the names / of her children / Musa / Musa / Musa / she knows all / that has drowned / will eventually be found / when the clouds ascend / even the tenderness / now holding itself / against / the koyal-gloom / of the dark street /
*
*
Hiba Heba is a Pakistani poet who recently launched an online business, RepairInk, that provides editing and proofreading services. She was the first runner-up for the New Feathers Award 2021. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Fragmented Voices, The Ofi Press and Poetry Wales, among others. Hiba has a micro-chapbook, Grief is a Firefly (Origami Poems Project, 2021), and her debut full-length poetry collection Birth of a Mural will be published by the US-based Golden Dragonfly Press in October, 2022.