Loneliness

Loneliness

Loneliness embraces me

with its cold fingers,

every time when I call

your name.

I can feel the hollowness

inside my heart every time

when I dream about you.

-Nuruljannah-

I should have

I should have

I call upon you,
in my dreams,
in my tears.
I blame it on my
ludicrous heart,
I should have crushed that
gardenia when it started
burgeoning inside it.
You are smiling
with her slender hands on
your broad shoulders,
while despair
is suffocating
me.

-Nuruljannah-

"For I love him, and he didn't love back."

Two-Volume Novel
The sun's gone dim, and
The moon's turned black;
For I loved him, and
He didn't love back. 
-Dorothy Parker-


I love this poem as though it's speaking to me, "You're not alone!" This poem is palpably sad and I can indeed relate to this. By the way here are my poems for today. Both are six-word poems entitled "Unrequited"  and "Love":


Unrequited
You are
my music
of pain.


Love
You are
my poison,
my wine.

-Nuruljannah-

Sometimes

Sometimes,
people can be
as cold as loneliness
colder than the callous winter.
Their eyes are gelid
and they can freeze you
to death.

-Nuruljannah-

Self-publish?

Assalamualaikum and hello there,

It has been awhile since I last rambled on and on like an old lady who doesn't have a life. I miss writing discursively, grousing about my mundane problems, and expressing my nonexistent love life.

 Like always, I'm still stuck with my never-ending thesis. Alhamdulillah, at least I've submitted to the second examiner. I hope my examiner would not die of boredom reading it. Please pray for me. #PrayforNuruljannah.

By the way, for you information, (not to swank about or anything *snorts*), two of my poems "Akad Nikah" and "Repetition" have been published in "Asian Centre Anthology of Malaysian Poetry in English".

Alhamdulillah. I remember my first publication. My first poem entitled "I wish I were that girl" was actually published in Star Newspaper, under Poetry Corner. Sadly, I didn't manage to keep it. How did I know it was published in that newspaper that might have been used to wrap nasi lemak? (Note:Nasi lemak is Malaysian food. Yummy. I'm salivating). 

Okay, let me confess something. At times, I love to google myself. Yes, just like an old lady who doesn't have a life. Well, it's just for a precaution in case people might sabotage you or your horrible pictures might pop up. Yeah, I know I am just a nobody but like I said, just for a precaution.

 Again, not to boast or anything *evil grins*, there were two people who surprisingly loved my ridiculous poem. Hey, to me, two people are a lot! That's how I knew it was published in Star Newspaper. Whaddaya know. Googling yourself paid off after all.

I love it when my ridiculous  poems evoke people's emotions or inspire them. I want my poems to be people's confidantes, loyal best friends or a friend who you usually watch movies with, as if my poems are speaking to you, saying you're not alone.

I don't want my poems to be literary writings that perplex people's mind or to be intricate like annoying mathematical problems. 

Yes, I admit, my poems are not like Shakespeare, Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson. But, I write with my heart and soul. I really hope my poems can inspire you or be your loyal and a little bit of your annoying friends.

I'm thinking of self-publish since it's difficult to find a publisher. I know I will not gain any profits. But hey, that is not the reason for me to write poems. I want to inspire, annoy you  and make my poems to be your loyal friends.

Whaddaya think?

By the way, before I go, here is poem of a day entitled "The Red Balloon":

The Red Balloon

Teach me Ya Rahman,

how to let go this

red balloon

that does not 

belong to me?

Teach me Ya Rahim,

how to soothe my aching heart

when I let this 

red balloon go?

Teach me Ya Wadud,

how to untie its string that is

intricately wrapped

around my wrist?

Please teach me Ya Rabb,

how to let go.

-Nuruljannah-

I still dream about you.

Last night, I have a beautiful heartbreaking dream. I was at an unknown place, swarming with people. I elbowed my way through the teeming place and felt like walking through the dark road with dim street lights. Some people seemed familiar especially one particular person who made my heart freeze. It was him, the one who is utterly important to me albeit he broke it. Yes, I could feel my apprehension in that dream. I did not know why I felt scared when I saw him. Perhaps, I was scared of getting hurt again. His smile was glowing like starlight. Perhaps, it's because his dream came true. I was never in his dream or not even close to his world.

I evaded him by going the opposite path. Then, a platoon of vicious soldiers came from nowhere, brandishing guns at us. I heard people screaming and everything turned chaotic. Instead of running for my life, I was looking for him. All I could think about was his safety.

 I spun around and ran straight to him as soon as I found him. I shielded him with my body. While shielding him, I held both of his hands tightly. It felt so real. I could feel his warmth. I knew it was inappropriate and sinful to touch opposite gender but I couldn't control myself. As if I were possessed by something. I whispered to him word by word, "I..love.. you.. Always!" I let go both of his hands slowly when one of the vicious soldiers shot me.

Then, I woke up. I wonder what's the real meaning behind my dream.Perhaps, that vicious soldier who shot me signifies painful reality and letting go means I need to move on even though I still have strong feelings for him.

Yes, honestly, I still do care about him and his happiness. That's why I tried to erase him from my mind as he has found his happiness. No more chasing after him. I let him go because I truly love him. I wish I know why I have these enigmatically strong feelings for him.

It reminds me of the scene from The Phantom of the Opera play. The phantom let Chrisitine go so she could marry Raoul and be happy albeit he still has strong feelings for her. I could feel Erik, the phantom's pain deeply.

I wish moving on is as easy as eating. I want to be happy too, to love and be loved in return. I am tired with wasting my time with unrequited love and sad endings.

But, I know Allah knows best. I trust Him and His wisdom. I really hope my dream comes true too. To love and be loved in return and be happy with my significant other in this world and the Hereafter.Please, Ar-Rahman, make it come true.

Madness

Assalamualaikum and hi there. I know I've failed (again) to complete NaPoWriMo challenge as I'm currently struggling to complete my tedious Master's thesis. Oh, well. By the way, here's my poem for today. I just want to share my madness with all of you ngehahaha..okay, just ignore my menacing laugh (don't worry it's harmless) Here goes:

Madness

How can you live
in the place
that you called home
where you breathe loneliness
and the walls turn darker,
where you can only hear
anger echoes,
they blame you
for all the madness,
where you don't realize
you are married to the
freezing loneliness that crawls
in your skin
night and day,
where you feel like
you don't belong here
in the place that you called
home.

-Nuruljannah-

P.S. Yup, this Master's thesis indeed drives me insane.

NaPoWriMo #8: Tonight I can sing the saddest tune (after Neruda)

Day 8's prompt is to rewrite a famous poem. Okay, challenge accepted!This is like me preparing a meal (which is indeed disastrous as I'm culinary challenged). I'm going to rewrite one of Pablo Neruda's poems, Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Line. This is Neruda's poem:

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

-Pablo Neruda-


This is my version:

Tonight I can sing the saddest tune.

I hold my pen and croon,
Tonight I can sing the saddest tune.

With my shattered hope and the pale moonlight,
I croon in the somber night.

The immense night is without the shivering stars,
and there is nothing but my bleeding scars.

Sometimes, Hope can tear you apart,
Just what it did to my fragile heart.

The man I love is distant and cold,
And indeed I am not his precious gold.

He fills my intricate void, my remedy, my salve,
How can you love and miss someone you never have?

Yet, I still pray for his well-being
and I never stop praying.

I still love him, I do
By protecting her too.

Tonight I can sing the saddest tune.
I hold my pen and croon.

With my shattered hope and the pale moonlight,
I croon in the somber night.

Perhaps, this is not my last time
I sing for him with my broken rhyme.

-Nuruljannah-

NaPoWriMo #7 Books

Day 7's prompt is to write a love poem but the target object must be inanimate. Here goes:

Books

You take me to the world

where actuality tastes like

cotton candy

and play me the music

of words

to annihilate my pain.

You make me forget

the loneliness' footprints 

on my heart.

Sometimes, I do feel like

burning you

but most of the time

you fill my world

with your spectacular colours and magic.

How can I live without 

my painter?

I carry you

in my soul,

as you are

my loyal companion

my amorous lover

my home.

-Nuruljannah-

NaPoWriMo #6: Through my window

Day 6's prompt is to write what you see outside your window. Here is my lousy poem. I wish there were a hunky bloke out there. Perhaps I can write like Shakespeare when I see one?

Through My Window
Birds chirp like
a composer
and trees rustle
in the wind
and dance
to a mellifluous song.
Clouds swim in the cerulean pool,
creating its own art.
A middle-aged man,
in faded shirt is
cleaning the rain gutters
and downspouts
(I wish he were my distant wonder-wall
or Nico Mirallegro),
while I am looking
through my window,
like a distressed princess
confined in a tower,
and composing a poem
instead of writing
my never-ending
thesis.

-Nuruljannah-

Day 5:The Golden Shovel

I used these ending words from Thom Gunn and Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems to compose my poem. Here are their poems:

Jamesian
Their relationship consisted
In discussing if it existed.

-Thom Gunn

First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

And here's mine:

True Love
True love is consisted
of Divine Light, it existed
in the purest soul, no ends
and it gleams in the darkest night
Like loyal friends
It emanates the brightest light.
-Nuruljannah-

NaPoWriMo #4:Peace

Day four's prompt is to write a lune, an English language variation on the haiku. I'm going to follow the version developed by Jack Collum that consists of three-line stanza, 3-5-3 format. Here goes:

Peace wraps me

like a lost lover, when

I feel You.

-Nuruljannah-

NaPoWriMo # 3:A Charm against Writer's block

Day 3 NaPoWriMo: The prompt for day 3 is to write a charm poetry. Here goes:

A Charm against Writer's Block

Those skylarks fly,

In the cerulean sky,

Smell the fresh grass,

And play the brass,

Let the ideas flow

Let the stars glow.

-Nuruljannah-

NaPoWriMo #2: The Devious Amanojaku

For day 2, the prompt is to write a poem based on a non-Greco-Roman myth. Here goes:

The Devious Amanojaku 
No one can hear
these malevolent
voices
and see the glint of its
spiteful eyes
if we let it conquer
our fickle heart.

It is fed on our greed,
our selfishness,
our destruction.
Some of us blame it
for our nefariousness,
condemn it
for our vile actions
without realizing
we let it become
our beating heart.
-Nuruljannah-

P.S. Amanojaku is "a demon-like creature in Japanese folklore. It is usually depicted as a kind of small oni, and is thought to be able to provoke a person's darkest desires and thus instigate him into perpetrating wicked deeds" (Wikipedia).

NaPoWriMo #1: Forget it, and don’t ask about the rest—nor for whom—

Oh, shoot!An ekphrastic poem is actually for the early-birds and I thought it was for the first day of NaPoWriMo. My,bad! I'm going to write a poem anyway based on the given prompt. We have to go to Reb Livingston’s Bibliomancy Oracle and compose a poem based on that quotation. I hope I'm not too late. Here goes:

"Forget it, and don’t ask about the rest—nor for whom—"

Perhaps, we are meant to taste these tears,

and take the wrong routes,

sometimes, it's cul-de-sac.

Sometimes, we encounter into people

who gnaw on our

soul,

most of the time,

we listen to the inevitable music

of heartbreaks.

Sometimes, we are shrouded

by hopelessness,

sometimes our dreams are ground into dust

and our efforts

flowing in the drain,

sometimes, we tend to doubt

the Wisest One,

"Forget it, and don’t ask about the rest—nor for whom—"

don't ask but to endure

as every despondency or catastrophe

will shed your unwanted layers

 and unveil the invaluable gold.

-Nuruljannah-

P.S. I got this excerpt "Forget it, and don’t ask about the rest—nor for whom—"

from “Don’t Ask” by Alexander Xaver Gwerder (translated by Marc Vincenz).

NaPoWriMo: Mindscape

Yeah, I know I've to focus on my thesis but I've to exercise my creativity and let my imagination roam freely, aite? One of my panaceas for distress is indeed composing  crappy poems. So, I decided to join NaPoWriMo (www.napowrimo.net).What's NaPoWriMo? It's National Poetry Writing Month. Woot!

Since I was born in April, I'm really thrilled NaPoWriMo is celebrated this month. Well, I will be more thrilled if there were NaTheWriMo (National Thesis Writing Month) so I could finish my thesis for a month. Yeah, right.

Okay, let's get back to business, shall we? This is my first NaPoWriMo poem for this month entitled "Mindscape". That title is actually based on one of Latiff Mohidin's paintings, a prominent Malaysian artist. Our prompt for today is to write an ekphrastic poem, a poem inspired by a work of art. Since I'm Malaysian, that's why I chose his painting. Here goes:

                             

 Mindscape
Can you see a galaxy
in my mind?
Oh, how beautiful
those stars bind!
Scintillating like a beacon,
where there is a flying chicken
dancing through the starlight
with an enormous delight.
With no impossibility
as a boundary,
no noises or
malicious voices,
your mind can be free
to create its own galaxy.

-Nuruljannah-

The Secret Recipe

I compose my poems with my scattered rhythms
using a cauldron of words like making a peanut butter
sandwich
with cheese.

Poetry does not
accentuate superiority,
or emphasize strict rules of
rhymes and meters,
Or incomprehensible metaphors
To make your brain suffers,
Remember, poetry is not like our society.

It lets souls speak
and unfurls deepest fears
to help you to listen
not just to hear
your inner self.

That is a true poetry,
albeit no poetic meters
no rhymes,
or composed of absolute meters
or absolute rhymes,
or use repetitive mundane words
and peanut butter sandwich (don't forget the cheese)
as a metaphor.

What makes your poetry
a poetry
is your deepest
soul
(perhaps with a tad of peanut butter sandwich with cheese?)

-Nuruljannah-

An Adventure

I have never realized
I have this subtle fear,
swimming in my ocean
of dreams.

I always yearn for an adventure
with my soul mate,
clambering up together
to reach Him.

I thought I was bold enough
to undergo this new adventure
with anyone
but I was wrong.
It is not just anyone.

When I look at you,
I yearn to have an adventure with you,
your presence has devoured my fears,
as long as you're in my future
I am fearless.

But, your heart belongs
to someone else,
and you're happy
embarking on your new adventure
with her.
While I am here,
with my shattered courage,
with my fears,
watching them devouring me.

-Nuruljannah-

They say

Not beautiful enough,

they say,

men will turn away and flee.

My body is tattooed

with stretchmarks,

my body is not

aesthetic,

they say,

rotund and huge,

men will turn away and flee.

Not beautiful enough.

they say,

I need to be slender 

and slim,

to steal a man's heart

and to tie the knot.

No wonder you are single,

they say,

shed your weight,

you will attract men like sugar

attracts ants.

I hug my beautiful rotund body,

and look at those nincompoops and say

only a real man

can see my true beauty,

and love me.

-Nuruljannah-

Reflection

I wish I could hug you,
and make you soothing
green tea,
dry your wretched tears
with my half-baked love.
I wish I could heal
your brittle heart,
but, I am incarcerated
in the reflective world
of yours.
I wish you could see me
beyond you,

You never did.

-Nuruljannah-

A heartbeat

If you write with every ounce
of your soul,
Your words
will have a heartbeat.

-Nuruljannah-

Can You Hear Me?

I wrote this poem in my notebook long time ago. Before I tear off that page, wad it up into a ball and throw at my brother, I just want to share this mawkish poem with all of you, my dear beloved imaginary readers. Here goes:

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
My heart whispers
in a form of silence,
Can you hear me?
My heart sings for you
from afar,
does it reach you?
My dearest thief,
if you annihilate
your stubborn walls
you can hear
the voice of my heart.

-Nuruljannah-

Broken

I remember
the look
of your broken face,
where you used
to camouflage it
with your quips,
You would guffaw
at your own jokes
To mask your broken face,
I still could see
your invisible tears.
Maybe that’s why
I gave
my fragile soul
to you,
I want to wipe away
your silent pain.
Now it seems
your world and my world have been swapped,
I did not see your broken face anymore,
She has healed you,
And you have broken me.

-Nuruljannah-