
'Au Revoir, Cendrillon' & 'Daydreams of Tinsel': Two Poems by Hibah Shabkhez

AU REVOIR, CENDRILLON
‘Au revoir, Cendrillon. Now you
Have real carriages with silk-and-gold
Trappings, and grand rooms with a view
Brighter than the attics of old
You have no more need of me. Let
The wind take me to a lorn child
Crouched over cinders, who can get
No real warmth from the fire’s wild
Roaring. Weave into the basket
You send the echoes of your own
Joys.’ Thus creak I, the wood-casket
Of the pumpkin carriage now grown
Into a centre-piece to grace
Shelves. I still yearn for misery
To leaven, for a child's bright face
To dream a little dream of me.
DAYDREAMS OF TINSEL
On the linen crinkled into sea-froth
Crisped by the deep glint of a wooden shore
The rosary of date-beads lurches, wroth
To slide tamely over the hands that store
In its cells myriad lonely whispers.
The ocean of wrinkled cloth ’neath the hands
Rustles soft laments for the fading grace
There lingering still, awaiting time's sands
Tranquilly, like the wistful smiling face
That would still give the lie to the blisters
Festering in its folds of peeling skin
And in the chipped coal-specked brown of the beads;
The eyes find their revolt reflected in
These whittled remains of force-barrened seeds,
And dim in the rush of understanding
That floods now with trembling the aged frame:
Of how nevermore is better and worse
Than never, since within it the selfsame
Having had is become blessing and curse
In this last limbo on death's wood landing
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Black Bough, Protean, Ideate, Songs of Eretz, Sparks of Calliope, The Dawntreader and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her. Find her on her blog: hibahshabkhezxicc.wordpress.com/, on Twitter: @hibahshabkhez, on Facebook: www.facebook.com/hibahshabkhezsarusaihiryu/, or on Instagram: @shabkhez_hibah.