Not A Ballad of Urdu Homophones
Batool Rizvi
Are lions poems too? Come, roar your verse!
O dearest jaan between porcupind strikes!
A door for homes—of fear and wood—a curse
A cursive path that does not still, but stays
In almost sand, in old moist air, rehearsed
And pined, O jaan! O land! No air, nowhere
On canyons of brownd onions. No verse
To trick the waltz to spin on full stomicks!
A powderd bag of neem will find its hearse
Behind a hall, beyond the affliction.
Before carriers ask, laments reverse
Your singing. Breathless jaan will be tonight
As quiet Frosts In Sons with no funeral. Terse
Behind the lips of half-lies stand your Words.
A silenced voice, a silencer made worse
My pinned veil. Cries, yours
grow. Rizvi holds her verse,
Of final conversations of matter.
Urdu Homophones
lion - sher شیر
verse, couplet - sher شعر
dear, life - jaan جان
(a verb, in poetic texts), to know - jaan جان
path - rah راہ
remain, to stay - reh رہ
walk - chal چال
trick, scheme - chaal چال
walk - sair سیر
satiated - ser سیر
condition - haal حال
hall - haal ہال
door - dar در
fear - dar درَ
matter, conversation - baat بات
grew (from a verb, in poetic contexts); abundant, give out - baat اتَب
Batool Rizvi
is an American-Pakistani multidisciplinary poet, translator, artist and community builder who finds herself existing between Urdu and English. Her short story, “Conference of the Forest” was published by The Farthest Lote Tree in 2023. She has been featured in Huffington Post and her work has been published in NYC Haute Hijab, Muslim Writers Collective, Ahlulbayt Collective, and more. Her work is immersed in lyricism, sound play, and innovation while exploring faith, mourning, history and sociopolitical events. Batool is currently an MFA candidate at Columbia University.