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Best Poems From
RANI TURTON
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41.
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My Mind Has A Mind
A calm surface: a world within a world.
My mind, at times, turbulent, savage and contrary
Just at the sound of a simple word
Gallops like wild horses across the prairie.
Oft I longed for calm; for a magic balm
To protect me from various kinds of harm;
Oft I yearned for tenderness:
Life was a game of dice or chess.
Moved from space to space.
Tumbling and wasn't it humbling
Trying to find a minute space
In my mind's mind's universal place?
My mind told my mind
Don't leave me alone;
Life is long and my destiny unsigned;
My mind with my mind, then intertwined.
Copyright: Rani Turton
Rani Turton
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42.
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Poems of Longing, Languishing
There used to be laughter once; there used to be summer once;
The earth seemed warmer and kinder at that time
The fireflies at dusk came out for us.
The willow forgot to weep. Wounds went to sleep.
Then twilight came. Life changed.
But maybe it was me; maybe it was I who didnt keep
Promises and negotiated nothing in my destiny;
That in spite of all the things I did that I didnt want to do
That in spite of all that I didnt do that I was longing to do
To walk slowly through those paths, reach the fountain
I knew so well by sight or sound,
Water, sparkling, splashing, cascading onto stones
I knew as well as the lines in my hand or my bones
Watered by drops from this fountain,
Watered by the raindrops from the skies
From the tears in my eyes
Those pavements that bore the traces of your steps
And my bitter reflections and dreams
Life is refraction, a long walk alone;
To pause, my body aching, my heart breaking
Knowing that some things cannot be undone
Those windows are still there, the courtyard has changed
The doorway where I paused to wipe my tears
Far off the river flows, gently
Murmuring its passion and pain
These poems of love move my heart and cause it to plunge
Like the waters of that fountain that sprout
From the sculpted lions mouth.
There used to be long ago
In this part of the city
My love, my beloved, an almost foe
My foe because of the pain caused
Unwittingly or deliberately:
Not because of the pity;
Pity comes from compassion, no, not that
The pain that pierced my heart
The pain that stopped my heart with his hand
That makes it just another episode in this city
Stoneflagged pain then.
Tear-washed pavements also.
Green benches for the weary;
Fountain-spouted words so.
Pigeons scatter and scurry
Clouds scud real low:
As above, so below.
Blow winds of change blow.
Rani Turton
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43.
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Shah Jahan's Dagger
This, the Emperor's personal dagger
A wonder in itself,
Made for him in his 39th year
Sold for gold
But worth much much more
This khanjar has travelled far
From the Yamuna and all that it holds
The splendor of that tomb
A poem in stone
Where the Emperor's was added
Almost like an afterthought.
Prince Khurram, if you have any tears left,
Weep.
This historical gold-encrusted dagger was sold for 1.7 million pounds on the 10th April,2008. Shah Jahan was the Mughal Emperor who built the Taj Mahal.
Rani Turton
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44.
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Silences
I didn't know how to reply
When you said, You are more to me
Than all this;
I don't know why
My first thought was to lie
But do you know
I just wanted to lay down my head and cry.
The sun slanted through the windowpane
I looked at those hands sensitive and fine
I looked at everything
Pictures on the wall
So that the words wouldn't touch me at all
There are silences as thick as glassdoors
Transparent but solid
But when broken, can cause immense pain
So at four in the afternoon that day
I simply went away
Rani Turton
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