Beauty
Art, poetry
Strive for beauty
To bring alive
The henna on a hand
The anklet on a foot
To make immortal
A beloved’s look
A lover’s torment
This is my canvas
What I do best
With color and line
With rhythm and rhyme
Wait, you say
There are worlds
Beyond henna and anklet
Beyond lovers and beloveds
Pestilence, war, death, deprivation
Inequality, injustice, oppression, starvation
Will you not speak
of such worlds?
I hesitate
Afraid
With color and line
With rhythm and rhyme
To render them so beautiful
That looking over your shoulder
You might say
Guernica
Ah, what a lovely painting
And leaving
Pass me an Iliad
To enjoy on the way
by Anjum Altaf
from Transgressions, Poems inspired by Faiz Ahmen Faiz
LG Publishers, 2019