Atomic

Chalice Am Bergris

A poem about Old Age and Youth.

NB: This is an updated version of this post; previously, the last stanza was missing a verse due to a site error. The mistake has been corrected.

The Buccaneers by Dua Abbas Rizvi (gouache and pastel on archival paper, 2018)

Yes, the platinum years shine with awareness, give it all bite.

Greying minds see jade frames of poignance, significance and glee.

Cry for unthinking youth, when experience is atom-light. 

Pensioners hug their descendants, wish they never need to fight,

Know all things and no things will be solved with steaming cups of tea.

Yes, the platinum years shine with awareness, give it all bite.

Kid dragons roar, spew flames of rubies, fly with unseeing might.

They don’t mind finding things difficult if paid a choc bar fee.

Cry for unthinking youth, when experience is atom-light.

Scream to all souls, “Do it while you can, before the final flight!

Regrets weigh more than judgements, fun is fucktastically free!”

Yes, the platinum years shine with awareness, give it all bite.

Freshly wet beings suspended in webs of spun gold: their plight

is minor til they get old, their soft bones bounce and gently be.

Cry for unthinking youth, when experience is atom-light.

Yet consider the horror of a playground, children, a kite—

Not knowing which will suffer in life for lack of the right key.

Yes, the platinum years shine with awareness, give it all bite.

Cry for unthinking youth, when experience is atom-light.

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Chalice Am Bergris is half-Colombian, half-Pakistani, and physically and mentally disabled. Her poems have been published in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Australia. She has won the Over The Edge prize in Ireland and has been shortlisted in the Creative Future Writers’ Award and the Spectrum Identity Competition. She has been published in the Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology. The poet previously used the name Caroline Am Bergris for poetry published on The Aleph Review.

Dua Abbas Rizvi is a visual artist and writer from Lahore, Pakistan. She has written on art and culture for The Herald, Dawn, The Friday Times, ArtNow, and The Aleph Review and contributed essays on South Asian and Islamic art to Encounters: The Art of Interfaith Dialogue (Brepols), the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (De Gruyter), Image Journal (for which she also serves as an editorial advisor), and Selvedge Magazine. In 2022, she was awarded a South Asia Speaks Fellowship to develop her first book of visual nonfiction. She is currently studying towards a master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki.