Afshan Shafi
This fortnight, Senior Contributing Editor Afshan Shafi curates the website. Her poem is about re-inventing oneself through the craft of writing. It is also partly influenced by the work of the female surrealist Remedios Varo. The archival piece that she has chosen is from Volume 2 of The Aleph Review, ‘The Lieutenant with the Agate Eyes.’ Her new piece for the fortnight is a bracingly modern poem by London-based Ilyas Kassam. Wait for it!
The Self Caught outside the Door
Often no more than a grayish cast of rain
                  she is fluent in conjugationsÂ
                           And half measures
(a bright pelling, a water show)
       Her ache to mark the truth,
                       Keeps her behind a veil
        Each text is a tiny pile of stones-
                    She receives them with her hands by her sides
Eyes that are platinum,
                         GatherersÂ
                            Not swimmers or prone to sing
Around her, an aureole splinters meekly
   It singes to warp
                   the chrome fuzz of her hair
When she speaks
     Her words fleck the air;
                       Wry, engine red,Â
                                      Water-balloons
                                                              Descending into flame
When the words shed their attire
                  They are poor snakes, coat-less, un-glossed
Her words, concern the earth,Â
                 They do not fall
They do not court the eroding fact
             like confetti
                    They flatten to a common fringe
(The door lightens to filament
         Her feet leave her, in a flush of rain
Tiny batmen thunder exculpations
Court her, insisting
You are not you
You are not your given body)