FROM THE FERRY OF MY FAIRYTALE
by Munia Khan
It was in my fairytale nightmare
I was floating on a ferry
oddly enough, the ferry had a tail
It was going slow, I felt bored on board
I met the Knight of night; he was here
to hear the hymn I dedicated to him
He’d be happier to not pay any heed
to whatever deed I did in a stormy night
When he was dying, I was busy dyeing my hair
I thought the thunder and lightning
would be lightening my hair’s color
During the night if I could change my look
he would love it, I believed
Yet nothing worked right in my nightmares
I allowed him to curse at me aloud
My sorrows swelled bigger in size
so did my sighs…nevertheless,
I began writing a rhyme for him about
how I was covered with rime in a freezer
that night, I was almost dead.
Next morning I thanked the Lord
because while I was mourning, the sun had shone
with all its rays to raise hope in me
yet nothing was shown as proof of love.
The dark blue sky blew my peace away
with a striking piece of a new thunderbolt
I knew the hole created by the stormy strokes
could change the whole scenario, I dreamed
I conquered our hearts concord
believing all the hours were ours
I was wrong to imagine I could steal a heart of steel
I tied my soul to the tide of the sea
to see if my death bell was tolled by the whale
since I was told to wail.
He wished to create a son of the sun
I needed to know if he could ever say no
when I wanted to soar with him in my sore need
I really never soared, for he cut my dream-wings
with his treacherous sword. I heard he used to hire herd
to follow his flight when he flew higher in flu like a bird
I wanted to be a flea so that I could flee with him
I wanted to be a hare while he cut my hair;
yet did he even care?
I wish my heart would be in love with a hart
who could be my dear deer to be able to find
my fined plight, being in love with a human.
I felt like an ewe when he commanded me-
”You have to accept every torment I offer”; and I did except
for a very few which did vary from time to time
He pierced one eye of my pet crow, I recalled,
because it did cause him trouble with its serial caws
while it ate eight boxes of cereal from his breakfast table;
so the crow had to bear his bare torture.
His cruelty struck a chord with its vocal cord
making it a cheap bird to cheep alone
He forced it to drink whey in a way
to weigh out the liquid flour from its stomach.
Right then I felt like a weed instead of a flower
thinking we’d never won one single wise mind
to explain the whys of our mined lives
which needed to be dug in while he called me a witch
I was desperate to pause myself to vanish my paws
as I had formally become a sorceress
who was formerly a naive poetess
I did exercise my spirituality
but he tried to faze every phase
in order to exorcise me.
I still owed him an ode, finally
which could’ve been finely written
But alas, the nightmare broke
when night rain began
to reign over the ferry;
yet the flair for poetry
continued to flare up
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem may look contrived for the sake of homophones, but I intentionally went overboard to make it a singsongy kind of nightmarish fun poem where I chiefly concentrated on playing with words.
IMAGE: “The Boat” by Odilon Redon (1897).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Munia Khan was born on a spring night of 15th March in the year 1981. She enjoys her journey to the literary world. Most of her works are poems of different genres. Her poetry is the reflection of her own life experience. She is a founding member of Poets & Artists For A different World Movement and also a member in The Poetry Society, UK. Her first poetry collection: Beyond the Vernal Mind, published in 2012 by Xlibris Corporation, USA. Her work has been translated into various languages: Japanese, Romanian, Urdu, and so on. Visit her at muniakhan.com.
Silver Birch Press 