Hajaarh Muhammad Bashar, NIGERIA

LIBERATION

When dream's flute serenaded
the heart of man,
Woman had cottons forced into her ears
to block its hypnosis.

She almost wilted away with the hope
that man would let her dance
to the melody of dream,
or let dream rubs ice to her soul to
smoothen the edge of her fantasies.
But man was vigilant.
He refuted it. Condemned it.

'Bow your head' man chastised,
'you are a bird in my home. Your dreams
should be the life that gush between your thighs.
Should be the little hearts suckling your breasts.
 Should be the cries that startle you awake &
have you cradle it, singing sweet berceuse.
Should be the bellies on which you'll blow
raspberries to birth giggles.'

But woman's eyes glower and
her head refused it.
"Do you only seek a bearer of apron and
a woman whose breasts flat out with sucklings?
I came to being the day the sun married the sky.
And I was made from the bone of your hips.
We walked side by side
as Adam and Eve.
I was not made a servant or a slave of words.
I bear the mark of God and
a crown of destiny.
Of greatness. Of the eyes of dream.
And I will dance to its songs
until it says you've won."


EVOLUTION

From the time the sun learned to smile
when they called her a woman
they simply meant an entertainment in the midst of

D
R
U
N
K
A
R
D
S

A company among guffaws and wine clicks.
Hands loitering around the body - a lice.

She's a lady only when adorned in veil.
Head clocking demurely at the wing of men.
A puppet of the opinions that sealed her fate.
Her voice was loudest only when

E
N
G
R
A
V
E
D

on tombstone.

The one whose buttocks touch the golden seat,
was more than a mere woman.
They called her the chosen one.
The face of royalty.
The owner of the goblet with the breath of

G
O
D

As the world became a whirling masquerade,
Things revolved - dancing to a different tune.
And woman fought for her name.
If she’d be called a woman,
She would not house lice.
She would be a woman who answers to her

N
A
M
E

and stands on a pedestal to gain her fame.


A PRISONER BIRD

Featherily modelled skin, whitish and golden
arrayed as an emblem of beauty.
She was born a bird encaged
In a dungeon called home.
Stripped off her feathers to stop her flight.
Blanketed by darkness, and cold,
She perched on grains of hope.
      
The thirst for control honed man into a hound.
Man came with eyes, a lusty shade of grey,
and leered at her nakedness.
She became the balm that smoothened his groin
at night when the sky was lone.

The bird grew but the cage constricted.
She was only a decor kept to enthrall his sight
and bear the venom in his spit.
As she grew bigger, she learned to color the remains of her feather black;
as black as the words that barred her.

And color her chains black like the darkness that settled in her home.
On the day she shed her skin, man had become blind to colours.
Her feathers bore light as if an offspring from her uterus.
She pierced the chain of words that restricted her movements.
And broke out to her freedom.
And that day she flew unto the clouds,
until she flapped beyond the sky.


Hajaarh Muhammad Bashar is a writer and poetess from Minna, Niger State, Nigeria. She holds a degree from Al-hikmah University Ilorin. Her works have appeared in Gold dust Magazine, Art-Muse fair, Voice of the Aspirants anthology, PIN chapbook series and others.


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