ILA Magazine
Where Culture Meets Creativity
NASSER ALSHAIKHAHMED
"AN ANGEL IN MY FRONT YARD"
Outside, up in the sky, the stars were so bright.
So, worried about my bed, I could not sleep that night.
I looked out through my window glass.
I noticed a movement on the grass.
Darkness was creeping into my room.
I felt like brushing the lights with a broom.
Despite the bounties I have in hand.
Happiness seemed so far for the land.
I saw figures appear and then fade.
There was someone out there. I can see a shade.
It was an old man. The man had no home.
Squatted like he was waiting for the dome.
He raised and stood on his feet,
trying to look as strong as he could.
What have I done to deserve this?
Should I help, or should I be careless?
Shall I neglect him? I couldn't dare.
For a nightmare would haunt me.
I could bluntly behave and invent a lie.
But a man doesn't know when he will die.
Something like a revelation poked my heart.
Made me pause for a moment, then restart.
I rushed with a pillow and a cover.
May he need them, or may he never.
I was confused, so I brought him in.
For he might be the key, the key to heaven.
Deeper in my soul, I realized
Blessings to be shared not to monopolize
Now the man was so satisfied.
He smiled and looked at me with pride.
He turned into a butterfly
And flew off the window so high.
He was pleased flying around.
With sparkling lights that touched the ground.
Flapped his wings and waved goodbye
It was an angel that came by.
© Nasser Alshaikhahmed "ON THE EDGE OF THE WIND"
It seems to me sometimes
She heard me loving her
Or she heard me
Whispering in her heart.
My memory is still gravid
With many details
And still, the scene bears
Perfume as morning breath
Dreams are bigger than to be dropped by
The functioning of the illusion.
Every time light penetrates your window,
It would be I on the edge of the wind
Breathing you.
Violets script me
As poem on the chest of your night
That is infatuated by rhyme, desired love
Which arranges the narrative categorically in your silence and fugue.
We would meet on leaning of my ports
And pulse of my sailing eyelashes
With lapis lazuli returning from exile
Keel loaded with breathless Lister
Moment in the veins of the place.
I would entertain you by bird's twits
On the balcony in the morning
While the gulls are waking up
Nothing resembles the sound of waves
And the liquefied salt on the foam tale.
© Nasser Alshaikhahmed "MORE THAN A WOMAN"
Like the birds' tweets
Like refuge of outsiders in exile
She crosses sporadically.
She lives within me
Tumultuous of tales
Attached to the mirrors
And smell like perfume.
In the memory of the place
Master of imagination and words
And the gates of the metaphors
This evokes meaning
And the last beat of love
in the sentiment.
She is the identity and the language
The letters and the poem
The chapters and distances
The earth, mother, and humanity.
She is
A map of the cities of longing
That carries the features of Arabian women
Runs in my body like water
And flows like a blood in the arteries.
© Nasser Alshaikhahmed "BREATHLESS BREATHS"
We had fun
We rebelled
We laughed happily
We ran
Blue joy
Like the blue color of water.
Her scent embraced my face
Like a cloud of Narcosis pouring out perfume on its lowers.
Like seagulls spreading their wings in the sky,
Or like two bodies intersected by the distance.
Clay was looking for clay
Rain was looking for a creek
And as a desert's geeking out in the dew searching for ascension.
It was like Helen's charms of poetry
Or the inspirations of my fancies.
Like a bird's scattering the fatigue of its absence and borrowing feathers from the place
Or a female's shrug that was seeking a carpel.
Gleaming were breathless breaths
Like prophecies, love god and a kiss on the lips of the divine.
Whenever the wind sent it away, it came back in containment. © Nasser Alshaikhahmed NASSER ALSHAIKHAHMED is a Saudi Arabian bilingual poet who writes poetry in both Arabic and English.
He went to school at Sonoma State University in California, USA. Although his field of study is far away from literature, his soul is immersed in poetry and writing.
He is a member of the following:
AllPoetry.com
Soul Asylum Poetry Radio - New York
IPF - Anthology Publishing
Poets Without Borders
Voracious Polygots His poetry has been published and will be published in Poetry Anthologies and different literal magazines.
POETRY ANTHOLOGIES:
1 - Voracious Polygots
2 - The Quilled Ink
3 - Wheel song Poetry
POETRY MAGAZINES:
1 - Petruska - nastamba.com
2 - Sindhcourier.com
3 - En.kavyakishor.com
4 - Polismagazino.gr He has translated from English to Arabic, several poetry work for poets from the USA, Japan and Australia and published his translations in local journals. He has published one poetry book in Arabic (العرافةara’fa) in 2013 by
Arabian House for science and publishing.