#Poetry ‘The Double Riddle’ by Fiza Pathan

The Double Riddle

by Fiza Pathan

Surfing through the pages of my memory,

I saw a smile impressed within the fold making me realize what yet has to be done.

You were always the one who spoke about the valley beyond our happy peaceful lives

And you spent your sanity in the pursuit of the impossible.

Whereas I was the one who grew up in the lap of culpability,

I was under obligation to our elders for your misdirected energies.

Restless have I been of late ever since you have garlanded the man

To whom you have given your heart to,

You have always been the forgetful fool haven’t you?

But I can recall everything even before the plague of madness took me by its hold,

Never once have I let go of those groans which were not my own but yours.

Can’t you see what harm you do to me beloved twin of mine,

You’re a shaman of idolatry so do not forsake my side.

I shall protect you from yourself

And make you dance in a controlled breeze like vacuüm,

Where I shall be master and you the opium eater.

Stay tranquilized by my drug of sleep while I the insomniac

Walk the streets at night in a dark cloak with the black cat.

Pester me not while I take my revenge on this brutal society

That took away my world from me.

Let me exact a tax so impossible that the victim will be turned into victor.

I have gathered from my earlier chronicles of our childhood together

That you have a taste for gambling your stakes with strangers

Who want to misguide more than supplicate.

Your hand holding the wretched cube is not a lucky one my precious little woman,

Come give them to me so that I can melt them in a molten panacea

To cure these nits in my eyes.

You have loved like no other of that I am quite certain,

But I am a harridan of the desert and necromancy is my profession.

Love this love all that you might but in the end dear identical of mine,

I’ll cast him into the pit of Beelzebub upon his senses.

Don’t grab my arm in pleading sobs and don’t knife my back while I turn away from you,

You are not Casca but my own consort so do away with your dagger and leave me be.

Fetishism is a woeful pastime but for a fiend like me it can be put to a profitable use.

Now use your head duplicate of mine and take ink to write down

What I wish to be planted in the fertile soil of my foes.

Don’t squabble with me you pitiful little snake,

Woman like you were born to be used and then cast into flames.

Women like me however were born to rule the living and the dead.

So be scribe for me or perish by your own merits

Woo not the man you care for or you to your dismay shall find me bearing to you a coffin.

This is the riddle of verse I put forward to you,

Who is to believe the one thing they cannot really see?

Copyright © 2013 Fiza Pathan

Image Courtesy: Google Images, Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_William_Waterhouse_-_Magic_Circle.JPG