OctPoWriMo Day 6. Slippage of Borders // Sarhadon Ki Phisalna [Ghazal]

OctPoWriMo Day 6. Who Controls Our Minds?

How can we use our sixth sense in our poetry? Many great poems start in one place, with one question, statement or idea, but through the writing of the poem, the poet ends up in another place. Follow those instincts. Let your poem leap, following free associations that may not seem to connect at first. Let those gut feelings guide you. We can also connect dream imagery with specific sensory details in the present, using dream symbols to inform our understanding of our poetic themes.

Example Poem: “Strangers” by Philip Larkin from Collected Poems(Aal) by Philip Larkin

Strangers

The eyes of strangers
Are cold as snowdrops,
Downcast, folded,
And seldom visited.

And strangers’ acts
Cry but vaguely, drift
Across our attention’s
Smoke-sieged afternoons

And to live there, among strangers,
Calls for teashop behaviours
Setting down the cup,
Leaving the right tip,

Keeping the soul unjostled,
The pocket unpicked,
The fancies lurid,
And the treasure buried

~Philip Larkin

Does this poem evoke a fear of strangers? With psychic powers would strangers remain strangers? Or are people only strangers because we cannot know what is in their minds? And if we cannot see into another’s mind, can we ever really know anyone?

Prompt: Use similes (comparative phrases using “like” or “as”) to describe suspicions of being controlled by another’s psychic powers. What does it feel like? Why that specific person? What is the experience like?

Possible form: Ghazal – How to Write a Ghazal Poem from Writers.com

~

A note before you read: Tonight, I surrender the poem unfinished, not in words, but in language itself. I struggled with this prompt more than I expected. My intention was to craft a proper translation, a delicate blend of Hindi and Urdu (since I’m fluent in neither but familiar with both), once the English draft was done. But, all in vain. I tried all day, between work and everything else, and now, before I go to sleep, I’m just posting whatever I could piece together.

Slippage of Borders

They build embassies of silence in my mind,

trade in secrets, mapped but undefined, in my mind.

Each stranger’s face, a border checkpoint, stamped and signed,

but who grants them passage, me or the wind, in my mind?

A thought flickers like contraband light, confined

within some tiny disputed land, in my mind.

Dreams redraw frontiers while I sleep, aligned

to voices I’ve never met, yet they bind, in my mind.

The cities rearrange themselves when I sleep, aligned

to voices I’ve never met, yet they bind, in my mind.

Tongues grow maps, their whispers through keyholes, polite, refined,

their etiquette colonial, unkind, in my mind.

When I wake, the air smells of foreign rain combined

with tea and something I can’t find, in my mind.

And if every thought is theirs, disguised as mine,

then who signs the treaty at dawn—Oizys, in my mind?

~ Oizys.

Sarhadon Ki Phisalna

(Urdu/Hindi Roman Script)

Khamoshiyoñ kī safārton kā bayān mere zehan mein

Naqshoñ se binā mulk, bas nishān mere zehan mein

Woh raaz bechte hain jo likhe nahīñ kahīñ bayān mere zehan mein,

Unkī bāt har sarhad kā imkān mere zehan mein.

Koi khayāl jhilmil kartā taskaree rōshnī jaisā,

Qaid hai ek chhoti si zāmīn kā nishān mere zehan mein.

Shehr sote hue apnī soorat badal lete hain,

Khwāboñ se milte hain jo armaan mere zehan mein.

Zubāneñ naqsha ugātī hain, darwāzoñ se guftagu hoti,

Tahzīb-e-angrezāna rawayya, ek paimān mere zehan mein.

Subah hotī hai pardesī bārish kī mahek ke sāth,

Chāy ke sāth ghaṛī sa kōī elaān mere zehan mein.

Agar har khayāl un kā hai, merī soorat meñ lipṭā,

To sulah par kaun dastkhat kare—Oizys, nishān mere zehan mein.

~ Oizys.

P.S.: Still tweaking the translation here and there to make it sound truer. Not very proficient, so please, be kind. :(

An after-note: If you’d like to read something along similar lines — another ghazal that somehow came together more smoothly — here’s my piece from NaPoWriMo 2025 (April 8th): Ghazal: A Love in Revolt // Ik Ishq ki Bagawat Main.

NaPoWriMo 2025 (April 8th): Ghazal: A Love in Revolt // Ik Ishq ki Bagawat Main

From NaPoWriMo 2025, Day Eight: Best wishes for a happy Tuesday, everyone, and a great eighth day of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant today is Lady in Read Writes, where the response to Day Seven’s challenge to write about why you are not a particular piece of art brings me back to my own high school days (I actually had The Raven fully memorized back then, and can still recite large chunks of it. A good way to pass the time if you’re waiting at a bus stop . . . ).

Today’s featured resource is a bit silly: it’s the Museum of Bad Art. Now, bad art – like good – is in the eye of the beholder, and I rather like some of the paintings in the museum’s whimsical collection.

And now here’s today’s totally optional prompt!

The ghazal (pronounced kind of like “huzzle,” with a particularly husky “h” at the beginning) is a form that originates in Arabic poetry, and is often used for love poems. Ghazals commonly consist of five to fifteen couplets that are independent from each other but are nonetheless linked abstractly in their theme; and more concretely by their form. And what is that form? In English ghazals, the usual constraints are that:

• the lines all have to be of around the same length (though formal meter/syllable-counts are not employed); and
• both lines of the first couplet end on the same word or words, which then form a refrain that is echoed at the end of each succeeding couplet.

Another aspect of the traditional ghazal form that has become popular in English is having the poet’s own name (or a reference to the poet – like a nickname) appear in the final couplet.

Want an example? Try Patricia Smith’s “Hip-Hop Ghazal.”

Now try writing your own ghazal that takes the form of a love song – however you want to define that. Observe the conventions of the repeated word, including your own name (or a reference to yourself) and having the stanzas present independent thoughts along a single theme – a meditation, not a story.

Ghazal: A Love in Revolt

I love fiercely, unbound by rules in revolt
A heart ablaze with justice, burning in revolt

A silent protest whispered with each breath,
Dark alleys of desire and defiance in revolt

The fragrance of power, sweet as forbidden wine,
Where longing meets uprising, ever in revolt

Midnight confessions echoing through chains of law,
Passion shattering history’s fortress in revolt

A rebellion etched in verse, keen as a sharpened blade,
Carrying secrets of subversion, dancing in revolt

I pen my fate in the open—a woman of storm and art, Oizys,
Finding love in every fractured promise still in revolt

Ghazal: Ik Ishq ki Bagawat Main

Main bekhauf ishq karti hoon, qayde se bekhabar, Bagawat main
Nyay ki aag main ek jalta dil, Bagawat main

Har saans main sunehri khamoshi ka vidroh hai,
Ishq aur zid ki andheri galiyon main, Bagawat main

Taqat ki mehak, mana ki madira si meethi,
Jahan tamanna se uthti hai bagawat ki hawa, Bagawat main

Aadhi raat ki ikrarat, qanoon ki janjeeron main goonjte,
Hayat ke deewarein cheerata junoon, Bagawat main

Shayrana vidroh ki lakeeren, dhaardaar talwaar si tez,
Raaz-e-takhti ko chhupaye, nrutya karta dil, Bagawat main

Main likhti apni taqdeer—toofani ek aurat, Oizys,
Har toote vaade main dhoondhti ishq, abhi bhi Bagawat main

- Oizys.