Azra Abbas ; An Urdu Poet With Individual Style In Prose Poem.

میز پر رکھے ھاتھ

میز پر رکھے ھاتھ

ھاتھوں کو میزپر سے اٹھاتی ھوں

پھر بھی پڑے رھتے ھیں

میز پر 

اور ھنستے ھیں

میز پر رکھے اپنے ھی دو ھاتھوں کو

ھاتھوں سے اٹھانا مشکل لگتا ھے

میں ھاتھوں کو دانتوں سے

اٹھاتی ھوں

پر ھاتھ نھیں اٹھتے

میز پر رہ جاتے ھیں

دانتوں کے نشانوں سے بھرے ھوۓ

ساکت اور گھورتے ھوۓ

میں بھی ھاتھوں کو گھورتی ھوں

میز کا رنگ اانکھوں میں بھر جاتا ھے

میں آنکھیں بند کر لیتی ھوں

سو جاتی ھوں

میز پر رکھے ھوۓ ھاتھوں پر

سر رکھ کر

Azra Abbas is an Urdu poet of Pakistan who writes modern poetry in Urdu with a style known as prose poem.She has contributed five books till now and each poetry collection shows how fast her thought process matures and the style though simple acquires more sophistication.She started her journey some twenty six years back in 1988 with a collection named نیند کی مسافتیں The Fathomed Sleep .

The above poem میز پر رکھے ھاتھ  My hands on the table shows the modernity of thought at its best. As she is amazingly conscious of the body and its relationship to feelings, inner emotions and the relationship these body parts have to the objects around us, she expresses the innate inability of the body to lift itself unless the person herself does not intend to do the act. This poem describes the ultra modernity of thought that the poet has made her hallmark. Azra can stand proud in the international poetry seen as any great artist who has mastery of the craft. Like Sylvia Plath and Gabriela Mistral she flaunts her individualistic style.Says she

      My hands on the table

      I lift them up

      Yet they lie

      Motionless on the table

      And laugh at me

     Lying on the table

     My hands

     I find them difficult to lift

     I try in vain 

     To lift with my teeth

      These hands

       Yet they lie

       On the table

       Full of marks of my teeth

      Still and staring

      I stare at them

      The color of the table fills my eyes

      I close my eyes

      And sleep

      Putting my head on my hands

      My hands on the table.

This poem reminds me of a painting by Picasso "Endormie", only in the painting the subject is happy and in Azra's poem the subject shows a deep inability to do what one wants. It is this inherent conflict of resolution to do something and inability to execute the task or fulfill the desire with almost in a violent manner which shows the deep anguish of the poet's soul and her inability to execute it in a manner that she dreams about. In the end falling off to sleep reflects her reaching a compromise yet starting a new dream.

Picasso Endormie.

      

At the age of twenty three she wrote and published her first poem which became extremely popular."The Feet That Walked On Water" 

پانی پہ چلتے ھوے پاؤں ھمارے ھی تھے

سرسراتے ھوے لباساور ان کو چھولینے کی خواھش میں تم

ھمارے گُلابی رنگ کیا تمھاری انگلیوں کی پورون سے لگے ھین

تمھیں پتہ نھین

تتلیاں انھیں رنگوں کو تو ڈھونڈ رھی ھیں

تم انھیں مت چھونا

وہ ھمارے گُلابی رنگ لے کر اڑ جایں گی

اور پانیوں پہ چلتے ھوے پاوں دیکھیں گے

وہ شاید ھمارے ھی ھوں گے

مگر ھم تو جب اپنی ماوں کے زانوں سے لگے کپڑے سی رھے ھوں گے

اور باورچی خانوں سے مصالوں کی خوشبو اٹھ رھی ھو گی

کیا یہ سچ ھے

اگلے دنوں میں سُورج کے پیچھے جلتے ھمارے بدن اپنے گُناھوں کا حساب دیں گے

اور پرندے ھماری آنکھیں اپنے پروں مین چھپا کر اڑ جایں گے

یہ سچ ھے

ھمارے ھاتھوں میں ابھی محبت سے وزنی لفظوں کی خوشبو ھے

ھم راتوں کو اپنے بستروں سے اٹھ جاتے ھیں

جب ھاتھوں میں پڑی ھوی چوڑیاں بجنے لگتی ھیں

اور بازووں سے نیچے دور تک پھیلی ھوی مدھم خوشبو

ھم کھاں چلے جاتے ھیں

اندھیرے مین پیچھا کرتی ھوی روشنیان

ھم کیوں کُھلے پانیوں پہ چلنے کی خواھش مین اپنی دھلیزوں پہ ھین

ھمارے خواب ھم سے دور کھاں جشن منا رھے ھیں

شام کا پھلا دن ھم سے کیوں جُدا ھو گیا

The feet that walked  the water were ours

Those undulating dresses and how you hoped to touch them

Do our pink colors touch your fingers

You know not

The butterflies are in their quest

Those colors

Do not touch them

They will fly away with our colors

And the feet that tread the water will see 

That they are ours

And the kitchen aroma will be full of spices

Is this true

That the Sun will scorch our bodies and we pay for our sins

And the birds will fly away with our eyes hidden beneath their feathers

It is true

That our hands bear the heady smell of the words

We get up from our beds at nights 

When our bangles jingle

And the sweet smell on our arms spreads

We are in another world

Light chasing darkness

Why are we inside our doors while we desire to tread the waters

Our dreams are celebrating far away

Why has the first day of the evening gone!

This beautiful poem from one of the earliest collections shows that Azra Abbas expresses her feelings and desires as a recollection of acts performed by girls at night while lying in bed, dreaming. The young girl imagining her desires in the paradigm of her daily existence with smells of kitchen spices, jingling bangles in the night in the heat of the act of pleasure, self discovery.The sweet heady smell that becomes so visible at the time of self discovery and realization of the body.That it is another world where pleasure is paramount both as a thought and an act.She uses metaphors such as the butterflies snatching away the colors. She uses the Sun's heat burning the bodies as a cost for the sins committed by the body. Here a sense of guilt that is inculcated in the act of self pleasure by the society is seen.Yet she heralds the dreams as hopes.

Azra's poetry matures in both diction, form and craftv and later she expresses this as

محبت پھلے جسم کو نھیں چھوتی

مھبت دل سے دل کی طرف

جاتی ھے

میں تم تک ایسے ھی پھنچی تھی

آج میں تنھا ھوں

تمھاری محبت اب صرف

 میرے جسم کو چھوتی ھے

میری مھبت تمھارے دل کو ٹٹولتی ھے

جو خالی ھے

میں تمھیں تنھا نھیں ھونے دوں گی

خالی دل سے جب جسم چھوا جاتا ھے

تنھاٰی دور سے نظر آتی ھے

Love does touch the body first

Love comes to the heart from one heart

That is how I reached you

Today I am alone

Your love touches 

Only my body now

My love searches your heart

Which is empty

I will not leave you alone

If one touches the empty heart 

With the body

Loneliness stands apparent.

This beautiful poem expresses the place where two lovers reach after years spend together. She reflects how the passion of the bodies is intermingled with the expression of love. When young a woman almost always feels love for the man and as time goes by this love seems to whither away as passion becomes less intense. The poet describes the interaction between the bodies as an expression of love and how it seems to lessen with time but she hopes that she will overcome this by not letting her partner alone.

Poet Azra Abbas presenting her poetry at Halqa Arbab Zauq Karachi.