ON RAW-DRAFTING POEMS by Hibah Shabkhez

The spindly letters are vampire pencils,
Abysses draining words from the throbbing vein,
Dribbling them down in fey gory stencils
For the vast blankness to mop up and strain.

The snow-leaf is the ravening leopard,
Stalking the lightening-bugs in the train
Of the splinters arcticing the soul’s guard,
Hunting down pain-relics words ache to rein.

But your yearning eye is the promised land,
Where the waxed leaves will spring to their places;
Soul-aches ankle to ankle learn to stand,
Chained to serve you these denser fool necklaces.

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Wellington Street Review, Black Bough, Nine Muses, Borrowed Solace, Ligeia, Cordite Poetry, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Blog: https://hibahshabkhezxicc.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @hibahshabkhez
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hibahshabkhezsarusaihiryu/
Instagram: @shabkhez_hibah