Legendary Persian Queen Scheherazade
Storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights
Photo Credit: Wikipedia/Painting by Sophie Anderson
My Poetry Corner March 2016 features the poem “The Marvelous Women” from the poetry collection, E-mails from Scheherazad, by Syrian-American poet and author Mohja Kahf. Born in Damascus, Syria, Kahf was four years old when she migrated with her parents to Utah in 1971. After obtaining their university degrees, her parents moved with her to Indiana. When she was in tenth grade, they relocated to New Jersey where she later obtained her doctorate in comparative literature at Rutgers University. Following her marriage, Kahf settled in Arkansas. An associate professor at the University of Arkansas, she teaches comparative literature and Middle Eastern Studies.
The opening stanza of “The Marvelous Women” caught my attention.
All women speak two languages:
the language of men
and the language of silent suffering.
Some women speak a third,
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This is my take on Women whom I think are super MARVELOUS:
Sure God created man before woman. But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece. Some men know that a light touch of the tongue, running from a woman’s toes to her ears, lingering in the softest way possible in various places in between, given often enough and sincerely enough, would add immeasurably to world peace.Â
A WORLD WITHOUT WOMEN
What this world would be
Without our women
Don’t be stupid, dummy
There would be no men
For behind any good man
There is a good woman
There would be no world
No country
No flags to be unfurled
So empty
For women bring love into play for all
This sometimes adds to man’s downfall
What would the world be without fashion
It would be a real mess
Living in a bomb-shelter without ration
Seeing a man in a dress
It would be like a hive without bees
Living in a desert without any oases
Imagine a world without any bikini
No G-string
It would be so barren, no beauty
A sad thing
There would be no healthy beach
And nothing for all men to reach
No matter how man prays to the above
He’d be left with a world so barren
He would never be able to fall in love
In a world so dull and foreign
It wouldn’t be a world but a big joke
Like drinking good rum without coke
Men would be left facing the wall
For men without women
There wouldn’t be any Taj Mahal
A cock without a hen
It would be a sad, wretched world indeed
And men would have no use for their seed
And those commercials about hygiene and Secret
For which men have no need
They say their pH-balance don’t make them fret
For which men take no heed
But whether they use Massengill or wear panty-hose
A rose by any other name is still a bleddy rose
Men would surely go robust and bust
The macho stereotype so sterile, so vain
What would men do with all that lust
Like going the other way in a one way lane
That’s one sensation of which they would be deprived
Which can’t be replaced no matter how they contrived
Without women thereâd be no heartbeat
Men’s hearts would not last very long
That would be the cause of men’s defeat
There would be no love in their song
Their world would be in monotone
With poor men’s hormone all alone
No night life without night-gals
Boring, boring
Men can’t have fun with their pals
I’ll be snoring
It’s women who maintain the balance and checks
And men can’t live without this opposite sex
Men would not need bedrooms
No marriage no honeymoon
No brides and no bride-grooms
Like a song without a tune
Then men may really learn a thing or two
For without women they can’t find a clue
Finally last but not least
A man without a woman
Will resort back to a beast
And become a lesser man
Sailing a sunken sail less ship without a mast
In a planet just hit by a darn nuclear holocaust.
Thanks!
Naraine Datt
ndatt@rogers.com