Inscription; “Oh Allah Make This Home A Blessed One.” 

Fading light merges into the sienna dusk.

The envelopment of love encompasses our space.

The sanctuary of a familiar blanket woven with laughter, peace & comfort.

A spark of golden heat skips onto the warmth of the hearth,

Speckled conversation rises & falls, converging & colliding with dancing embers upon an ochre fire. 

We are home.

©️2024 Hajra Khan

Delicate wanting hands trace softly, intimately over emerald alabaster walls.

Potent fragrances of oud mingle with frankincense.

The intoxicating aroma rises warmly, around and through slender corridors.

Faint enticing luminous lamps, cast a fading amber glow along a beguiling path.

Limbs in tandem, pulsating hearts, anticipating each sublime incline and turn.

Tender fingers sway across narrow grooves of fate.

Intensity of breath, echoes of a promise embrace me whole.

 Longing arms outstretched caress the cool smoothness of destiny.

Inhaling fragrant dreams, exhaling renewed hope.

I walk through an enticing dusky doorway.

Closing anxious eyes, I hear your distant voice calling out to me.

 A hum of desire vibrates softly beneath my feet.

The golden sphere cradled in the majesty of night, radiates an aura of hope.

I feel your exquisite comforting presence.

Embracing souls, in unison, we move as one through transcendent corridors.

©️2024 Hajra Khan

Inscription; “This Too Shall Pass.”

The stillness of a midnight sky illuminates glistening apparitions of golden memories. 

Pools of cloudy intangible craters litter this lunar landscape.

Echoes of anguish, regret & sorrow roll in whispers of an empty wind.

A sheath of vermillion light separates the darkness of night.

Golden warmth floods my beating breast, banishing allwhispers.

Spears of white brilliance splits the corners of darkness into shades of coral hope.

A Regal sunrise consumes the vastness above.

Luminous rays of light stretch across the green land under my feet.

©️2024 Hajra Khan

Distorted shades of darkness tug on the complex folds of a subconscious moat.

Misty rays of yellow & green cloud hint at the glory behind.

Angled chartreuse lines measure step after step.

A journey of smooth warm stones and soft grainy sand to touch an epiphany.

Fractals merge into amber and golden treasure.

Delicate envelopes of folds unfold into newness of your grace.

©️2024 Hajra Khan

The genesis of solitary pilgrimage is formed amongst the deepest ravines of ephemeral thoughts.

A wrenching ache slices through the core of my being overcoming the fragility self.

Entering caliginous doorways, unsure & afraid, hesitant to ignite a lantern of hope.

Tentative footsteps lead from one walled corridor to another.

A navigation of time, a quest for the divine.

The sacred labyrinth yields the promise of discovery.

Constantly I am led back & forth against towers of doubt and anxiety.

A luminous doorway appears, clearing a path to the heavens.

Raising a weary head, my eyes ignite as I witness the enduring lucent moon and all that is beyond my sight.

The path is Illimitable & infinite, we begin again.

©️2024 Hajra Khan

My journey into poetry has come later in my colourful life, as I’ve navigated identity, self and belonging.

Born in East London in the early 1970s, to a mixed-race heritage of Irish & South African roots, I was raised in Ilford, where our mixed-heritage Muslim family was a rarity-a uniqueness that became more apparent as I grew into my teenage years. 

Life has taken me through world travel, motherhood, disability, modest fashion designing, journalism, television & radio presenting, public speaking and finally back to writing and poetry.

This exploration draws on a lifetime of experiences and a beautiful collaboration with my husband, fine artist, Vaseem Mohammed.

Together, our separate experiences of race, identity, Islam, and life intertwine in ways that inspire both his art and my poetry.

It is this and so much more that gives birth to an exploration of Vaseem Mohammed’s art and my poetry.

This collaboration marks the beginning of a long-overdue adventure.

• Hajra Khan •