Our own Afghan poet: Laila Re

Laila Re (Bella Eshq) Poet-in-Residence, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Where is bliss to be found -- within you, without you, on a meditation mat?

Meet the Artist: book launch PARTY, Oct. 12, 2014, 3-6 PM, FREE, Leimert Park, L.A.

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Laila Re, Balmy Beach, Toronto, 2014

Pieces to Peace is a poetic account of Laila Re's journey of self-discovery in Toronto, Canada. She is now a 26-year-old Afghan-Muslim woman interested in Afghanistan's Buddhist past now living on her own for the first time in Los Angeles. This is her story of pursuing dreams while coping with personal issues: grief, trauma, poverty, cultural identity, and belonging. Laila Re is a female becoming a woman as she rebuilds herself through poetry and goes from pieces to peace.

"Jinn"

Beware the djinn (genies) who haunt the wilderness, shapeshifters, tricksters (Bellaeshq)

 

Afghan people (contest.afghanmatters.com)

In the next life,
There will be no thought,
No emotion,
No body…
We will no longer be dealing with the nature of the mental, emotional and physical.
Not even a soul.
No spiritual dimension.
All of those were blessings in our human nature but ultimately a curse open to limits and distortions.
We will transition into nothing…
And in nothing, we are everything.
Finally at one with God,
The universe.
Finally at peace.
Absolute justice.
That is why we are all sentenced to death. Literally living life on death row. Nothing else is fair or promised, but the end which is also our beginning.

We must "confront empire..." (Arundhati Roy)

Maybe the Motherverse will transform us into something even better than the human form.
Earth, even the sun — the biggest star in our solar system — has an expiration date.
Humanity is a beautiful but cruel project. The universe is greater than us.

Until then…
Once transitioned, we will be floating as the dark, invisible matters of the universe.
That is, Blackness — that we are all socialized to disregard.
But that is our nature, where we came from, and what will take us.
Black.

Wisdom Quarterly's poet-in-residence

Everything.
Everywhere.
Untouchable.
But immensely powerful.
The spark to the marginal light.
To see a new existence.

Shadows and ghosts/jinns are a reminder of the dual dimension. Shade is relief and ghosts/jinns are a reminder of the possible non-human spirit – the dream state too.

Out of darkness is relief, possibility and creation.
 

Lana Del Rey wanted to be "a beautiful poet" but didn't make it in "Ride"

"I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell asleep with visions of myself, dancing and laughing and crying with them. Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour,and my memories of them were the only things that sustained me and my only real happy times. I was a singer -- not a very popular one. I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet, but an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided..."