Get all 5 Shama Rahman releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.
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1. |
Choto Meye (Little Girl)
01:45
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Choto ekti meye (A small little girl)
“When I grow I will be”
Boro hoyete chai (wants to grow)
Boro howar chchai (the ‘want’ to grow)
Shoyete Parbe Tai? (could she withstand?)
“Grow higher when I fly”
Dekha kon ‘shonar’ dai (which ‘angel’ would look on)
pore chur chur hoye jodi jai? (if she were to fall and break into a thousand pieces?)
“A light, and lo”
Ekdiner alo (one day’s light)
“A wondrous space”
Shara jibon-er raat (an eternity’s night)
“I am safe, I know”
Ei, ki maani? (Is it this, the meaning?)
Ei, ki taan? (Is it this, the pull?)
A memory murmured
“nodir pare” (On the river’s bank)
An echo half-followed
“putul-er shongi”
(With my doll’s company/ With my playmate as companion)
A playmate whispers,
“chele khela!” (Playtime!)
Dashes from sight
“ekhono ki?” (What still?)
I surge but once
“ho, preme more...” (Alas, falling in love..)
And look no more
“Doobaie dilo” (... drowned me)
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2. |
Storm So New (Interlude)
05:21
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Sighs of a young maid
Rustling and Drifting
From side to other vast side of the bed
Or SO, are the sounds from the roof of my still
WAITING
creaking
...hut
As the wind lifts the tarpaulin to peek inside
from time to time
and scampers away to hide somewhere
secret in between
A distracted child that sometimes likes to scurry
like an island rat
scratching at the bamboo
I lift my hand, STARK against the white bedsheet
and see it covered in red ants following each other
through an invisible celtic weave that signals
another phenomenon many magnitudes of scale larger
A hand
of God
scatters the mosquitos
from the night-time sky and into my oppressed room
Conversely I am lifted HIGH OH SO HIGH
very high
by the forks of electric blue
Oh, my storm so new
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3. |
Liquid Blue
05:54
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Liquid blue
The streaming glows in the sky
But while I watch my words catch in my throat I stand
sheltered from it all
Beneath the dripping leaves
Gazing out at the shimmer
The glimmer
Rainstorm
I can only imagine, where you’re coming from
Rainstorm
tears of gold, l’acrima del oro
Rainstorm
you lift me up,you wash me clean
Rainstorm
you lift me up, to calm the storm within
Rainstorm
Choker jal jole pure (the water from my eyes burns)
Top top kore pore (drop by drop the tears they fall)
Agun dhoraya (and alight the fire)
pran-er chhai (in the ashes of my soul)
chomkai cheel cheel (to flash gleaming)
kore booker shurjo (my heart’s sun)
shonar moton (like gold)
Taking chances but missing glances
at the window of promises
but now I’m tired of missing those chances
now I’m tired and you calm me down, while I feel the bark
beneath my fingertips
gazing out at the shimmer
the glimmer
Liquid blue
The streaming glows in the sky
But while I watch my words catch in my throat I stand
sheltered from it all
Beneath the dripping leaves.
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4. |
Please (Interlude)
03:08
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An incendiary upstart
revolutionary kickstarter
an idealistic brawler
for figmented ideas
everything to hold
“It”
just - so
nugget - gold
in my hand
the form that language
cannot shape
a pattern your eyes
cannot fathom
I gesture
and entertain you
to speak my mind
entrain and entrench myself
in combinations
and recombinations
to find meaning
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5. |
Truth BeTold
05:22
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I sing to myself, a song to the sea
Truth BeTold
/I sing to you my dear, a song for the sea
...a song for the sea
/ I sing to you my sea, an ode just for me
...an ode just for me
/ I sing to you belov’d, a hymned melody
...a hymned melody
/ sing to you mon amie
la poesie infinie, la poesie de ma vie
A figment ducks and dives
Washed-up crest laid-bare of the shore
Then I saw your face, emerald
Light glancing into the depths
Un mirroir de moi-même
qui s’èvade dans la fuméeè maritime interceptant les
couleurs lunaires d’un soleil vieillissant
Les tourbillons nuageux me noient dans tes courants
me rapellant a chaque instant l’ivresse de ton vert/verre
The memory of your face, sweet olivine
An imprint on my mind
An eddy praying for my fingers, To dance through his trails
Ta calme noirceur vide de sens
mais au loin au creux de tes pierres
Painted there your face, jade
A shaded reality, veiled
A gradient whisper to the unknown tale
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6. |
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I walk,
gliding and lunging
forcefully,
with the clip of my soled feet
and the dig of my nailed hands.
Its a stride
towards a freedom,
towards the lattice
in the memory of my dream: heart-shaped, iron-wrought
and the smaller into the centre
I fall with my gaze,
there are only hearts and curved down-turned apices
infinitesimally fractal.
And beyond, through this gridded hatch, it is stormy.
And I try, to swing out the latch,
open with a cry.
Stuck in my mouth,
behind my teeth
hard in my core,
the air hoarse, burning through my lungs, whirling...
We stand on a parapet, you and I...
I long to jump
us to a clearly refined space of safety or...
“understanding”,
said the spider on my knee,
from crouched dream to memory:
a symbol from beyond the storm.
If I had just one request from me to you:
“Don’t mistake her for Her ...or me.
The dreams of your memories
do not distinguish
the separate snowflakes
you once sent to me with love, as we turned and
danced and fell to the soft surface of the ground”
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7. |
In my Line of Sight
04:01
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This weekend I watched my heart
Melt through the river
A delicate balance In the rapids it rode [holding on]
Like Romulus, to meet his Remus
Flowing down to Rome [and its seven mountains]
Looking far into the future, it wound through the past
Travelling past these hills
So it didn’t have to live, what was happening now
Last night I saw my life
Float out on the lake
It bobbed, and nodding came
To rest dead bang centre [I prowled and I roamed]
Slipping searching on the banks I watched from the woods
And climbed up the trunks [from all angles I looked]
Each time it glittered, I moaned and I shuddered
For it was real gold
And for the life of me, I could not swim
At dawn I bid my love
Adieu out to sea
Filled with laughter
Weighed down by my tears [It drifted steadily]
Towards the bedrock drop by drop
Before it sank, it caught a glimpse of the sky bent down
[singing softly to the waves]
An eternal embrace, a line of infinity:
it was the horizon [with this picture]
of everlasting
...a child resting
It closed its eyes
It didn’t hear me whisper, tales from our splendour
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8. |
Freedom (Interlude)
03:24
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You get lost
On an adventure of self-exposure and system-loathing
Of circumventing fate
and hightailing on the klaxon of life
(while you still can )
you don’t listen to:
silence
that lies content in
between the words
you need not the balustrades
that hold the rafters
that let you float
to your freedom
a freedom of time
a freedom of limits
a freedom of choices
a freedom of love
a freedom of freedom
...and freedom
...and freedom
to oblivion
and the minute you
realise your strings are in danger of being
cut forever from the life you cherish so righteously
and firstly so
you get lost
so that you can find your very own way back
circumventing fate to carve your destiny
anew
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9. |
Deshlai Kati
05:00
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Mone ache (do you remember)
Shedin huleshtul bedhe chilo (there was a disturbance that day)
ghorer kone (in the corner of the room)
jole utechilo agun (a fire started)
Amake na nibheye (without putting me out)
Chure pheliye (you threw me away from you)
koto ghor ke (so many houses)
diyechi puriye (did I burn)
koto prashad ke korechi (how many places did I)
dhulishad (destroy)
ami ekay (just me on my own)
ami ekta choto (I’m just a little)
deshlayer kati (matchstick)
eto nogonno (so insignificant)
hoyeto chokeyo pori na (perhaps you dont notice me)
Amader ki (we have)
oshim shanti (such peace)
tato korechi onubhab (that’s what we have implored you)
barbar (many times)
tobu keno bujho na (still why dont you understand)
amra bondhi thakbo na (we wont be held captive)
tomader pocket pockete (within your pockets)
amra beriye porbo (we will get out)
amra choriye porbo (we will spread)
shohor-e gonj-e gram-e (to the cities, to the rivers, to the villages)
digonte theke digonte (from horizon to horizon)
Amra barbar joli nitanto obohelai (we have burned many times)
tato tomra janoi (that you know)
kintu tomra ta jano na (but you dont know)
kobe amra jole utbo (when we will alight)
shobai shesh barer moton (all of us like it was the last time)
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10. |
Exalt (Interlude)
03:13
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As soon as you measure it,
You change it.
The sooner you look,
The sooner it’s gone.
The instant you feel it,
the instance vanishes.
A life examined
is one missed
in transience
we exist
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11. |
Personal Grey
06:53
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I live in a field of grey,
where nothing is black and nothing is white
I live in a field of grey,
where nothing is black and nothing is white
where choices are dream-like
but life-changing
made with all the ease
and gut-wrench of a daze
the truth lying in this
and somewhere above this
constantly dynamic ebb
and flow of happenings
personal truth and universal
merge to become
one and the same as
long as the personal is held with conviction and
followed through till the finale
I live in a field of dreams
where nothing is white
and nothing is black
I live in a field of dreams
where nothing is white
and fields are all shades of grey
you can pluck the concept out of the sea
like a mewling baby
hold it tight
step into it
and breathe it right
I live in a field of dreams
where choices are real
but intangible
where dreams are all that
you live off
and dreams and dreams
alone
can kill you
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12. |
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These are strange angry,
night dreams,
heart-pounding,
racing an alarm,
no position comfortable
shifting body states
sifting mental psalms
fists clenching, gripped
in a rollercoaster fear and denial of the inevitable demise and
shock - hit - full - frontal
back taut (in a) straight rod
images shape plots
furious plans executed by
a sheer rage burns away the fog of confusion
but unsettles the heart
so much, my vision is groggy
(and) the only way to calm
my sense(s) is to recite,
Chant a long rejected mantra
that physiologically consoles
to a level deeper than solace
beggars skepticism.
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13. |
City in the West
06:46
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We drove in silence,
From that city in the West
where once I was lost, unfound;
This city in the West
where I think to rebirth my thoughts,
where I think to be warm with thoughts of you;
That city in the West:
your homestead
steadily stretching out, a welcome to my home hearth.
We met nightly,
a fever, set burning coursing through our yearns
and thirsty, parched, we collided:
inseparable, inescapable, incendiary,
teeth, smiles, lips,
eyes, skin, colour,
fingers and their tips
hair, heart and ...fear
meld into a dark loom (over)
as you murmur of my tattoo:
“Didn’t you know?”
“Maybe its somewhere,” somewhere I couldn’t reach;
“But didn’t you know?”
Said I, a broken scribe,
“there it is there, right there on my heart.
And oh it hurts, can’t you wipe me clean?”
“Its all in your mind, that imagined kind:
rich and open it may be
but its too open for me,
Its all in your mind, shishir, all up in there”
“And its all in my soul, can’t you take me wild?”
“I can’t take you with me, I have no time
Where did you come from shishir, you cling to me”
“And its all in my message, won’t you hold me true?”
“Who are you shishir, I can’t read you, no”
“Didn’t you know? I am the peace you seek”
said I, a silent glyph
“there it is there, right there, in my heart....
looming, melded, what you fear”
We drove in silence from that city in the West
where once I had left the truth behind, with you
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14. |
Hands (Interlude)
04:19
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Looking down at my hands
at the neat and defined space they now occupied in
the fluorescent jelly of the night bus interior
it suddenly sedimented in me
the dawning of cessation : the settlement of reality
and its end - now actually inevitable
no more " you never know " futures
no more " hit the Undo Button"
no more " room for improvement"
“rosy potentials”
there was only “no more”
and this was it
as I drape my heart around you and become sick
to combat side by side with you
gallant, strong, in empathy and hope for transference unto me
as the holy spirit, thy blood becometh mine own
and every breath and thought
I tousle nightly over
keeping the darkness at bay
lance at the ready
duel at the challenge
gauntlet drop
and stake
THAT
which I have control over
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15. |
Ships In the Night
05:11
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Like Ships in the night,
We pass each other, pass each other,
By;
In silent-footed cotton socks
Life moves fast;
Time and tide
Wait for no man.
Even in no man’s land, even in Noman’s land.
Forever looking back, extended and suspended,
In an entire spun time bubble,
Extended and Suspended.
How,
To capture the essence
Of universal truth,
Through a life with you;
A kiss in the wind.
Set, In our ways,
Set it to fail;
And lo a jubilant I told you so,
When inevitably proved right.
And we carry on secure in our fortitude
And good sense;
And with time,
With every year,
We forget to ask,
What if?
So, this is called getting stronger...
Wisdom through knowledge,
Wisdom through courage,
Wisdom through naiveté,
Wisdom through nonchalance
Wisdom through Not knowing any better
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16. |
Love Was Not Enough
05:41
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The first time I saw you,
you knew me already,
A gift poised at my door, a precious friend to me
A sweet twinkle standing by me
Told me you were here to stay
But I couldn’t help but feel maybe
Love was not enough
Two adventurers with life before us
Even breakfast was a party
Our laughter drowned the market place
A well of joy, I drank,
You held me close and as we danced
I could feel only beat and breath, but I couldn’t shake the feeling
Love was not enough
When the thoughts are not the same, moment to moment
A mind’s a skimming stone, likes to flit lightly over water
Its the heart, a bedrock feels the moment,
spanning here to forever, but maybe just maybe, its,
Love is not enough
We held our hands
Walking down the river fed the ducks, fed each other’s
Eyes, a beauty like no other
Thought by one, known as truth by the other
Two heads on one shoulder
We drew our breath on the sand
Love crystalline sparkled in me
But you didn’t think you’d enough
You’d hate yourself for it and wondered maybe
Love was not enough
When thoughts are not the same, from time to time
and a mind’s not yours to hold Its the heart that holds it all
love and sadness, both its space and simply just simply
Love is not enough
We played one last time
The strings urge the waves to come forward
Drown the setting sun with the colours of the future
When the things I say cannot fix us
When the things you say cannot be unsaid
All you have is the ghost and the sad thing’s
When even that is gone
How do we tell each other
Love is not enough?
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Shama Rahman London, UK
Shama weaves stories, sitar, and song seamlessly using wearable tech for an organic electro-acoustic sound. She combines international influences from everywhere she has lived and loved. Shama is a Sitar-player, Singer/songwriter, Composer, multi-instrumentalist, spoken word artist and scientist (PhD in the neuroscience of musical creativity). ... more
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