Silence
We must always have a place In our homes, in our offices, Behind our shops, To discover the silence, To open the casks Hidden in the recesses Of our minds. We must always have a place To go into ourselves, hear The hum of our souls, Discover the corals In the basement of our minds, And alight from the ships Laden with our, dark, past. Even a prophet, away From the hustle and bustle Of Mecca, would climb The Mountain of Light, To meditate in the Cave Hira, To know the unknown. ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ I order my heart to be patient
"And I ordered my heart to be patient: Be neutral as if you were not mine!" -Mahmoud Darwish As the hands of time remove The veil from their schemes; As the new breed Of foxes, hiding Behind a forest of people, raise Their heads; As the new legion Of peacocks Master the craft Of seducing the marketplace; As the silver footed, democracy, princess Turns into a bondmaid; I order my heart to be patient. As the butterflies of change Spread the pollen Of fear and hostility; As the herd mind gets intoxicated By the opium Of "Us versus Them"; As the amygdala overrides The frontal cortex; I order my heart to be patient ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ I create a royal road to my misery
I create a royal road to my misery: When I judge myself, When I judge others; When I am oblivious Of my thoughts, My emotions, My senses, My actions; When I live in my past, in my future. When I ignore my present. I create a royal road to my misery: When I intoxicate the air of life By complaining, by comparing, By criticising; When I am unforgiving, Ungrateful, Unkind, And wrapped up in myself. ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ COVID-19
When gloves and masks became our daily attires, and aeroplanes were grounded like birds with broken wings; when love lost its sensuality, and the frost of isolation gnawed on our souls; when no one prayed in mosques and churches, and no one attended birthdays, weddings, and funerals; when death rode swiftly, secretly, on the wings of an invisible monster, and danced in the crevices of our, gasping, lungs; when time, unlived, turned stale like unused fruits in our fridges, and no one noticed a blooming spring; when we spent our days and nights, idling, talking about angst and boredom, about deaths and wills, about the spread of a contagion; we all clung to the straw of life with hand washing, and social distancing. 29/04/2020 ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ How I saw you
How I saw you, a new age Cleopatra With an Instagram profile, Standing on the steps of a Sufi mausoleum. A solitary moon, over the Baḥr Al-Nil, Surrounded by longing, stars, followers. A revelation, pregnant with Beauty, mischief, mystery, and wisdom. How I saw you, a blessing, delivered On the sill of the stretched nights, To read you like a poem, to watch you Move your hands and lips, To see the magic, unveiling, in your playful eyes, To smell your, inner, fragrance, To taste your, Mediterranean, mellowness, To hear you like an Azan. How I discovered you carrying, a soul Of the Anath , roses in one hand and a lance in another. How I saw you becoming A sprinkle of dew For the arid fields of my mind. How I saw you triggering A new Odyssey Filled with Pyramids of joy and tribulations. -Notes 1. Bahr Al-Nil is an Arabic name for the River Nile 2. Anath (Anat) was a Semitic goddess of love and war. ©https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ Sorrows
You stretch your cloak Of gloom, intermittently, Across our lives. You fill the sacks Of our souls With gnawing blues and tears. You reveal Our helplessness Before the Fortune, Her merciless darts. Yet you unveil Our courage To withstand adversity; Water our seeds Of compassion. ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ We often forget
We often forget the fallacies of our Reason, the limitations of our Free Will, the truth of our impermanence, our finite existence in an infinite universe. We often forget we did not exist, for an infinite time, before our birth; we would cease to exist, for an infinite time, after our death. We often forget we are not the centre of this indifferent universe; there is no person, or any deity, to ensure we are all dealt fairly or justly. We are all vessels, meat vessels, full of anxiety, prejudice, and vanity. ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ Time is going to come
Time is going to come When we won't be able to call A fig tree a fig tree; An orange tree an orange tree; Or an olive tree an olive tree; Because a willow tree Will take an offense, cry Discrimination, And demand We call everyone A tree. ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ Solitude
Go and enter your solitude You may discover The unexplored terrain Within, you may Untie the knots Of your mind, your life. You may discover, inner Ghettos, the origin of your Beliefs, biases, and fears. Go and enter your solitude. You may stumble upon Words, moments, smells, people, And find the answer to many questions. You may uncover, a silence, A womb of bliss And creativity. Even if You find a dark, frightening, cave You will find a way to Illuminate it. Even if you find a gnawing fox, You will find a way To tame it, to domesticate it. Even if you find rusted iron Bars, in the dark alleys of your mind, You will find a way to mould them Into an armour, Into a lance, To fight your demons. ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ Perhaps it is not your famed beauty
(In her absence, I created her image - Mahmoud Darwish) Perhaps it is not your famed beauty Creating this absence. Perhaps It is waking up to familiar faces, walking In familiar streets; hearing An Azaan, or Guru Granth Sahib In your neighbourhoods. Perhaps it is feasting On a Wazwan, or enjoying lamb skewers At Khayam Chowk, or maybe It is blathering with friends On a bridge railing, in a college Canteen, or in a paint shop. Perhaps it is strolling On that, amorous, residency road, Or growing up listening poetry Of Sheikh-ul-Alam And Habba Khatoon. Maybe it is the joy Of Eid shopping, and lining up In front of grandfather For the Eidi. Maybe it is the aroma Of fresh bread, and the taste Of Nun chai, in our mornings. Maybe it is your women tying Their prayer threads, whispering Their modest wishes, to the mausoleums Of your Sufi saints. Or maybe it is hearing Shameema Dev, on Radio Kashmir, sing. Maybe it is just watching Your face, in every season, without Carrying the sack Of longing in our hearts. Perhaps your memories Shall continue to orbit Around our yearning souls, Like satellites, until eternity. Perhaps all this excavation Of memories, this leaning On our history, this living In the past, is the story Of every uprooted plant. Notes-
O my unruly mind
O my unruly mind I ceaselessly try to harness your unruliness with the rationality of philosophy, with the objectivity of science, with the finality of holy texts. I try to tame you with the magic of poetry, with the rituals of faith, with the wisdom of sages: I even try to order with the art of mindfulness, with the habit of journaling, with the promise of houris; yet you always find a way, out of every bridle, with your habitual conniving, monkey tricks, and reptile winding. ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ Who am I ?
Cutting a long story short: A patchwork. Made of incongruous pieces: My genes and my family, My culture and faith, My town and country, My successes and failures, Their beauty, their ugliness; My education and my work, My friends and leaders, My travels and leisures, Their inclusiveness, their exclusiveness; All seamed together In the circuitry of my brain. I am an ever-changing Medley, I contain Multitudes, dyed By every experience. (Poet's Espresso Review- USA) We are often lost
We are often lost, in the thickness of thin things, in the weed of our thoughts. We often treading through life like ants tread on an elephant: close to the skin, busy in the wrinkles, yet completely oblivious of the whole elephant, of the big picture. (The Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine- UK) ©️ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ Despite all grandiosity
Despite all grandiosity, all exaggerations, about Human rationality; despite all wisdom of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; despite all discoveries, inventions, and every human stride; majority of our actions run on an autopilot, looking for shortcuts, by-passing reason, by-passing awareness. (Poets Espresso Review-USA) You are always with me
You are always with me During my joys, during my grief, Like my breath, like my heartbeat, Like the marrow in my bones, Unlike the soul that abandons during the sleep. Despite all space All mountains, all seas, spread between us I carry you as a cask of memories, As a vial of saffron leaves, as a sachet Of Nun Chai leaves, As a collection of souvenirs, As a playlist of folk songs. I remember you everywhere..... In every meadow, During every snowfall. I see you everywhere... On the forehead of every mountain, On the face of every lake, On the leaf of every Chinar . I see you in the language Of my college friends, their jokes, their dreams; In my mother's dress, in her tea, in her worries. Where ever I drift, where ever I run I return to you, Like a wave at the shore returns to a sea. @ https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ I remember her
I remember her very well, a woman with a lack of restraint, pacing around in anxiety, in agitation; carrying a fear of being abandoned by everyone, carrying an emptiness, a black hole, within. I remember her mercurial nature, her lack of healthy boundaries with people, her ambiguity about her goals and ideals, her coquetries, her impulsivity, all gnawing the fabric of her simmering soul. She called her days living on a roller coaster. Her troubled early life nudged her to see things through a black and white paradigm. She struggled to tolerate the grey shades, motley traits, in human nature, in a single person. I remember her pattern of unstable relationships, her idealising and hating the same person within a short period, her pushing away the people she wants or needs in her life, her lack of close friends, her random encounters with strangers, her spending sprees. I remember her longing, desperation, to fill her frightening emptiness with an enduring healthy relationship. But she did not know the art of weaving the fabric of enduring relationships. She had mastered the craft of draining the patience, the energy, of her family, and friends. The tempests, within, drove her to kitchen drawers, cliffs, drugs, rooftops, alien streets. I remember her distorted self- image, her doubts, her guilt, her denials, her streak of grandiosity; her struggles to follow her treatments. Yes, we did not let her wander in wilderness, and we promised to ourselves: we will help her to work on her immediate and long term goals, on regulating her emotions, on practicing mindfulness, on nourishing the healthy relationships, on finding a purpose to live, on becoming a rudder for her turbulent ship. (2019) (this a small attempt to demystify borderline/ emotionally unstable personality to raise awareness about this condition. This is a fictional account based on my encounter with hundreds of patients with this condition). (The Beautiful Space- A Journal of Mind, Art and Poetry 2019) ©https://www.poeticnoesis.com/ I sing a song for those
Who are full of energy and fairness, Full of love juice, and dreams; Who are not afraid of failures; Who walk with both arms and legs To climb an arduous summit, To create history with their strides; Who jump into turbulent waters To collect treasures from the sea bed. I sing a song for those Who burn books to light new paths, Who dismantle the idols Of dogma, inequality and injustice; Who burn old bridges to carry a nation On their strong, just, arms. I sing a song for those Who have cleared the dross of bigotry From their hearts; whose clamour Disturbs the sleep of fascists and tyrants; Who adorn the forehead of the life With their ideals, loves and impulsivity, With their dissent, valour and sensitivity. ©drjal02 (The Fable Online-USA) O my soul
O my strained soul, long have I dreamt about Seeing you fly joyously; high above the cloud. Long have I known your gravity-defying nature With an inherent longing to fly to your creator. Long have you moved like a crawling reptile Collecting dust, grime and shame in the exile. O my squatting soul, long have I seen a shame In your eyes; loaded with heaps of self blame. Long did I try to freeze my dragons for your joy, To set you free, from the heavy fetters, to enjoy. Long have I invoked you to glide like a bird Away from the green grazing of this goat herd; Look straight into the eyes of a noontide sun, With your winged feet; and go for a higher run. Enough of this squatting, cringing and crawling, Rise and dust off your wings for an inner calling. (2013) (Gushing Fountain-USA) A paint shop
A local meeting point, Like a coffee shop, near A bridge, where he sat Behind a counter, with shoulders of an ox, selling His dreams, his colours. Like a lighthouse, in our youth, for watching College girls, and political fireworks. An address for our letters, For meeting our friends, For colouring our paradigms. Like an Epicurean Garden To discuss our ideals, cricket, Movies, and music; To sketch rainbows, With the hands of time, On our Tabula Rasa. (for Majid Toth) I know a place
I know a place where the sting of poverty is hurting its soul, gnawing its marrow, leaving it anaemic, ragged, and tired. Where poor people die with their unfulfilled dreams of eating enough food, drinking clean water and living under a roof; where affluent people, with their refrigerated souls, live in a bubble of privilege. I know a place where corruption has creeped into it's DNA, where corruption is practiced at an Olympic scale, where corrupt people are honoured like Olympic medal winners. (The Lakeview-International Journal of Art and Literature) Of Women
I know you are a blessing. Soft as snow, hard As a pomegranate. The God's light: carrying his beauty, Kindness, and glow. I know you are A cloak for his imperfections, A fig tree for his appetites, A sea of patience. I know there is a degree Of unpredictability, a streak Of randomness, in your temperament. I know you have a majestic Essence, like the Quantum World, Shrouded in mystery. (Authors Press Anthology-India), (Poet's Espresso Review- USA) Of wind
I have seen you blowing A blade of grass, a bed Of tulips, a flower basket Hanging at the front door, Clothes on a washing line, The silk of her hair. I have seen you moving A boat at the beachfront, An aeroplane by a tailwind, Things caught in a whirlwind. I have heard you, howl During a tempest, speak Through a flute. I have felt your touch Like the stroke of a feather. Yet your enigmatic face, Like a black hole, remains All hidden from our eyes. ©️drjal02 (The Lakeview-International Journal of Art and Literature) |
PoemsThese poems have been previously published in various literary journals, magazines, books and anthologies around the globe including the UK, the USA, Ireland and Canada.
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