A wrinkled brow and silence
Portend a storm of frowns
That scale cereal boxes
To smite unpoffered excuses.
Only time makes peace
So Sensitive
One word to break your heart
No heart to break your word
Forgetting what you said
Recalling what you heard
Indecision
I came to a crossroads,
And the indecision broke me.
I decided I didn’t want to experience it again,
Ever.
So I live there now.
How many tweets must a twitterer tweet
‘Fore a twitterer tweets his mind
With his fingers all racing through keystrokes retracing
A thought he cannot leave behind.
Classical Poetry Lives
I was at the Rivulets 2015 Launch event earlier this afternoon. The Chicago Tribune covered it:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/community/chi-ugc-article-naperville-writers-group-rivulets-27-launch-2015-10-01-story.html
I was asked to recite one of my submissions – On Riverside Walks, and that I did.
I also learned I was one of the four runners-up to the Founder’s Prize for Poetry for my submission, On Forgetting To Remember. And that was cool.
Given the above were both sonnets, I am happy to say <insert post title here>.
A good day overall.
The Sands, The Trees, The Gentle Breeze
(Narrator)
Upon a little patch of earth
Beside the Masjid an-Nabi
There blew a warm and gentle breeze
Upon the sands, and date palm trees.
(Tree 1)
It was just yesterday that he
Reclined on me so peacefully.
I long to feel his blessed touch
Againt my trunk; I miss that much.
(Tree 2)
I understand your pain, my friend,
For I remember that day when
He played with his little Hussain
Despite the softly falling rain;
Around and round me did he run
So playfully with Ali’s son,
I hoped they would not leave my side,
But then they did, and how I cried.
(Tree 1)
Oh yes, indeed. I do recall
That day when all that rain did fall.
(The Earth)
I long for his mubarak feet
To walk upon my every street;
I love him and his every trace
In me and in my every space.
(The Wind)
And when he speaks or breathes a word,
It is the sweetest thing you heard;
I carry all his blessed speech
To everyone within my reach.
(Tree 1, whispering)
Quiet! Here he comes again.
(Tree 2, whispering)
SubhanAllah.
(The Earth, whispering)
AlhamdulilLah.
(The Wind, whispering)
Allahu Akbar.
(Narrator)
And so they rustled, shifted, blew
Until the Prophet was with them.
(Tree 1, Tree 2, The Earth, The Wind, all say together)
SallAllahu ‘alaa Muhammad
SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.
SallAllahu ‘alaa Muhammad
SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.
SallAllahu ‘alaa Muhammad
SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.
(End.)
Ajwah
My Lord, send forth Your Prayers and Peace
And Blessings on those hands
That pressed the saplings of release
Into submitting sands,
And like the spring abundant flowed
Beneath his father’s heel,
You’ve blessed these palms that his palms sowed;
This son of Isma’eel
And all of matter he did touch,
And all that he did say,
Proclaim the highest Truth with such
Serenity, I pray:
My Lord, increase the ones who tend,
And buy and sell and touch
The ajwah palms that well extend
The fruit we love so much;
My Lord, increase my host who gives
Me so much from his share
Of barakah that lives and lives
As long as you declare.
I Don’t Care
Do you think it fair to say I may care
When I care enough to say: “I do not care.”
I think it depends on how I may say it,
With distance in tone or rebellious gait,
An arching of eyebrows, a smile forged in hell,
Or the weight of the world in the sighs I expel.
I hereby do gather the silence you spare
Is loud confirmation that you do not care.
Ode On Short Rib Ragù
Note to Ode Enthusiasts: This is a ten line stanza in iambic pentameter following the scheme ABAB and a Miltonian sestet CDEDCE. Styled after the first stanza of Keats’ Ode On A Grecian Urn, and guaranteed to fall short.
Warning: Elizabethan tone ahead
What magic doth transpire 'tween mind and pot That warmly welcometh what once formed cage, But now is seasoned, salted, shredded, brought To tenderness thy hand hath come to gauge. I sense the bay leaf draping sprigs of thyme, Its fragrance courting parsley laying soft Upon a bed of blushing carrots and Rosemary aromatic, wont to waft Toward my sense olfactory till I’m Impassioned forth to rise and kiss thine hand.
Punishing Clockmakers, And Other American Pastimes
We’re hurting bad, America,
You know we’re hurting bad
When a schoolboy brings a project in
That sends us kicking mad.
He just made a clock, this thing that tells
The time with gears and wires,
But we see the clocks that brown hands forge
As objects starting fires.
Doesn’t matter what you learn in school,
Let me tell you what makes dumb:
Is when prejudice and fear
Fashion every rule of thumb.
You say guns don’t kill, people do,
Yet a schoolboy’s doing time.
Need a license now to make a clock?
Now, learning is a crime.
If we really don’t like bullies
And the weapons that they draw,
We can’t let bullies run our schools
Nor let them press the law.