• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Khalid Mukhtar

Word, like wind, cuts through you / Withers all but true you

  • Blog
    • All poems
    • Sonnets
    • Micropoetry
    • Ramadan
    • Stories
    • Silly rhymes
    • Riddles
    • Articles
  • Written Works
  • Contact
  • About Khalid
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Khalid Mukhtar

One Day of You

Khalid Mukhtar · November 22, 2011 ·

To every orphan child, with love.

Up from my mother’s arms so cold,
I looked around the room to see
The many faces looking on
My handsome Abba peacefully
Asleep during the day.

I turned to see my mother who
Stood quiet with her statue face,
I put my hands around her neck,
And held her in my baby brace;
Then in the softest tone,

Inquired: “Ammi, Abba get up?”
Her face retained its rocky state,
I slapped her cheeks with both my hands,
And made the room to resonate:
“AMMI, ABBA GET UP?”

And then her face went soft and warm,
She slowly blinked her moistened eyes,
Her lips went tight, and tears streamed;
I thought an Ammi never cries;
My Ammi never cries.

And so I kissed her face and said,
“Ammi, Abba get up” again.
But that just made her weep some more,
To sadly shake her head, and then
To sit upon the floor.

And that was when I raised my arms,
Before announcing loud and clear:
“Ammi, Abba get up, Ammi,
Abba get up TOMORROW”. Dear
Ammi wept on but smiled.
Well said, my little child.

Take heart from what was spoken,
This true reminder token
Of sweet and soothing patience,
Absolutely beautiful:
Tomorrow to be woken.

My child, you live one day of you,
So live your day – gold, green and blue;
But live it right, and live it true,
That when the sun does set on you,

As I did, you may get up too,
Get up to live the rest of you;
Unto the Ever Living Who
Does love you with a love more true

Than mine could ever be for you;
So patience for one day of you,
This day of me and you;
Tomorrow is forever.

Jameel and Jameelah

Khalid Mukhtar · October 11, 2011 ·

I heard this lovely story, supposedly true; beautiful regardless. I picked the names Jameel and Jameelah for ease.

No man could compare with gracious Jameel,
And there was no lady who was fairer than Jameelah;
Her beauty unmatched and manner genteel
Had earned her the admiration of the whole qabeelah.

So when he made known his noble intent,
The tribespeople feared an immediate rejection.
But when she did bashfully give her consent,
Jameel was commended by them all with great affection.

But He who draws near the ones who love true
Bestows on them roses covered in thorns,
For sweet is the end of the righteous who
Endeavor a peace that trial adorns.

With only a week until the big day,
Jameelah was injured in an accidental fire;
Her beautiful face was burned in a way,
And destined to never be an object of desire.

She sent for Jameel, and fought back her tears,
Determined to free him from a formidable kindness,
But news of Jameel came flooding her ears:
A poisonous meal had just resulted in his blindness.

But He who draws near the ones who love true
Bestows on them roses covered in thorns,
For sweet is the end of the righteous who
Endeavor a peace that trial adorns.

They met, and they wept, and patiently sat

Considering carefully the burdens that they carried.
And all of the tribe was marveling at
The beautiful way in which they happened to be married.

Contented were they in all of their strife,
They raised a sweet child who was as lovely as her mother,
While time gnawed away at their mantle of life,

A mantle they treasured and devoted to each other.

But He who draws near the ones who love true
Bestows on them roses covered in thorns,
For sweet is the end of the righteous who
Endeavor a peace that trial adorns.

Jameel could not stop the flow of his tears,
In patient submission at the grave of his Jameelah;
And after a span of sixty five years,
He thought of the times when he pretended not to see her.

The scars in her face her heart did conceal,
His love went beyond the thing that made him feign his blindness.
How pure was the love of gracious Jameel,
Surpassed only by the likes of his Jameelah’s kindness.

And He who draws near the ones who love true
Bestows on them roses covered in thorns,
For sweet is the end of the righteous who
Endeavor a peace that trial adorns.

Phone Pains

Khalid Mukhtar · September 29, 2011 ·

When I was just a child, the phone
Would ring to let you know
That somewhere else a someone sat
Awaiting your ‘hello’;
You’d pick up the phone, or leave it alone;
And that’s how far you’d go.

And then there came the softening blow:
The answering machine,
That played (thanks to your greeting from
Attempt number eighteen)
Each message amassed, the first and the last,
And all those in between.

But Murphy’s law had barely seen
The things that we’d bemoan;
We sigh and roll our eyes at each
Reverberating tone;
Our hunger for tools has made us such fools:
Won’t leave ourselves alone.

Becoming Friends

Khalid Mukhtar · September 16, 2011 ·

Day One: I sow my softest smile,
And reap the harvest wilted frown.

Day Two: I flash that smile and see
Just why the fallen must stay down.

Day Three: my customary smile
Begets a mostly vacant stare.

Day Four: the stare is lessened in
The degree of its vacancy.

Day Five: sweet reciprocity,
As I detect the slightest nod.

Day Six: the nod has swelled to bow,
I marvel at this work of God.

Day Seven: I get greeted first,
We trade our names excitedly.

Day Eight: I sow my softest smile,
And reap the harvest ‘bundantly.

Day Nine: we shake our hands to seal
Our warm relationship in style.

Day Ten: my dear friend receives
Me in his arms before he leaves.

And by the bye, know I ain’t I,
I’m usually the other guy.

On Certain Knowledge

Khalid Mukhtar · September 1, 2011 ·

The new anti-depressant pill,
The iron-clad pretexts for war,
That caring education bill,
Those coupons that we line up for,

All make us feel secure until…

You drown your baby in the bath,
You lose your son to smart-bomb wrath,
You ace the test, but get no call,
Our GM diet kills us all.

Our home-grown double-yew-em-dee
Is knowledge without certainty;
And that is no knowledge at all.
Lets read the writing on the wall,

And taste the glory in the shame
Of trying out this simple cure:
As we defend the good we claim,
Could we just mention, “We’re not sure”؟

About Me

Khalid Mukhtar · September 1, 2011 ·


The more I say, the less you hear;
The less I say, the more its clear,
That wishing for to know me more
Is not a fancy you hold dear.

Humbling Fatherhood

Khalid Mukhtar · September 1, 2011 ·

‘Fit weren’t for fatherhood
I’d never’ve understood
That all the hurt my Dad did blurt
Had come from something good
‘Fit weren’t for fatherhood
I’d never’ve understood
That every time he lost his mind
He’d done the best he could
‘Fit weren’t for fatherhood
I’d never’ve understood
That if I can be half the man
As he, then I’d be good.

Furrows In Your Brow

Khalid Mukhtar · September 1, 2011 ·

It ever pleases me to see
The furrows in your brow
That come about with every pout
Begotten by a row;
So let me plot and fabricate
An argument somehow,
That I may sigh, and gaze upon
The furrows in your brow.

Change My Heart

Khalid Mukhtar · June 7, 2011 ·

This du’aa in verse is the original work of Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmed Naqshbandi.  A beautiful supplication in Urdu that I was privileged to hear him render in nasheed some years ago.

دل بدل دے


I beg you, Lord, to change my heart,
So steeped in every heedlessness,
Enslaved by passions, avarice,
And vice I shudder to confess.

Your Mercy, Lord: transform my heart,
Bring back to life its every part.

I’ve tired of my sinful ways,
So cleanse and mend my withered heart,
That I may hear it sing your praise;
I beg you, Lord, to change my heart.

That I might turn my eye away
From what displeases you, I pray
That every moment of my day
Be for your sake: Lord, change my heart.

My every peace and every joy
For something of that solemn grief
That brings with it the sweet relief
Of Your remembrance; change my heart.

I lay, defeated, at your door;
Why am I so, Lord? Change my heart
That I may be for ever more
Your servant, Lord; transform my heart.

My Lord, I beg you, set me free
By making me your humble slave,
For that is all I wish to be.
Lord, hear my plea, and change my heart.

O Light of heavens, Light of earth,
This darkness from my heart dispel;
Replace its grief with lasting mirth,
That in Your Light it might revel.

My Lord, my inward state, reform,
My disposition, well adorn;
My stray and heedless self abate;
Reform me, Lord, and change my state.

Lord, give me from your fount until
Of love for you, I’ve had my fill.
My inward state, My Lord, reform,
My disposition, well adorn;

Your Mercy, Lord: transform my heart,
Bring back to life its every part.

To the Proud Parents of Sulayman

Khalid Mukhtar · May 18, 2011 ·


For every of his infant cry,
That brings to you a weary sigh:

May your ears be blessed with the music of the angels and the celestial sounds of the divine recitation.

For every moment of arrest:
(It is what Sulaymans do best)

May you roam the grounds of vast, verdant gardens, hand in hand, unrestrained.

For all the suffocating phews,
All brought about by his refuse:

May you smell the varied fragrances of Jannah and ever find yourself in the company of its fragrant dwellers.

For every wakeful night that’s spent,
And each arousal inclement:

May you find restful repose without weariness on the warm grassy banks of babbling waters.

May Sulayman be your greatest reward forever, and ever.

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 85
  • Go to page 86
  • Go to page 87
  • Go to page 88
  • Go to page 89
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Announcements (18)
  • Articles (20)
  • Micropoetry (434)
  • Photography (3)
  • Poetry (813)
  • Ramadan (100)
  • Riddles (46)
  • Rondeau (1)
  • Silly rhymes (29)
  • Sonnet (53)
  • Stories (7)
  • What is, is not (6)
Get new posts by email:

Powered by follow.it

March 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Feb    

Copyright 2007-2022 khamuk.com