Khalid Mukhtar

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

Poetry

On Healy’s Insightful Observation

· ·

I read of the time they wanted to wave
The swastika over a shtetl,
I’m oddly impressed the ACLU gave
All it could to that storm in a kettle.
The union had taken a stand that was strong
In seventy-eight, and some called it wrong,
Yet well it reflected the grit of the land
Of the free and the home of the brave. Understand
That the plan didn’t fly, but supposing it had,
And further supposing had something gone bad,
Can you force an incident, however sad,
That MAY just have driven the union mad,
To say: “I am Hitler”?
I can’t.
I get it, the foe of a foe can be friend.
How close is a friendship like that in the end?
You want the stain gone, break out the bleach,
But seek out a pair of good gloves within reach.
And do put them on.
Just for the record, I am not bleach.

I WIll Grieve, I Will Laugh, But I Am Not Charlie, by Josh Healy

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/13/i-will-grieve-i-will-laugh-i-am-not-charlie
ACLU History: Taking a Stand for Free Speech in Skokie
https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-speech-skokie
In an Unequal World, Mocking All Serves the Powerful, by Saladin Ahmed

 

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/01/10/when-satire-cuts-both-ways/in-unequal-an-world-mocking-all-serves-the-powerful

Rise!

· ·

Here’s a motivational piece I wrote last night. If you find yourself performing it, do drop me a recording :-).
There’s a fire in your eyes. It’s your day to rise,
Time to light the skies with the burning cries
Of a fighter with no fear cuz the fear all dies
This day you rise with a fire in your eyes.

Set the field ablaze for a thousand days,
Let them feel the heat of the toil that pays
For a body that wields from a mind that plays
The resolve of a heart in so many ways
That the longer it burns, the stronger you feel
Cuz that’s the effect of heat on steel,
So burn till you earn what you yearn to seal,
And when the victory rains, let the rain reveal
Who you really are – one body, one mind,
One soul, one machine that’s been designed
To light the skies with the burning cries
Of a fighter with no fear cuz the fear all dies
This day you rise with a fire in your eyes.

It’s your day to rise, your day to rise.

RISE!

December

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There’s a wind that bites on the coldest nights
In the frozen lap of December,
And it leaves its marks of depressing truth
Everywhere that it blows. Remember

All the lonesome old, and the suffering youth
And the desperate cries of a mother
As she scrapes what once had graced her womb
From the street in the wake of another

Downpour of fire; every home’s a tomb
With its epitaph on the faces
Of the drenched who dried everything they had
In the rain, of all the places.

As a village dines on a morsel, glad
For the fact that their meal was bigger,
Don’t forget blood spilled, all of it unwilled
By that tot enticed by a trigger.

But we all rejoice for the time we killed
In our hot pursuit of pleasure,
Just don’t be ashamed of the tears you shed
They might be our only treasure.

(Take it down just a notch for the dead.)

There’s a wind that bites on the coldest nights
In the frozen lap of December,
And it leaves its marks of depressing truth
Everywhere that it blows. Remember.


Happy New Year!

Mall Blues

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I stole this candid shot of my son at the mall.

I don’t know why I’m here at the mall,

It’s so painful, but I’m biding my time

While my sisters, and my mother of all
Are deliberating some fashion crime.
Dad reminds me I’ll get used to the wait,
But I know I need a miracle prayer
That, until I learn to welcome my fate,
Can dissolve all of this time in the air.

Of Tears And Rain

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A year had passed, but not a drop
Of rain had fallen down upon
The land of Makkah, and its crop
Did suffer. And its men were drawn

Toward their kind and noble chief,
Abu Talib, the Hashimi,
Whose charge it was to bring relief
To his ailing community.

He sat upon the dusty ground,
And listened till their tales were done,
Then gathered all the children ’round;
And when he saw his brother’s son,

Abu Talib let out a cry
Of pure, uninhibited joy,
To see the apple of his eye:
Abdullah’s one and only boy.

He held the child close to his breast
Then stood him ‘gainst the Kaaba wall
And gently proffered his request
To pray to God for rain to fall.

Muhammad raised his handsome face
And as he closed his blessed eyes,
He supplicated God with grace,
His heart beyond the cloudless skies.

Then in that moment, Mikail
Released the long-withheld decree,
And angel crowds rushed down to feel
The light of higher company.

A drop upon Muhammad’s cheek,
Then silence, as the heavens turned,
To rain upon a people weak
The mercy that their son had earned.

And thus the much awaited rains
Revived the Makkan hearts and crop.
I’d equal all the rains with tears
For something of that foremost drop.

Hope

· ·

It’s what makes a heart to steal away
Deep into the darknesses you find
There beneath the layers where they play,
Demons find a way to trick your mind.

Don’t give up on what you feel inside
Beating ‘gainst a chest that has no worth
If the sound of every beat has died,
Time to give another beat its birth.

All that matters is what you think of
Him who thinks of you just all the time,
Even when you think you’ve had enough
Of that thought you ever thought a crime.

Hakim

· ·

This poem is to honor our physician and all those in the medical field who strive to do the one thing that really matters – care.
Who hears the patient out,
Who listens very close,
And wisely sacrifices doubt
For what the patient knows;
Who thinks beyond the need
To make you smile, instead
Exerts all knowledge well to heed
The longer mile ahead.
Who knows disease is war
That’s waged with no decrease
In helping that which battles for
The maintenance of peace.
Who answers every call
From agitated voices
Believing ER isn’t always
From the wisest choices.
Who knows that every soul
Loves dignity in breath,
And reconciles it as one whole
With dignity in death.
We’re blessed that while alive
We have among us such
Whose wisdom may help us surive
Death’s first and only touch.
It’s them we address now:
Thank you very much.

Sugar Trap

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I’ll pay you a dollar to build me a palace,

And fifty cents more if you build without malice;
Its walls crispy brownie, its window frames cream,
The couches are fondant in layers that gleam
With marshmallow cushions of various shapes;
And don’t forget drapes cut from strawberry crepes,
And when I have run out of candy to eat,
Returns it the favor with practiced deceit,
As each of my organs it slowly consumes;
I am now its palace with hundreds of rooms.
A dollar and fifty has bought me disease,
And now I’ll pay thousands in hospital fees.

When You’re Sad

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When you’re sad now, just remember it’s alright

There’s a reason that you’re feeling sad this way

Someone’s drawing your attention at this time

And is working now to help you turn away

From each smell each taste each touch each sight and sound

That fills every space and moment of your day

Shut it out and turn you with your heart around

To where all that ever matters goes to play

And then look into that face you cannot see

Listen close now to that voice you cannot hear

As your heart pumps out a name in every beat

It is how a sweet remembrance draws you near

There is nothing else that matters now my dear

Thursday Riddle (December 5, 2014)

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My seed is desire and poison, my fruit,
And when my desire begins to take root,
It grows like a fire that makes it’s way higher
To burn all in sight of the eye of desire.