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Khalid Mukhtar

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

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Poetry

Sugar Trap

Khalid Mukhtar · December 9, 2014 · Leave a Comment

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

Khalid Mukhtar · December 8, 2014 · Leave a Comment

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)

Khalid Mukhtar · December 5, 2014 · Leave a Comment

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.

In The Valley

Khalid Mukhtar · November 25, 2014 · Leave a Comment

He heard the good word, then took off his sandals
And silently stood there in awe
Of how came the order to throw down his staff;
And marveled to see what he saw:

What once was his staff now crawled in the dirt,
A serpent forbidding and frightful;
He turned on his heels and started to flee
For reasons immensely insightful.

Then came the command unexpected, it was
To stay and toward it draw near
To grasp it; he thrust down his hand in its jaws
Without any semblance of fear.

You know it behooves inquisitive minds
To ponder the reason just why
One settles to flee from peril, yet finds
Repose in instruction from high.

I hear it’s the wisdom of prophets to hold
Respect for the nature of things,
While knowing that nature obeys what it’s told
From where all of destiny springs.

“What is, is just not; what is not, then, is;”
Is everything this story brings.

Inspired by what I heard on November 23, 2014 at Darul Qasim’s weekly exegesis of the Quran by Shaykh Mohammed Amin Khowladia (Surah Al-Qasas, Session 5).

Thursday Riddle (November 20, 2014)

Khalid Mukhtar · November 21, 2014 · Leave a Comment

A snout of length and many uses;

A chest without a heart can’t love;

A stalk of strength; the winner chooses
A word for each of the above.

Homeward

Khalid Mukhtar · November 14, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I’m on my way towards my destiny,
And chance upon a verdant wooded land
With trees and lakes and endless shrubbery
That I must pass to reach to somewhere grand.

Each tree, each lake and every shrub within
Does bear a sign divine, or so inspired;
I’d gladly follow each but can’t begin,
For knowledge to divine them is required.

And then I come upon a glade from where
Four paths diverge, each splendid and well-trod,
And each takes from the wilderness its share
Of what is willed within the Will of God.

And while each path may help me ford a stream
Or get around a stubborn hill or two,
Each runs a course directed to redeem
The one who treads upon it soft and true.

Will I display my arrogance and shun
The labors those before me had begun,
Or will I choose to humbly choose a path
And stay upon it till my journey’s done?

The means are many, but the end is one.

Thursday Riddle (November 13, 2014)

Khalid Mukhtar · November 13, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Survives to be heard even as executed
To echo the voice of a soul that is muted.

Thursday Riddle (November 6, 2014)

Khalid Mukhtar · November 6, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Old Ebenezer can be quite distressing:
You take off his cloak, his coat and his shirts
And offer a tear to find it depressing
That Eb is more hidden with every undressing.

Baby on the Nile

Khalid Mukhtar · November 4, 2014 · Leave a Comment

This sonnet was inspired by an exegesis of the opening verses of Surah Al-Qasas (The Story). Shaykh Amin describes the inspiration sent to the pious mother of Musa (AS) as a profound allegory for parenting. 

There is something about a child, you know,
Something that makes all other pain seem less;
To hear the constant utterance of No
And find amorphous order in a mess.
I was a child once, more I set my thought
To drain the worlds of wisdom for a clue
To help me solve this mystery of what
Compels a child to do what children do.
And then I hear these words so sweet and sage:
Of how a mother nursed her infant, then
Set him afloat to cool a river’s rage;
I see my quest is drowned in error, when
Indeed somewhere between a kiss and shove
Lay hidden treasures of parental love.

And the following, in honor of the mother of Musa (AS).

The agents of the Pharaoh would
Be on her son in time,
What of this urge to nurse him good
With death upon the line?
She nursed him still, then heeded well
Another thought bizarre
To wrap the handsome, happy babe
And set him float afar.
Upon her peace, upon him too,
A prince who fled in fear
Into the wild, but only to
Return with word sincere
And lead his people out from where
A tyrant wrought his worst.
All from a mother’s act in faith
Upon a baby, nursed.

Thursday Riddle (October 30, 2014)

Khalid Mukhtar · November 1, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I hope you don’t mark me forgetful a man
For all of this tardiness is in my plan.
Four score and two thousand eight hundred is what
You must now resolve if you can.

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