Khalid Mukhtar

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

Poetry

Change

· ·

Are you done with the peace that you spread
By the fires you rain from the sky
Till the faces of children once smiling go dead
To their mothers who silently cry.
Are you done with the justice you seek
By the heads and the cams that you roll
While the words you recite and the verses you speak
Never pass down your throat to your soul.
Am I done with the goodness I preach
With these words and their meter and rhyme,
While I buy all the junk that my wallet can reach
With free shipping from amazon prime.
We are losers, we all are, but for
Any truth in our call to be heard,
It is time you and I, every nation at war
Let each other just have the last word.

It is all just a thought that occurred
To a man shallow-minded as I.

Thursday Riddle (August 14, 2014)

· ·

I’ll take your palms, your knees and toes,
My touch is soft, so calm your woes;
Exhale your anger, drain your mind,
Inhale the languor that you find

When I am spread, and spread I’m best
To kiss your head at every rest,
And hear the conversation sweet,
A conversation to repeat.

Form And Function

· ·

I’ve thought of this before
And I’ll think of it again:
What’s the purpose of creation,
And of angels, jinn and men?

What’s the purpose of the earth
As around and round it spins
Bearing all its many children
And their many, many sins?

What’s the purpose of the sky,
Of the stars and of the sun?
Each is born and wont to die
When the time of time is done.

As we turn and spin about
Through the dawn and afternoon,
Just before and after dusk
And through the passing of the moon,

There are jinn and there are men
Spanning every longitude,
There are angels flocking by
At each and every altitude

Such that every breath of time
Sends a prayer floating, one
That outlives the life of rhyme
And outshines the shine of sun.

When this planet stops to turn,
And the breath of time is spent,
All that’s left is is left to burn,
And what isn’t can’t repent.

So the form and the function
Help us out here once again
With the purpose of creation,
And of angels, jinn and men.

Thursday Riddle (August 7, 2014)

· ·

I’ve got no face, possess no head,
Have naught for the palms of my hands,
My slender legs may walk if led
By claps that aim to settle demands
For portions of what I may tread.

Thursday Riddle (July 31, 2014)

· ·

It has a remarkably large appetite
For what is entirely waste, yet it might
Present to a mother the help that she seeks
As softly together they kiss baby cheeks.

Crisis

· ·

Inspired by this moving Friday sermon by Shaykh Amin…

There’s a crisis in our homes,
In our neighborhoods and schools,
As we labor hard to tell
Intellectuals from fools;

Tweets and faces tell a story
Floating in a sea of doubt,
What was true is now a rumor,
But the word’s already out;

All the passion that we swallow
And the knowledge we receive
Come from places that are hollow
Upon tongues that don’t believe,

Ignorance once had a father
And its words are rich and red
Like the wine that taints the blood
Of all the offspring that it bred;

Yes, the captain burned the village
And the village burned all night,
But the hearts of all the children
Went on carrying the light.

As the blood upon the sands
Becomes tears in your eyes,
Let your tears become blood for
Each believing heart that dies.

It’s the crisis in our homes
In our neighborhoods and schools,
Beat a path to the fountain
Down where certain knowledge rules.

Listen to the weeping warner
Shout out to the hearing few:
If you do forget the Lord,
The Lord will make you forget you.

Walk, Baby, Walk!

· ·

A lunchtime sonnet to parents out there getting anxious about their babies’ walking/talking abilities :-).

Why all this haste to see a baby walk!
Are you somehow disgusted by its crawl?
Why all this haste to hear a baby talk!
You tired of its babbling and all?
Slow down and look around, my frantic friends:
The flower blossoms first before the fruit,
The quality of which so much depends
Upon the bond that flower makes with shoot;
And every fruit bursts forth from fertile flower
Like every speech springs sweet from subtle sounds,
Each bursting and each springing takes its hour,
So kiss the hues with which the bloom abounds
And kiss the infant stumbling on its feet;
There will not be a dearth of fruit to eat.

The Sixth of Ramadan

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I’m running for cover in the shelter of sky,
When the sprinkler comes on, not a moment is dry,
Playing tag with my sisters and my cousin on the lawn,
Everyone’s getting wet on the sixth of Ramadan:

Getting wet in the kitchen, getting wet on the chair
Getting wet wherever the Quran is in the air,
Mercy rains in the mosque, silent lips sing a song
In the praise of Allah on the sixth of Ramadan.

You Can Tell It’s Ramadan

· ·

When a lazy lout who lumbers
Through his daily prayers can
Worship late before he slumbers,
You can tell it’s Ramadan.
When a good-for-naught reciter
Falls in love with the Quran,
Grows significantly quieter,
Yes, oh well, it’s Ramadan.
When a cold pathetic sinner
Struggling with a simple plan
Finds his sins are getting thinner,
Starving hell; it’s Ramadan.
You can skip the lunar sighting
And just look at me, a man
Who can tender this in writing:
I am proof it’s Ramadan.