A to Z
a distance of rounds
Out within outer
Layers around
finger bent to thumb
look through
a ring back
of hill and slack
forest and sky
a thieving sight
a painting made.
The bee buzzing round back
bearing pollen flower suck
a theft made honey.
The cow thieves the grass to milk
the earth thieves the water to yield grain
and nature thieves time to make
the world a flower.
Nowadays
to be a man of excellence, my boy,
make a round
hail, smile shake hands
make a finger count
be professional
to make a thief
thieve, the thieves
all thieves around
will call you, “the Clever finger.”
Breath and Clay
Since birth and we are consumed like a pyre
Out of nothingness into nothingness
We return but ash of the burning fire.
What a bewildering timeless process!
That’s why we ponder again and again
The theme of science to the wide extreme;
Perhaps with a test tube we might attain
A spark of hope in the ash of our dream.
Though conscious of time and the whistle-stop
The curb leading road to our destiny,
We can’t help but go on and on to drop
From the eaves of the world falling down free.
The soul from its burden of blood and clay
Out of the human chest into the chest
Of heaven led by the First Cause to stay
Where there’s a divine sway of love and rest.
Yet we keep tracing the mystery claimed
Of a godless secret we still ignore,
The eighth puzzling miracle still unnamed,
Breath and clay a merger made at the shore.
2/1985
In Memory of My Wife, Maliha
How oft I watched the sunrise beyond yon
And yon I haven’t seen but the heaving foam
Where the ship with my heart is sailing on
To harbor at sunset away from home.
And how oft I came to think but never thought
The thoughts I am thinking now of my loss,
Deserted with the strings of hope
I caught Like a penitent at a weeping cross.
This blank Janus, faced world should I abhor
Or steep in Lethe to swoon and forget
That there was such a joke having in store
But empty hopes and the dreams we regret.
Dreadful to bear the thought of a long sleep,
To hush the divine voice of love in pain,
The blitz of doom in a bosom to keep
With a coal living fire ablaze in the brain.
I am perceiving the years of grief ahead
And I’ll dwell on them the rest of my life.
How can I forget the moment she said
“Shed no tears, that’s the true meaning of life.”
I shall live hence and let my voice be heard.
Charged with my forlorn melody to span
All over the earth with my saddest word
To mourn the dead heart of every living man.
9/1982
Adam and His Progeny
Two bodies one of the other sprung
Tempted by a serpent
God’s Command disobeyed
A frailty caused the fall
Adam on earth
A period and a question mark
Overcame the deluge by the ark
Aging progeny has grown
Waves of the human tide foamed
Over the ocean of mortality
Surging generations billowing to the shore
Breaking through gravitation caged recoil
Being caught by the dragnet of nature.
We read this story to remember we forgot
And since the brain is seething in a beaker of common sense
The ingredients of reason in the mind
Hopes and dreams cooked realized
Doubt fumed knowledge distilled
Theories established laws declared
A ladder of facts and we climb on and up
On the drumming beats of our hearts
On the moon we make a short stop
We hoist a flag and take snapshots
Look around and carry the years in a bag of sand
Scud again into the clear dive homeward and plunge
Where the waiting crowds applaud
A crater of water on the Atlantic made.
People of earth, better listen and awake
Science is the devil’s decoy of persuasion
An imp of subtle ideas in each mind
Offering the glass of pleasure a poisoned grape
And man gulled swallows the potions prepared
Being drugged never dreams but of fame
When the world is stifling by the flame
So the question mark remains
The mystery of the world on the stage
Where the tragedy of life is played
With Satan dissimulated setting the plot
The climax of dynamite, the last episode.
Gentlemen, I am talking to you now
I know that you are busy with your test tubes
But you may spare a moment to look up
A loft not too high, not too low
Only overhead the danger of the spreading smoke
Be wise and read the past to make the future mean
A finger bite later on would be too late, too late
Having lost paradise
Why make a fatal pratfall again
Dot the period a fullstop and pull down the blind?