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 Sep 2014 Mizanur Rahaman
irinia
my town
where wild flowers grow
between tram tracks.
there was a time when
it was hardly morning,
no bridge into daylight.

walls had ears,
neighbors had eyes
whispering behind the curtains
there was an emptiness in the guts
of the city
and poetry locked in the drawers,
Borges was read under the blankets
while Dostoievski was  a comforter:
demons were embedded.

yeah, people were clapping and smiling
watching the nub of history, numb
they had a life to live,
what can you say?

one day the radio
burst on in the streets
some were shivering in the attic
"we are free", they said
"we are free",
came the echo in trance

"shhhhh"! said others,
let us wipe the blood
don't disturb the sacrificed
so we can sleep
without dreams

it's Thursday in my town
streets are weary
and our souls are
slowly expanding
Thank you, Eliot, for this choice! I am glad that this poem was chosen for the Daily Poem because for me it is a reminder that people died for freedom and struggled against oppression in times when "Cruelty knits a snare,/And spreads his baits with care", as the poet says. (William Blake, The Human Abstract)
 Sep 2014 Mizanur Rahaman
st64
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
1885–1930

English writer D.H. Lawrence’s prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, and literary criticism. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization.
In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct. After a brief foray into formal poetics in his early years, his later poems embrace organic attempts to capture emotion through free verse.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his “savage pilgrimage.”
At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, “The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.”
Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical “great tradition” of the English novel.
 Sep 2014 Mizanur Rahaman
Ghazal
Tired feet stumble back
Tingling through and through,
Legs so numb, sleepily complain
Of all the running they had to do.

Thirty hours of relentless work,
And only stolen moments of rest later,
The calf muscles I pampered all my life
Cringe and cramp and labour.

Oh my fatigue is palpable,
I can feel it in my heels
In the weariness of my soles
And my jaded tendons of Achilles.

The first respite swiftly comes
When my skin finally recognises
My soft, familiar slippers,
I sink into the feeling and I like it!

Then comes another wave of relief,
Gently easing those knots away,
When my pajamas caress my legs,
Draining out the pain of the long, long day.

I dive into bed, and sleepily wait
For my final portion of cosiness
Which comes when sleep lulls me to bliss.
Indeed, home is where the feet are happiest.
O:)
the titles
lay about,
filed in no order,
some a mere notion,
some a finished few,
most a line or two

that

ask fervently for
birth, commencement,
not understanding
that finished,
need not mean ripened,
ready for release, consumption

some indeed,
awful layabouts
in no hurry
to complete their
appointed rounds,
or make their
unique composed sounds
spoke out loud

content to be,
yet-to-be
but already
wanting the entitlements
of being
just a title entitled,
yet even without shape,
content to be
content-less,
poem teenagers, I guess,
they want it all

all awaiting wondering

they understand how humans are born
but see no parallel to gestation literate

they see
infiltration, fertilization, conception,
automated, tracked and formulaic

the process similar,
but the exact moment of birth
knows no schedule,
some burst, some dormant,
aging beyond aged,
struggling to believe that
those who wait also serve

if you were to sit beside
this troubled man,
whose clouds need poking by,
perhaps,
your fresh fingers
could rocket them into
partum warmth fluid bathed,
then they would belong
to you
for you
were the trigger,
that fired them into existence
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.
Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.
 Mar 2014 Mizanur Rahaman
berry
this is a series of brief letters to the pieces of my body

dear body,
we don't always work together very well,
but i swear i am trying.

dear hands,
the callouses and crescent moons in your palms
will not be for nothing.

dear knuckles,
aren't you tired of painting yourselves black & blue
every time words fall short of the fire burning behind my sternum?

dear feet,
you know better than to follow roads that lead to dead ends.
there are better places for us to go.

dear eyes,
you have sunken so far into my skull
it shocks me you see anything at all anymore.
you're fixated on shades of gray
but i promise the world will regain its color soon.

dear knees,
stop crawling.
this broken glass is from his bottles.
get up. no more blood.

dear shoulders,
it was never your burden to carry. let it fall,
and try your hardest not to feel guilty.

dear neck,
his hands will never make a home here,
and you are worth more than one night of empty bruises.

dear spine,
stop waiting to be warmed by fingers
that would reach for another body if they could.

dear tears,
do not waste yourselves.

dear ears,
you have been filled with ghost songs for too long.
stop listening for things no one is saying -
it will make life much simpler.

dear mouth,
i know these secrets have been threatening to break my teeth
but please do not open your gates. i am not ready.

dear skin,
we have never been close friends.
i am sorry for the scars.
i am trying to learn how to be comfortable in you.

dear mind,
if i could wish you into an etch-a-sketch
and shake you clean of these bad memories i would.

dear heart,
i hope you can forgive me for being so careless.
i feel how tired you are. rest is on its way.  

dear body,
you will one day see a grave,
but it must not be by your own hands.

- m.f.
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