NOTE*  -  *The largest animal in Great Britain, a red stag named Emperor who stood over 9ft tall, was last night shot dead by a trophy hunter. The antlers of the majestic deer are highly prized, and after pictures of the stag appeared in the national press last week, the animal was tracked and killed in Exmoor, Devon.



These mist covered mountains of the highlands,
‘twas here that I once freely wandered upon nature’s pasture grounds,
Now I lie shrouded in the mournful fog of the lowlands,
‘twas here that I was met by a pack of bone breaking hounds.

The fresh dew upon the harvest of autumn’s final flowering,
‘twas here that I chewed the grass of sweet nature’s offering,
Now I grow cold upon the ground where I was stalked by dark doom,
‘twas here that I left life’s rocky way under a hunter’s moon.

The air of the early morn moor with the sky above my dome,
‘twas here that I ran and with joy loved and royally roamed,
Now my legs will nevermore click or clack over my domain fenced with tree gates,
‘twas here that I wooed and won my shy majestic mate.

She, my queen of the green woodlands, she was my wife and my empire,
‘twas here that we romanced in the fading summer’s fire,
Our charming child, my princess of these grassy hills now cloaked in shade,
‘twas here that she saw her father the monarch in death finally fade.

In the chorus of the dancing dawn awakening upon the horizon’s golden rhyme,
‘twas here that I sang the tune that will drum till the end of nature’s time,
They will come with stakes and wood and cross and bow me to the beams,
‘twas here where they hacked and tore off my enchanted crown of weeping dreams.

The scent of the freshly mown grass mingles with the green pine,
‘twas here that I drank the perfume and nectar of the divine,
My eyes glaze, my breathing falters, my clay chills, my soul no more sings,
‘twas here that I finally returned to the hands of my Beloved, the eternal King.

"...I shall now graze upon the sacred acres of my Creator,
I shall frolic and run free in the tender fields of endless splendour..."



©Rangzeb Hussain

They will look upon me and say –
“There goes one who has become drunk!”

And they will speak true!

For I have gone from tavern to tavern
and in the evening shadows
have I licked the fever of my yearning,
My thirst, this delirious hunger,
It can only be parched and sated by the glorious sight
of my benevolent Beloved,

I look into my liquid glass and spy the fire
of my burning desire,
They who have never loved will never know
what it feels like to embrace the fading twilight,
My Beloved, my eternal love, my moonlight,
Come to me this night and teach me the mystical ways
of the Creator’s starlit delight,

I have become drunk upon the heaven scented milk
drawn from the pure breast of paradise,
This night I shall sleep and dream
in the ***** of the divine Beloved.



©Rangzeb Hussain

Outside the weeping windowpane...

The eyes!

Bloodshot, boiling and bleeding hot...

Veined in Samhain's pagan pain...

Wet with death's desperate desire...

The eyes!

Coiled round and round...

Dripping poison in Halloween's haunted season...

Yellowed, piercing and in evil forever rejoicing...

The eyes!

Inside!

The eyes are inside!

I have no more dusty dark places to hide...

For the eyes are...

Mine! Mine! Mine!



©Rangzeb Hussain

True, ‘twas upon a night cold that I was born
but in time I became a radiant rose upon the rocky road of thorns,
From morn to dusk does time trickle and tick,
My heartbeat full of love’s delightfully tender tricks,

I grow bolder with the seasons,

Alas, all too soon am I to be sacrificed at the altar of love’s high treason,
I totally trusted you in my love’s romantic quest
but you were not one in the way of love truly blessed,
The age of years passes by and high
as the days darken and softly sigh and die,
I know soon, all too soon,
I shall embrace the earthy embrace of death’s darkling doom,

Days go flashing by in the beating of a butterfly’s wings,
Upon the cherry trees the ropes swings and no child sings,
It was here, yes right here, this was the place,
This will be my final resting place,
Never again will I in the summer in this place my shadow trace,
My face and red lips forever fated to be lined with love’s wrinkled hate,

No more, please no more of this maudlin talk,

My flame still brightly glows and I still skip and happily walk,
Perhaps the days darken dreadfully outside
but here I am all warm and snugly seduced in my mind inside,
The world weeps, the shadows creep, but I smile and myself treat,
I will not cry, nor quietly die, I will spread my wings and soar and fly high,
Days, weeks, years, the way ahead, paths full of passionate flowers,
I will live my life and never fear death’s wintry power,

This is my destiny, my torch, my song of songs,
I will look to the sky again and with my eyes kiss the golden clouds,
I shall play the music plucked upon the meadows of yesteryear,

Until my eyes to the twilight finally close
I will bow only to my Beloved, the Lord of heaven’s rose,
Come bless this day with the colours of paradise,
Paint me the memory of the day when we all once again rise,
I will return to my Beloved, to only Him will I submit my soul and free will,
In that abode where the divine resides I shall have my dreams fulfilled,

Remember me,

Remember me,

Remember me,

In dreams, come to me in dreams,
And to me hum and sing a birthday hymn.



©Rangzeb Hussain

"For the name of The Answer is...
Mercy.

His divine name is...
Love.

Say...
He
is the One,
the Forever
&
Eternal.

To Him
we will all
one day
forever return.

To love
Him
is to know
Him,
To know
Him
is to believe
Him,
and to believe
Him
is to know
Him.

This is the universal love
at the true beating
heart of
Salema:
Peace and Purity,
Submission and Obedience.

Rejoice in it,
Recite it,
Proclaim it,
Reclaim it
and free it from the
****** clawed talons
of
the evil cloaked ones,
These false prophets soaked in patriotic flags,
They dare to besmirch
the towering name
of the pure Almighty
across morning’s burning sky,
The name of Illustrious God hijacked
and daily attacked
by these fanatical suicidal firebrands.

Come my people,
You lost tribes of the world,
Let us all hold our hands
and lean towards
Al-’Islām’s pearled valley of the divine,
Let us all drink from this precious cup overflowing with
Love
&
Peace
&
Tranquillity,
Mercy too.

Listen to this,
My plea of
Compassion
&
Reason,
Let us to Eden once again
and there plant the rose tree
of our Beloved
Al-Karīm, Al-'Azīm, Al-Khāliq, Al-Mujīb."*



©Rangzeb Hussain

“...Turn me away
from the golden gates of Paradise
for today in folly
did I cruelly mock
the secret tears
of my love’s
forlorn weeping rose...

The cloth of Heaven itself
now bears the bloodstain
drawn from the pure heart
of this
my now lacerated rose...”*



©Rangzeb Hussain

Then...

Here, upon this flagstone,
Through yonder portcullis,
And over the green pasture inside the castle gates,
Yea, ‘twas a time of kings,
A time of high adventure
and death’s flying arrows,
Peasants, horses, carts,
Children plucking chickens,
The noise, the dust, the heat,
This was the place,
This was the dungeon where they took
The Hooded Man,
To Nottingham’s dark cellared cells,
Over across the castle moat,
by the river green,
there grows the pride of Sherwood,
In that time of chivalry
there was honour to be won
and the comely maidens flowed with
the milk of beauty,
Modesty was theirs,
and respect too,
Dressed in garments ruby red with rare silken cloths
brought back from the Crusader Kingdoms so far away
over the waves of desert sands,
Lush velvet embroidered with the lace of the East,
This was the age of Faerie and Legend,
Nottingham’s merrie minstrels plucked gently their mandolins,
Hear this, the blissful sound of a bygone age,
An age of mist and dreams...

Now...

The skull eyed reaper marches ever onwards,
Time slashes forward without mercy...

Look you now to these ancient castle ruins,
Nothing now but cracked stones,
The old flagstones are lined with
the attack of ages,
The walls of the courtyard grimed with ivy
and rotting flowers with dead dry thorns,
Over there, the portcullis, it has been removed,
There is no more music here,
There is only the croaking silence of autumn’s solitary raven,
Robin, The Hooded Man, is now nothing more than a mute statue,
He keeps ghostly guard over his domain,
His last arrow poised for to fire
to a place where he was to be laid to final rest,
His famed silver arrow has now turned to gold
for there at the steps of the old castle
is a maiden fair and bold,
There she stands dressed in nothing
more than gold,
From head to toe,
Gold,
From back to front,
Gold,
From North to true South,
Gold,
She bares all in
Gold,
The early evening twilight catches fire
and her hair is ablaze with the rays of the fading sun,
Her body twists and curls like a panther newly released into an emerald jungle,
Gold glows and ripples over her supple curves,
She stands on tiptoes, arches back and smiles
to the sea of cameras that *click! and clack!,
The Union Jack flag she drapes coyly over her shoulder
and to the camera she blinks and wickedly winks,
Her ravenous teeth glinting sharply in the twilight,
Modesty?
There was none,
Freedom?
There was none,
Equality?
There was none,
Humiliation?
Aplenty!
Maybe not on the outside
where her youthful skin twinkled
and jousted with the sun’s light,
No, the shame was all circled up inside her,
For all along the barricades along the castle bridge
thronged men,
Their whistling tongues salivating,
Their eyes crawling over her golden skin like an army of Crusader ants,
Her beauty by these leering men prickled and probed,
Their minds raging with rabid images of twisted lust,
This living work of art,
This statue of pure molten gold which moves,
She is but a thing which men will put on a pedestal and objectify,
They will point to her and pontificate,
They will say this and say that,
They will touch her
and mould her
and hold her
until she whispers her last
and grows marble cold.

Maybe, in time, she will be silenced forevermore,
and,
like the Hooded sentinel who stands watch outside the gates,
She will be cast in burning bronze
and stand immobile for all time,
A daughter,
A sister,
A mother...
Now,
A prisoner...
Always*,
A prisoner...
That burnished gold has no meaning if it be nothing but chains,
The cruel chains of Mankind’s eternal slavery of Womankind.

Here ends the tragedy
of the Golden Girl.*



©Rangzeb Hussain