The white feathers sail through the winter's whispers,
It is the bird of hope,
She is the dove of joy and love's peace too,
Her music carries the pure blood of the red rose,
In her beak she carries a message older than the universe,
It reads...
*"Humanity,
Drink from my cup,
Dip your heart in my love,
And rise to sing the glory of peace,
The child of mercy has been born.
I am the herald of the New Year.
The majestic Beloved, my eternal maker,
His music sings of the brotherhood of nations."

Who is that rides so late in the forest so dark and wild?
It is but a helpless father and his frightened and lonely child,
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

The father cradles his lovely son gently in his arms,
He keeps him snug and he keeps him warm and he keeps him calm,
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“My son, why do you wrap your radiant face in such dread and fear?”
“Mine father, can you not see the Erl-King? He draws ever so near!”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“O father! The Erl-King with his weedy crown and thorns of pain is here!”
“My son, it is nothing more than mist and rain on the plain over there.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“Sweet lad, O come into my jolly lair and join me, do!
Many pretty and joyful games do I promise to play with you.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

On the forest floor the autumn flowers die in the suffocating cold.
“O you dreaming lad, I have for you garments of red silk dyed in gold.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“Mine father, mine father, can you not hear my rising fear?
The Erl-King drips dark promises and breathes in my ear! Help me, father dear!”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“Be calm, stay calm, rest my child, stay easy and keep your head low,
In these withered leaves it is only the night winds that creep and roar.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“My rosy lipped lad, will you come take a merry stroll and dine with me?
My daughters three shall care for you and many wonders will you see.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“My silky daughters of darkness live in yonder castle in shadows deep,
They three will dance and sing and cradle you to the sweetest of sleep.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“Mine father, mine father, O can you not see the red eyes in his fearful face?
The Erl-King’s misty-eyed daughters live in that haunted place!"
The wind blows icy cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“My son, my son, I see the frozen milky moon very clear
And how the ancient weeping willows like castles in the dark do appear.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“O how delicious you smell, my tender innocent succulent boy!
Come off that horse and take these wonderfully coloured bright toys.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

“O father, my father, the Erl-King has seized me by the arm!
His long bony claws crawl toward my heart to do to me hungry harm.”
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

The father whips and rides fast but his warm cottage is away by a mile,
In his arms he holds the groaning, twisting, shivering child,
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Listen quietly as this tragic tale is told.

The horse halts outside the family home and the father looks with dread
For his son, his only child, he holds in his arms is now dead!
The wind blows sharp and cold,
Hush! Weep quietly as this tragic tale is now all told.

The night air mists the window panes,
But we two hold warm in the embrace of love,
Our room holds no bounds nor shame,

“Touch me…”

I caress your cheeks with my fingertips,
The sound of your breathing strokes up my hunger,
You arch back and the light glints off your lips,

“Kiss me…”

My tongue parts the petals of your lips,
There is the fragrance of a wild wet summer,
I slide through and you sigh with bliss,

*“Love me…”

Once, two lived under the shade of friendship,
They needed only to see into each other's eyes
For in them swam the pearls that were written
In their hearts.

From these glittering jewels of trust
A bond was born,
These two floated upon the carpet of memory,
Their lives travelling along the same colourful patterns.

She, pretty and funny and loving,
He, shy and deep and lyrical,
Music was theirs, and Poetry and Art too,
Both were to the ***** of love drawn.

Ideas were exchanged,
Thoughts expressed and treasured,
In time the
Two
Became
One.



©Rangzeb Hussain

Once, two lived under the shade of friendship,
They needed only to see into each other's eyes
For in them swam the pearls that were written
In their hearts.

From these glittering jewels of trust
A bond was born,
These two floated upon the carpet of memory,
Their lives travelling along the same colourful patterns.

She, pretty and funny and loving,
He, shy and deep and lyrical,
Music was theirs, and Poetry and Art too,
Both were to the ***** of love drawn.

Ideas were exchanged,
Thoughts expressed and treasured,
In time the Two
Became...

**One.

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

What have I done, my master, that angers you so?

I crept into this world on an icy cold dark night,
But once you showed me warmth and light,
My father I did not see,
Father you did for a time become to me,
I still treasure those spring days happily,
It was an age when the fresh earth laughed madly
(And you men smiled with it).

Once days of light darkened
Murky red and it was my blood I saw hardened
On your hands, my father,
My master, my friend, are
You mine enemy?

In your greatest hour I did stand by you,
Mine fatal hour was at hand and I cried out for the truth,
In my beggar’s voice I pleaded to you
To guard, today, my children and their generations too
As I once did yours.

I never sold or bargained my love
But you traded yours for scrap paper doves,
My eyes always glistened,
These days I weep salt tears and ask you to listen,
My idiot smile always seemed foolish but now I wear
Pagliacci’s lipstick.

While you desecrate my humble gravestone
I never once did the same in spite, hate or even while digging for a bone,
I shall always play the fool
Who is used as a tool
And nothing more by you.

Where are you now? Were not you and I fashioned out from blood
Of the same mud,
By the one God?
I never changed my tune which was composed by a bard
But I hear you dance to a different hymn,
They say Satan was Keeper of the Music Inn
Before he was sent down
To a place where he found a sound
That forever changed his jig.

I did have two eyes,
You used your blind eyes for lies,
My nose I gave up for your nightly protection
While you always smelt for election,
You have two deaf ears,
Mine always heard the sound of fears,
You once did have a heart, mine bled,
I hang my head and go to my earthen bed,
Compassion is a word that spells dread
For Humankind.

The rags that you men worship daily
Drove you to haunt me gaily,
If careful you are not
Those same rags will one day sink their needle teeth into your soft rot,
The needle that put me to into Death’s sleep
Will bury into you deep indeed
And bite softly it will, like lice,
Will you howl like I did *(out of pain, not cowardice),
Or are you going to offer the other cheek?

I was crucified for your guilt
Which upon my shoulders you day by day built,
Mine life was extinguished under the burning weight,
Even in rigid death you hound me mate
And thousands like me are detained,
But loyal we will remain,
In the fiery jaws of hellish Death
I never spat out my love but I bet
You never wept,
My master who once did return my love.

*What have I done, my master, that angers you so?

The dead-eyed beast of war is barking here,
He has torn through all things sweet and dear,
Terror drips from his claws and wide open jaws,
His senseless hate grips the village of the poor.

The dark days have flocked in full of fearful screams
And the nights chill the soul with dread dreams,
The tents rip and tear into a quicksand of despair,
There is nothing here but children weeping with fear.

Their universal faith sings of purity and simplicity,
Their spires and towers were spun in the city-of-cities,
Now in the dust of long forgotten deserts they die,
Their histories, and all their voices, now buried under lies.

Homeless, these children of ancient kings and emperors,
Forgotten and gone from the pages of perished empires,
Orphans now,
*Help them now…

“It’s a surprise…
Come here my sweet angel.”

She shyly steps over to him
And in his palms places her gentle hands,

“Come my doll,
Let me place this blindfold upon you.”

He ties a blindfold across her downcast eyes
and tapes her surprised lips.

“Now, sweet angel of the Lord,
Hold out your right hand to receive your gift.”

She does…

There is a sharp swish!
His knife slices through her first finger of trust.

“Want an education, eh?”
Her forefinger will never again index another book.

“Want a career, eh?”
Her signature finger is cut to the bone,

“Want to improve yourself, eh?”
He hacks off her trembling little finger.

“Want to discover yourself, eh?”
He peels off the identity from her thumb.

Her trust, her love, her dreams,
They lie there scrawled in the ink of her blood.

But in time there is a vow made,
She promises to learn to write again.

Her left hand will right the attack upon her rights,
She will resurrect and join the cracks in her dreams.

There was a light that lit the world,
Its golden radiance reaches across the tides of time,
Here in the darkness it throbs with hope,
Open it,
Here, let your eyes feast upon the pages,
Read!
Recite!
Rejoice!
This is the miracle
of love
of life
of ecstasy,
What you hold is the seal
of all that has gone before,
It is our salvation as we struggle through these parched deserts,
It is the torch that keeps us warm in the coldest winter of the soul,
Come my darling,
I know you
I embrace you
I would wait for all eternity for you,
This was the message when time was first born
and it still tilts and beats to the tune of the human heart,
This music older than the song of memory
will one day wipe away the tears of the sacrificed orphans,
I have wept silently in these long forgotten caves
and of you have I thought each and every day,
I will stay here and once more reach out
to the starlit light,
It was always the light
and now I see it coming,
My day here is done
I now go to places where darkness has no home,
I seek refuge in the lands of light,
In that pearly place I will wait,
"When will you come?"
My heart
my soul
my love,
"Why do you always look away?"



©Rangzeb Hussain

The night winds sing,
the chorus rings through
the dead hour of the valley.
Hear it, the music of the wolf’s pain.

Against the backdrop of the new moon,
high on an icy blue rocky ridge
with the pine trees stabbing the black sky,
there shivers the weeping wolf.

This day he has lost
two precious things...

Hunters came bearing muskets,
bayonets and torches.
They rampaged through the wood
shooting everything that moved.
The air hung heavy with the stink
of the musket shot.

The wolf’s mate,
a beauty amongst beauties,
had been suckling her pup
when a hunter’s sabre silently sliced
through her fur
and cleaved her silky shoulder.

Death silenced her
and snatched away her pup.

"Once...

In my hands I cradled the dream of a candle,
A candle made from the weeping wax of peace,
The frozen peace of winter did kiss the flame to life at the dawn of time,
A time when life glowing was first born,

He was born on a night where even wolves hushed in solitude,
The solitude of a winter’s sparkling moon,
In the moon's ink a book was spun rich and old,
Old it was,

As old as the child of a dying nightingale,
A nightingale born from the symphonic blood of a Saviour,
A Saviour pure as softly sprinkled snow,
The snow in glory harking,

Harking the flute made from the ice of sublime love,
A love eternal,
Life eternal for all humankind,
This same humankind is now distracted and blind,

We are blind to the silent solace of winter and no longer seek the divine,
Our divine King of Kings it is His song that we forget to sing,
Please sing once more and hark the angels of heaven.

In heaven there was once upon a time...
There was a time,
A time of hope,
Of hope and of mercy.

Mercy and love too,
Love,
Love,
     Love..."*



©Rangzeb Hussain

For they are the gold that floats upon the wings of angels,
These innocent sweet eyed infants,
They bring to us a gentle reminder of
Beauty
&
Purity,
Mayhap we shall yet reach those fabled lands
which glow and glitter
with the glory of God.



©Rangzeb Hussain