We never found each other
amongst the traffic of our lives,
though I waited for you
in a pauper's tomb;
overgrown with pre-existing grass
and violent rosebush.

What is left after old sentiment?
After the nights spent hoping
for your uncertainty,
for any kind of sadness
that may bring you back to me.
I have not found the answer yet

and I have stopped asking the question.
I just work the day,
collecting free moments
as ash mounts the incense burner,
over-thinking each word exchanged
across the pillow of my mind.

The television news keeps rolling,
the world keeps turning.
Despite atrophy in routine
and the absence of you;
that deficit I cannot absolve
when left alone in its entirety.

Love arrived once I wrote it off
as a folly of forsaken selves;
freedom reduced to paranoid glances
at inactive screens.
I am ready for pain again,
if you are the one delivering it.

I walked past her again.
Annihilation glance-
one thousand exposed memories
of teenage years
and exaggerated fears;
how stupid they appear
now we've learned misery well-
how to keep silent in its tenure.

How to fall at its knees
in gratitude of its brief release.
Hopeless captor,
impatient platitude;
we catch eyes on purpose,
to relinquish the delusion-
I still want her,
and she is still unsure of me.

I have not changed my costume
since those dress-rehearsal years,
still pacing streets in black coats,
still conversing with my fears.
The core of walnut in the bannister,
the stair-lift in its cage;
I walked past her again
with ****** hair and awkward gait;
an ******* full of tricks
and a folk-song made of hate.

How she falls to her knees
in cigarettes and ashes,
hopeless captor
of old bad habits;
we catch eyes on purpose
to speak beyond tongue-
I'm still singing on the hill-side,

she's still tired of my song.

to my darling who feels she's not:
our separation is mere illusion.
truly, your pain strikes me as i write this;
your sensations of abandonment,
and the decisiveness they have caused,
bleed from my skin into the fibers of my clothes.
i am no longer clean.
i do not feel pure.

to my severed arm and shortened tendons:
destruction is merely another side of life.
out of disappearance comes all things-
without space, there would be nothing to contain us,
nothing to allow and enfold our beings' spirits,
and they would sputter and cease like my love's flame.
i am no longer yours.
i do not feel full.

to the farthest star that my eyes can see:
your light reaches me- i glimpse you!
in the perceived emptiness between us
there is no distance to be found;
around us exists the infinite potential for
further connection and deeper growth in closeness.
i am no longer alone.
i do not feel sorrow.

/
Many and
Many years later
My Poetry books
That I had lost
From the middle of the bookshelf
Within Thousands of many other books
Where I have found
 
Utterly Unknown
Some Pages
Yellow
Pale
Is very difficult to read
Yet quietly reading
I read with a lot of the force
Crawling.
As a Small child walking
Many years later,
Understand
Know
Become that Strange Poem

The Poem
Showed me Dreams
Told me to Love
Strikingly,
Bought all the Colors of my Canvas
Drawn your Images
That happened,
Many and
Many years before
In my Heart and the Soul

Then
You and I
Grew as a highly Sophisticated
Metaphor,
In an extreme
Cohesion,
Nice One

My Heart put on your Heart
In a Romantic Tune
Bode on a Small Boat
Toward a Tough Sea,
That happened,
Many and
Many years before
In the Song of the Sea

Then
Sudden Sea Storm Came
Made Substantially Vortex water
We Drowned
Lost you
That also happened
Many and
Many years before
In this Sea and my Soul

Today I have found you again
In a Sprung Dream
As I lost you
Many and
Many years before
As if I'm standing
On the Shore of the Sea
You as a form of Sea Angel
Come forward to me-
/
@Musfiq us shaleheen

The time I first saw Picasso's Blind Man;
there was a loneliness I was unaware
that color, alone, could produce.
Picasso lost his friend & his home,
& I understood why
he mourned for years, in Cobalt blue.

My Mother has kept my Father's last name
for longer than she's known her own.
My father has forgotten who he is so
they hardly speak anymore.
She still carries his torch even knowing
that he may never come home.

I climb the mountains to forget how much
I hate this city.
I watch them from below when I just
want to admire true beauty.
From the bottom, so sacred & somber,
they resemble an elephant sleeping,
surrounded by wild flowers
ready to return home.