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Ayesha Oct 2023
The madman watches from the pores of the city
Housed tightly like a life in the confines of chest
Sky howls and lures it outwards, bulbous and beating
The windowsills loosen their grips, hang pitiful
On the precipice, as a blind disquiet looms
Silence yawns, and then chaos sneezes
Opening wide the madman's heart
Then, a big rumble wakes the streets as he prepares for riot
People-pupils jig in their pools
Exuberant at the disturbed show
Almost, it seems, that a thousand past sunsets
Might flip over the world
And walk unleashed as man upon man
As man among men in song has done

Almost, but the moment sags again
And the sordid stillness bars everything-
16/10/2023
The mad man that we all knew,
Was lost in his own mind,
A tortured soul, misunderstood,
His thoughts, too intricate to find.

But in his madness, he found joy,
A comfort in his pain,
The world outside seemed a blur,
But inside, he was sane.

In his mind, he saw magic,
And colours so alive,
A world that no one else could see,
A place where he could thrive.

He found solace in his delusions,
And strength in his darkest days,
His madness brought him clarity,
In a world of chaotic ways.

Through his madness, he found art,
And wrote his own symphony,
A beautiful piece of music,
That only he could see.

Though we called him a mad man,
He was truly just unique,
A soul that danced to his own beat,
And found joy in his mystique.

So let us not judge the mad man,
For he found his joy in insanity,
And though his mind was perceived as broken,
He truly lived his own reality.
Insanity sometimes is a beautiful place to be
Jack Jun 2022
**** the insanity,
Scream without sounds,
The voice of yours already shut down,
Your emotion goes on and off,
You can’t move,
There is mystery hands strain you,
Invisible whisper said,

"Welcome to the world of a madman"

**** the madman
They caress him like he is their only son,
And left him alone in the room of white,
Where he is the only one left,
as red starting to color the room,
Slowly enter his body,
Become one.

The madman of the century,
Sadistic killer,
thirst of blood never enough,
A world without a hero,
Michael R Burch Sep 2020
O God!
by Qateel Shifai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Torture my heart, O God!
If you so desire, leave me a madman, O God!

Have I asked for the moon and stars?
Enlighten my heart and give my eyes sight, O God!

We have all seen this disk called the sun,
Now give us a real dawn, O God!

Either relieve our pains here on this earth
Or make my heart granite, O God!



Hereafter
by Qateel Shifai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since we met and parted, how can we sleep hereafter?
Lost in each others' remembrance, must we not weep hereafter?

Deluges of our tears will keep us awake all night:
Our eyelashes strung with strands of pearls, hereafter!

Thoughts of our separation will sear our grieving hearts
Unless we immerse them in the cooling moonlight, hereafter!

If the storm also deceives us, crying Qateel!,
We will scuttle our boats near forsaken shores, hereafter.



Keywords/Tags: Urdu, translation, translations, God, heart, eyes, sight, madman, moon, stars, tears, pearls, mrburdu
annh Oct 2020
They speak to the madman,
Suppression, subversion, detraction,
A vocabulary of ‘less than’.

They speak to the madman,
To the loveless and the wounded,
The self-doubting ego.

They speak to the madman,
A consort of shadows,
Recurrent with paradox.

Until...uncertain as to the integrity of my own thoughts,
Understudied by self-censure and distrust,
I pause to listen in silence to the silence which listens back.

‘My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.’
- Khalil Gibran, The Madman
Ikurah Aug 2020
i don't why peoples
today like sugar-dusted lies
than a star-dusted truth
why so?
is that because those are
god's sacred candies,
you can't bribe on
your way to the sky
he will feed your bitter truths
who knows?
even he would be a scammer
or
turns into racist by this time
embracethemistakes
Undead Nomad Jul 2020
something isn't nothing

I don't like it when people consider the minute nothing
I don't like it at all
something is wrong with that belief
to consider the small unimportant
the microscopic non-existent
meaningless
purposeless...
a figment of pure imagination
a non sequitur of time
as if size itself is the only factor of what is...
dismissing reality is a fatal flaw
for when that insignificant nothing
infects you
replaces your meaningless parts with rot
turns your own body against you
discards the fabric of your meaningless existence thread by thread into the null--
when your state triggers the process of decay
slowly killing you--
while the residual effects trigger the mechanisms of the minds of those around you to start discarding your future--
while every memory becomes thinner
when you start fading
walking your own path to becoming emptiness
to become the thing you dismiss
to become dismissed
from reality
from life
but slowly enough
to realize you want to live
to have that thing you didn't believe...
existed--

you will beg for something
and receive true nothing
Mmm... My mind teeters between the meaning of life at the micro level and its effect on the macro.
Chloe May 2020
The mad man sat in a tower
Wishing for power
Instead he was chained
And slowly went more and more insane
As he wished for revenge
Undead Nomad Dec 2019
Tonight I ponder purpose,
a reason for existance,
the force to my resistance,
and food for my superstitions.

What am I, a producer or consumer?
who am I, the savior or the ender?

I live to wonder why and how to compromise these feelings
deep inside this organic device.

Icll pay the price to my destiny lender
while waiting still for my untimely surrender but first a question to the future:

where is your expectation
under examination?
I need some inclination,
a simple indication,
perspiration of inspiration.

The sun could shine through
yet my space is always shaded.
I'll try to block my eyes
to the half that's always jaded;
make tribulations no longer be berated.

Someone give me the weight
I've waited to feel for so long
because my body aches
for a chance to grow strong.
Meh... I realize this one seems unfinished (it is) but I don't have anything else to add.
Undead Nomad Dec 2019
I make no more assertions the world,
as a whole, will ever adequately define its morality.
People fluctuate in their ideal
too much.
We often try to make them concrete
from a spectrum of principles.
We may even reach an agreement;
a certain stalemate to an issue.
Though I know there will always be
opposition, it is an unavoidable constant.
And so, in the end, every debate is
nothing more than a lasso to a cyclone.
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