Dear stranger,
I have never met you before
never seen you smile
never held your hands
never looked in your eyes

To me, you are just a stranger
nothing else at all
then why do you
not feel like a stranger at all?

I have never seen your face before
never seen your eyes
yet I feel like I know
your soul
and everything inside

So tell me, why is this so
is it because we are
not strangers at all..?

In every room
I've lived in,
all the dilapidated shacks
over the years that I've
stayed in, always had a
brown spider that crawled
the walls.
It had a little suitcase.

I thought to myself that it
planned on leaving, moving to
someplace better.
It never did.
It always just set up shop, and
spun a web in the corner and caught
flies, and occasionally a small moth.

On drunken sad moon nights,
I sang dirges to the trapped bugs.
They smiled and laughed, even though
they were dying.

SPRING  DON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER

"Ok..!"  shouted Spring
"I know y'are in there..!"

Spring had the house
surrounded.

It had trees stationed
all about my abode

aiming their apple blossom
straight at me.

Already their perfume
had invaded the room.

I had turned into
THE INCREDIBLE SULK

sunk into
a blue funk

there was to be
no escape from.

Even my reflection wouldn't
look at me.

"OK..!' shouted Spring yet again
"...just look out your window....

surely you can see you
don't stand a chance!"

I couldn't help my self
I gave a panicked glance.

Platoons of daffodils
waiting to charge the house

yelling in yellow.

"Ok fella...this is your last chance
I'm going count to then...."

"Alright....alright...it's a fair cop
I'll come quietly!"

I kicked open the door
hands held above my head.

The trees had me
cornered.

The sunlight had me
blinded.

Happiness...sheer ******...happiness
grabbed me by the heart.

"Ok kid...easy now...easy!"
Spring soothed me

"Everything's gonna be ok...
...Ok?"

I sobbed on its shoulder
threw my despair away.

*

I had broken up with my girlfriend and was absolutely desolate. I would go to work and come home and just sit in my room and stare at the white white walls and the little window as it changed from light to dark and back again and...back again. I just cried and cried. Then one day I was walking to work not paying any attention to anything when all of a sudden I was greeted by a bunch of crocus and they were the first things to enter my mind and catch my imagination.

After a year I had finally noticed that something beautiful could possibly happen. And like the ancient mariner I blessed them even though I could not bless myself and I was blessed for loving the crocus just for the beauty of themselves.

The healing had begun and the voice of that wonderful English anchorite Julian of Norwich penetrated my loss and anguish and revealed to me that yes...yes...believe it or not.. . .

‘All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,’

The poem wrote itself inside my head and by the time the Underground had delivered me to my place of work it had emerged into hastily scribbled form and later that day beside the little window and the white white walls I typed it up and ceased crying bit by bit by bit.

the curve of your smile, as it meets the edge of your eyes.
salty shimmer, like that of burning sunshine in the heat.
i grasp at the sparkles, like a child grabbing onto bubbles—
except you never quite leave,
and so the magnificence stays,
claiming its own small place in my very being.

and the locket sticker i've got tattooed on my arm—
i know what name it carries.

you've got a shadow in your vision—
my own, if i were to keep it hidden.
but it resides, like in a cage behind your beauty.
the imperfections, the mess—
all of me in its chaotic glory.

fingers tainted with melted dark chocolate,
the cranberry bits in it painting your lips.

i ask if i can put pinwheels in your hair.
you tell me i could, as i should.

the faint traces of your hand against mine—
would you paint them with my tears as i cried?

i'd like to carry symphonies spoken amongst us,
settled like candy secrets in the pit of my stomach.

the epiphanies that you've brought in between
whisper to me, like you'd beckon my spirit.

walk with me, to a path leading nowhere.
unhindered.

Along the endless dusty path
The ants moved in caravan, one after another
They did not stray, nor speak of freedom
Only the hush of precision, humility, and obedience
The whole line bowed like reeds in wind
And where the road broke or an obstacle rose
They did not gnaw, nor rage, nor climb the height
But curved around it, smooth and flawless
And when the stream forked into twin threads
Each sought the other, and paths entwined again
Those behind traced the bend without question
On the circular trail with neither start nor end

But one ant, small beneath the weight of sun
Veered from the line, for reasons none could tell
Perhaps it smelled sweetness in the nearby grass
Or dreamed the world wider than the narrow creed
It wandered, briefly bold, just a little off track
But soon the dust turned strange beneath its feet
The wind couldn’t guide it back, the ground no sign
It turned back, frantic, chasing the ghost of a line
Longing for the drumbeat, the comfort of many
And when at last it slipped into the stream
It tore the rhythm, each scrambled to reclaim their place
None turned to greet it, none aligned behind
It paused, turned back to the exile once called home
Out of step, it watched the caravan flow on
Then peeled away, slow and alone
Returning to the soft wilderness of its mistake

Islam teaches about what is life,
And how to live it through it's five pillars
Shahada- declaration of faith,
Salat- prayers
Sawm- fasting
Zakat-charity,
Hajj-pilgrimage.
It can never be annihilated,
For Ya Hussein sacrificed his head for it.
When I attend majlis Hussein,
And listen to the torturous way he and his companions were massacred,
I forget all my pain and sorrow,
And weep for him till today after 1400 years.
1/7/2025