The lights did not go out
The walls did not shake and tumble
There were no clarion horns or cymbals
Streets were not awash with blood
But nevertheless blood did run cold.
Promises wrapped in glints of hope
Made screeching sounds as they were broken
And shattered bits of progress
Littered streets and pathways everywhere.
The rumble of the coming doom
Arrived on Humvees made in China
For the use of United Nations troops.
Everybody saw it coming
In vast Tsunamis of dread and fear
But there were simply not enough
Little Dutch Boys in blue hats
To poke their fingers in the dikes
That shuddered as they slid away
And buried ordinary people in the deluge
There was no way to win that war
The Russians tried, so did the French.
You can’t turn oranges into apples
But the women, oh the women
And their pretty little girls
Having had a taste of freedom
In forms that were once denied
They will now be forced by brutes
To give back everything they gained
And become in sad defeat
Merely property of men
swallowed up in flowing burkas
Black as the intentions of their rulers
             ljm

Mind of power
Controls the crippled bodies dying; burnt
By the sun. Hung by a far-reaching cold iron chain;
Ringing with bursting, thrusting pain;
Where the eyes are tissues of penetrating darkness that turns into tortured dreams.
You can still hear the screams,
The muttering, the mumbling, the confessions of the innocence that learnt
The sufferings and sorrow of evil. I lay a flower
Into blood and left it to float upon a river of *****; leaving
A stream of pneumonia, a stream of the plague that
Left the pungent smells of perfume dying.
I watched their estranged faces, their eyes still crying.
Bodies lie still awakened in trench like beds; lying flat
On their backs as they left their loved ones grieving.

©Jack Aylward

Wee Angus McSporran, the world's most accurate marksman, is deployed  to Afghanistan and Iraq as a ****** in the Royal Scots Guards. In spite of his diminutive stature (4ft 8in), we see him skilfully shooting men, women and children by the score, convinced they are terrorists and a threat to our freedoms in the West. He becomes emotionally involved with the gigantic ginger-haired Pipe Sergeant-Major **** McKnob, the loudest piper in the British Army and a famous poofter. We see Angus and **** in some of the most explicit ******* love scenes ever shown in a mainstream movie (tastefully filmed in soft focus and sponsored by KY-Jelly).

When **** is blown to smithereens by a roadside bomb planted by American freelancers in order to implicate the Taliban, Wee Angus goes into deep depression and becomes obsessed with his skill as a ******, often shooting "allied" soldiers in so-called "blue on blue" friendly fire. After each shooting we see the image of the ghostly dead Sergeant-Major appear as in a dream, his kilt a-swirl and his pipes wailing a tragic dirge in scenes reminiscent of Braveheart.

When Wee Angus triumphantly notches up his 500th **** (including over 75 US military personnel and several important Afghan politicians), the British government decide it is time to withdraw him from active service. In order to gain patriotic press coverage in the run-up to a General Election in Britain, it is agreed that Wee Angus shall be awarded the Victoria Cross by HM the Queen.

We see Wee Angus, in full regimental uniform, marching up the Mall to Buckingham Palace to receive his medal, his telescopic-sighted ******'s rifle looming heavily on his childlike shoulder, being cheered on by crowds of thousands of wellwishers. Tragically, when he is crossing the road in front of the Palace, he does not hear a new environmentally friendly eco-diesel double-decker London Transport bus approaching (his hearing has been seriously impaired by the noise of battle) and he is mown down, his scream being amplified to eardrum-splitting levels of horror. The camera lingers lovingly on his crushed body and we see scenes of unimaginable grief in the crowds who have taken Wee Angus to their hearts. His lover, the strapping Pipe Sergeant-Major **** McKnob, appears as an angel and weeps by Wee Angus's squashed corpse.

In the final scene, reminiscent of the closing minutes of Slumdog Millionaire, the massed marching pipe bands of the Assembled Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards appear as if by magic and the entire crowd cast all inhibitions to the wind and indulge in a life-enhancing Highland Dance and Ceili around the Victoria Memorial facing Buckingham Palace. The film ends with a heart-breaking shot of the Queen coming out on the balcony in front of the Palace and having a fatal heart attack with the shock of what she sees before her. Prince Charles is seen gleefully rubbing his hands together in the background: at long last, he is King! *(end titles shown over a shot of him groping Camilla's naked sagging ****)

For this years Thanksgiving, I have decided to focus on developing a sense of gratitude. The world is full of real bad stuff happening to too many people and its easy to let the darkness of our times cast long shadows of resentment, anger and ill will over our outlook on life. So today as I travel to a relatives home to gather for our national day of thankfulness I choose to leave resentments at home and cultivate a sense of gratitude.

I’m grateful for my eyes. My sight allows me to perceive the million graces The Almighty abundantly confers upon the inhabitants of the good earth each and every day. My eyes help me to discover the pressing needs of others and respond to it. My eyes help me to discern light from darkness, distinguish the forest from the trees and eschew pedestrian views to behold a beautiful vista. My eyes are a pathway to my soul moving me to contemplate the good, forsake the bad and move against evil in service to truth.

I’m grateful for my ears. The grace of hearing permits me to listen. My ears alert me to the cries of my brothers and sisters and enables me to understand our shared human condition. My ears tune my spirit to the chords of exquisite music and the natural symphonies of Mother Earth’s angelic chorus of singing birds, heaving oceans, the majestic pause of silent mountains and the fleeting rush of the swelling wind are all divine voices singing the joyful hymns of life.

I’m thankful for my sense of smell. Graciously my nose breathes in the inviting aroma of a lovingly prepared home cooked meal, the wholesome scent of baking bread wafting from the door of the corner bakery, a briny snort from the boundless sea, the rich compost of the deep woods after a soft summer rain, the bouquet of an infants hair and the perfume of a lovers embrace.

I give thanks for my ability to touch. Hands engaged in productive work and gainful employment is a blessing absent from too many Thanksgiving Day tables this year. We yearn to connect and the sense of touch invites our ability to feel. Feeling is the father of empathy and the mother of compassion. Caring for our animal friends we live in communion with all sentient beings.  As we touch one another and allow others to touch us; the hardest of hearts is softened, the most grievous wounds are healed to liberate the sensual yearnings dwelling in the deepest recesses of ourselves. Feeling allows us to become fully present, fully aware and fully alive in the celebration of what it means to be fully human.

I’m thankful for my sense of taste. As Sinatra croons “from the brim to the dregs” the wine of our lives may not all taste good but it all flows clear and true. Sample, savor and learn. Taste and see the glories of the Lord’s banquet so abundantly placed before us. The bitter herbs, the sweet cakes, the leisure repast, the fortifying meal and unrequited hunger is the daily bread of being human.  Pause to consider those that are lining up for the tenth Thanksgiving Day meal in Afghanistan and Iraq and pray that the awful rations of war fed to our young soldiers be supplanted with the good manna of peace.

Perhaps we loose our sense of gratitude because expectations of ourselves and others always seems to come up short of the mark. Imperfection is our most endearing quality. It informs our ability to forgive transgressions, form bonds of friendship and unconditionally love each other. I remain grateful for the sense of my imperfection as I overlook your imperfections and remain ever hopeful that you  will extend your hand to help me overcome mine.

Happy Thanksgiving.

You Tube Video: Jean Ritchie, Shady Grove

MEMORIAL DAY May 26th, 2014

****************

To all of you that have ever worn "The Uniform",

the uniform of safety and security, the uniform of pride

the uniform of freedom, the uniform of liberty

THE UNIFORM OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

**

THANK YOU

Thank you to all, in every branch, in every time From:

The American Revolution (most of us have roots to our founders)

The Civil War (North or South)

World War I

World War II

Korea

Vietnam

Cambodia

Laos

Panama

Nicaragua

The Falkland Islands

Somalia

Yugoslavia

Bosnia

Kuwait

Iraq

Afghanistan

­Pakistan

The Persian Gulf



areas and battlefields such as

(not all locations are listed with no dis-respect)



Lexington/Concord, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Normandy, D-Day, Berlin, Tripoli, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, The 38th Parallel, The Bay of Tonkin, Me Lei, Hanoi, The Hanoi Hilton, Saigon, The ** Chi Minh Trail, Baghdad, Kabul, Ground Zero Manhattan, Pentagon 9/11, a field near Shanksville PA.

and many many more,



you are all heroes and role models, not for a nation, for the world, not for American Patriots, for all humanity, not only on this Memorial Day, for all days and all days to come.



You are appreciated! because freedom has high costs and you pay the price for all of us.

**********

Godspeed, safety and peace where ever you are.



Sincerely,

Warner C. Baxter Jr.

American Patriot

Scottsdale, AZ. U.S.A.



God bless America

I've given poetry readings where less than a handful of people were present. It's a humbling experience. It’s also a deeply familiar experience.

"Poetry is useless," poet Geoffrey ****** said in a 2013 interview, "but it is useless the way the soul is useless—it is unnecessary, but we would not be what we are without it."

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and though I don’t go to Mass regularly anymore, I still remember early mornings during Advent when I went to liturgies at my parochial school. It was part of my offering—the sacrifice I made to honor the impending birth of the Savior—along with giving up candy at Lent. So few people attended at that hour that the priest turned on only a few lights near the altar. Approaching the front of the church, my plastic book bag rustling against my winter coat, I felt as if I were nearing the seashore at sunrise: the silhouettes of old widows on their kneelers at low tide, waiting for the priest to come in, starting the ritual in plain, unsung vernacular. No organist to blast us into reverence. No procession.

Every day, all over the world, these sparsely attended ceremonies still happen. Masses are said. Poetry is read. Poems are written on screens and scraps of paper. When I retire for the day, I move into a meditative, solitary, poetic space. These are the central filaments burning through my life, and the longer I live, the more they seem to be fused together.

Poetry is marginal, thankless, untethered from fame and fortune; it's also gut level, urgent, private yet yearning for connection. In all these ways, it's like prayer for me. I’m a not-quite-lapsed Catholic with Zen leanings, but I’ll always pray—and I’ll always write poems. Writing hasn’t brought me the Poetry Jackpot I once pursued, but it draws on the same inner wiring that flickers when I pray.        

• • •

In the 2012 collection A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith, nineteen contemporary American poets, from Buddhist to Wiccan to Christian, discuss how their artistic and spiritual lives inform one another. Kazim Ali, who was raised a Shia Muslim, observes in his essay “Doubt and Seeking”:

[Prayer is] speaking to someone you know is not going to be able to speak back, so you're allowed to be the most honest that you can be. In prayer you're allowed to be as purely selfish as you like. You can ask for something completely irrational. I have written that prayer is a form of panic, because in prayer you don't really think you're going to be answered. You'll either get what you want or you won't.

You could replace the word "prayer" with "poetry" with little or no loss of meaning. I'd even go so far as to say that submitting my work to a journal often feels like this, too. Sometimes, when I get an answer in the form of an acceptance, I'm stunned.

"I never think of a possible God reading my poems, although the gods used to love the arts,” writes ***** Howe in her essay "Footsteps over Ground." She adds:

Poetry could be spoken into a well, of course, and drop like a penny into the black water. Sometimes I think that there is a heaven for poems and novels and music and dance and paintings, but they might only be hard-worked sparks off a great mill, which may add up to a whole-cloth in the infinite.

And here, you could easily replace the word "poetry" with "prayer." The penny falling to the bottom of a well is more often what we experience. But both poetry and prayer are things humans have learned to do in order to go on. Doubt is a given, but we do get to choose what it is we doubt.

A God in the House Book Cover
Quite a few authors in A God in the House (Howe, Gerald Stern, Jane Hirschfield, Christian Wiman) invoke the spiritual writing of Simone Weil, including her assertion that "absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." This sounds like the Zen concept of mindfulness. And it broadens the possibility for poetry as prayer, regardless of content, since writing poetry is an act of acute mindfulness. We mostly use words in the practical world to persuade or communicate, but prayers in various religious traditions can be lamentations of great sorrow. Help me, save me, take this pain away—I am in agony. In a church or a temple or a mosque, such prayerful lamentation is viewed as a form of expression for its own good, even when it doesn't lead immediately to a change of emotional state.

Perhaps the unmixed attention Weil wrote of is a unity of intention and utterance that’s far too rare in our own lives. We seldom match what we think or feel with what we actually say. When it happens spontaneously in poetry or prayer—Allen Ginsberg's "First thought, best thought" ideal —it feels like a miracle, as do all the moments when I manage to get out of my own way as a poet.

Many people who pray don’t envision a clear image of whom or what they’re praying to. But poets often have some sense of their potential readers. There are authorities whose approval I've tried to win or simply people I've tried to please: teachers, fellow writers, editors, contest judges—even my uncle, who actually reads my poems when they appear in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he used to work.

And yet, my most immersed writing is not done with those real faces in mind. I write to the same general entity to which I pray. It's as if the dome of my skull extends to the ceiling of the room I'm in, then to the dome of the sky and outward. It’s like the musings I had as a child lying awake at night, when my imagination took me to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. But then I emerge from this wide-open state and begin thinking about possible readers—and the faces appear.

This might also be where the magic ends.

• • •

I write poetry because it’s what I do, just as frogs croak and mathematicians ponder numbers. Poetry draws on something in me that has persisted over time, even as I’ve distracted myself with other goals, demands, and purposes; even as I’ve been forced by circumstance to strip writing poetry of certain expectations.

"Life on a Lily Pad" © Michelle Tribe
"Life on a Lily Pad"
© Michelle Tribe
At 21, I was sure I’d publish my first book before I was 25. I’m past my forties now and have yet to find a publisher for a book-length collection, though I've published more than a hundred individual poems and two chapbooks. So, if a “real” book is the equivalent of receiving indisputable evidence that your prayers are being answered, I’m still waiting.

It hasn’t been easy to shed the bitter urgency I’ve felt on learning that one of my manuscripts was a finalist in this or that contest, but was not the winner. Writing in order to attain external success can be as tainted and brittle as saying a prayer that, in truth, is more like a command: (Please), God, let me get through this difficulty (or else)—

Or else what? It’s a false threat, if there’s little else left to do but pray. When my partner is in the ICU, his lungs full of fluid backed up from a defective aortic valve; when my nephew is deployed to Afghanistan; when an ex is drowning in his addiction; when I hit a dead end in my job and don’t think I can do it one more day—every effort to imagine that these things might be gotten through is a kind of prayer that helps me weather a life over which I have little control.

Repeated disappointment in my quest to hit the Poetry Jackpot has taught me to recast the jackpot in the lowercase—locating it not in the outcome but in the act of writing itself, sorting out the healthy from the unhealthy intentions for doing it. Of course, this shift in perspective was not as neat as the preceding sentence makes it seem. There were years of thrashing about, of turning over stones and even throwing them, then moments of exhaustion when I just barely heard the message from within:

This is too fragile and fraught to be something that guides your whole life.

I didn't hear those words, exactly—and this is important. For decades, I’ve made my living as a writer. But I can't manipulate or edit total gut realizations. I can throw words at them, but it would be like shaking a water bottle at a forest fire; at best, I can chase the feeling with metaphors: It's like this—no, like this—or like this.

So, odd as this sounds for a poet, I now seek wordlessness. When I meditate, I intercept hundreds of times the impulse to shape a perception into words. Reduced to basics, the challenge facing any writer is knowing what to say—and what not to.

• • •

To read or listen to poetry requires unmixed attention just as writing it does. And when a poem is read aloud, there's a communal, at times ritualistic, element that can make a reading feel like collective prayer, even if there are only a few listeners in the audience or I’m listening by myself.

"Allen Ginsberg" © MDCArchives
Allen Ginsberg
© MDCArchives
When I want to feel moved and enlarged, all I have to do is play Patti Smith's rendition of Ginsberg's "Footnote to Howl." His long list poem from 1955 gathers people, places, objects, and abstractions onto a single exuberant altar. It’s certainly a prayer, one that opens this way:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and **** and hand and ******* holy!

Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!

Some parts of Ginsberg's list ("forgiveness! charity! faith! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!") belong in any conventional catalogue of what a prayer celebrates as sacred. Other profane elements ("the ***** of the grandfathers of Kansas!") gain admission because they are swept up into his ritualistic roll call.

I can easily parody Ginsberg's litany: Holy the Dairy Queen, holy the barns of the Amish where cheese is releasing its ambitious stench, holy the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Internet. But reading the poem aloud feels to me the way putting on ritual garments must to a shaman or rabbi or priest. Watching Patti Smith perform the poem (various versions are available on YouTube), I get shivers seeing how it transforms her, and it's clear why she titled her treatment of the poem "Spell."

A parody can't do that. It can't manifest as the palpable unity of intention and utterance. It can't do what Emily Dickinson famously said that poetry did to her:

If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only [ways] I know it. Is there any other way.

Like the process of prayer—to God, to a better and bigger self, to the atmosphere—writing can be a step toward unifying heart, mind, body, universe. Ginsberg's frenzied catalogue ends on "brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul"; Eliot's The Waste Land on "shantih," or "the peace that surpasseth understanding." Neither bang nor whimper, endings like these are at once humble and tenacious. They say "Amen" and step aside so that a greater wordlessness can work its magic.

An ethnic Tajik
A Sunni Muslim from the valley of Panshir

He stood and fought when danger was near
He fought proudly with his Muslim brothers
For the way of life they held so dear

Soviet attack helicopters
Tanks too

They attacked in vain
Ahmad has a heart so true

He was going to warn the West
Of the 9/11 attacks

Osama put a price on his head
I wish the Lion would come back

Death to communism
Afghanistan is the true Muslim's land
The Taliban are evil
And belong buried in the sand

Ahmad Massoud's spirit can never die
To Allah
His spirit will fly!

This piece was started earlier in my mind now I apologize if it is openly to raw and telling but let me tell
You try to give something with this idiocy going on it’s a tall order when you read that a young new
Afghanistan bride was beheaded because she wouldn’t submit to prostitution we have the little girl in
Pakistan shot by the Taliban because of her love of peace and liberty I add this it’s a pretty sick system
And without any power if it must prey on little ones to continue what kind of vile concoction do those
Men in that part of the world take I know that answer it’s the only place that they openly lick the poison
Right from the devil’s Godless finger tips I will repeat my own encounter with a demon back home in
California he’s speaking trying to act as God’s Holy angel in my spirit I saw this creature with a body of
Bubbling sores and then I knew evil at its core all that reject God’s holy love has only one thing left that
Thing that talked with me and causes men to do these unbelievable acts and before you say oh that’s in
The Middle East children today just turned in a cell phone of a young American woman in Oregon who
Worked at Star Bucks is missing it was five minutes from her home they find the cell phone in a field
The filthy oozing thing I spoke of just moved up the coast it’s a global problem children to the most part
Don’t have cell phones they are found in fields and the little ten year old was also beheaded to try to
Hide her identity that was in Colorado we have a sin problem that only a Holy God can give answer to
But he does work through the life and voice of certain people the person I will relate to you is real this
Story comes about on this wise was it partially contributed to the dare devil sky diver who broke all the
Records in Roswell on the same day or was it because of the night it’s easy to see strange things in the
Dark anyway a man was taking a walk in the quiet night his walk always took him by this pond he carried
A lantern I think he did it as a connection with the past but as he entered the old familiar path he saw
This strange site a Swan was on the water how many years can you live some place and not see a Swan
So he was befuddled and then as he watched it headed for shore and then the thing went totally Roswell
Because it turned into a woman or did it one thing she was different as he would soon find out his
Curiosity demanded he go over and speak to her he introduced himself but he had his back turned and
Must have been nervous not speaking as he usually would it was ether Jim or Tim she being more
Caution of the two didn’t give her name their accidental meeting was cordial enough that one of them
Gestured that they set down he set the lantern down that held them both in the light in a confused and
Brutal world where the enemy moves practically unchallenged I believe the woman to be a messenger
Sent to guide and turn the tide in the degree that people are stripped of the father’s immediate love He
Works in a way that is not the perfect expected way but still gives comfort they put it to song but long
Before that it was a story offered in dramatic cinema The Heart is a Lonely Hunter much truth is spelled
Out and also it is relentless the hurting contend without end for solace and also the mind is a crying one
Who seeks through the most unsearchable distillable thought to find the way that leads safely and true
This is some of the things she offered the disarming the most attractive and perfection of her creation
Vulnerability it’s told in wisdoms ultimate terms a soft word turns away wrath but in her she is most
Empowered when though her femininity she opens the gates that on the other side are nothing but ruin
When any one tries to use power and force but her demure acts ushers in victory it is burnished it
gleams it is blinding the total error of fools are shown their destructive path a sword can slay in this
Situation but you wound your own self without remedy was our friends mouth hanging open at her
Physical appearance the way she presented herself and the words she used defiantly so he set by a pond
But the pool of her soul flooded the most desperate recesses of his hurting existence she would empty
Herself and it might seem barbaric but she would slay her own self on the altar of sacrifice and duty for
Him and others the gift demands nothing less you must go forth bearing the marks of blood look for God
Sake beyond the obvious they are killed physically as this piece has spoken of but the pretty show
Outwardly is the enemy’s greatest conjuring trick what could possibly be wrong look at what all I have
She said this first you talk like this and you will die among friends they want a world of pleasure
Truth has too many sharp edges it doesn’t make you free without cutting away the lies you are the most
Sought after prize in an all out war fare for the souls of men and women it would be sad tale indeed if
Some of your words about yourself were made public you wear a garland on this plane it is like the
Greek contestants in the ancient Olympics that Garland is a promise of the gold you will wear and a robe
Of purest linen now hopefully you can follow the flow the super being wants to honor His children all
The finest Jewels will make up your home it all rides and falls on this one thing obedience and her words
That say this when I see the blood I will in all total reality welcome you into joy for ever more yes by a
Simple earthen pond she touched this individual with brilliance that contained all of time plus as she
Walked through his heightened awareness wisdom without compare created in his life pillars and a
Structure that was without equal no enemy would ever penetrate the sanctuary she described to him
In detail she took darkness that surrounded them turned it inside out reveled to him colors that were
Foreign to his natural mind she laced it with passion that was as the eruptions of volcanoes he fell back
In consternation but then basked in what she said it’s like living in a garbage heap you were born there
You know nothing else then your circumstance change you see the ocean the forest mountains the first
Time if only in the eyes of a seer then her voice is soft her eyes flash lighting her eyes retell primordial
Findings astonishments that foundationally explains the world and at your most breathless moment she
Says now let me tell the other world that supersedes this one a timeless world aloneness is unknown
Feel anxiety loss seem like your heart is barren peace joy and love can’t be explained on the level that it
Will exist in the near future she says only this about that there was a time in the mountains when this
Blessing of those three things were given she had to cry after the Holy one no more anymore and this
Mortal frame will give out well let us deal with what we can handle she rose and by now he didn’t know
What to expect she walked to the center and she did just this simple act she twirled around but in that
Movement womanhood was reveled to him he already knew but he wasn’t able to know and give
Expression call the wild things in all their diversity in to your hands feel vibrancy in its maxim degree
Pass beyond the pond go to all places that ***** and fall away with sweetest tender grace your getting
Only the outer understanding of what a woman is she was so minded to show him more yes Sherlock
Homes would fail in the attempt of telling what he felt how she made him feel give up every ounce of
Your being your dreams and hopes you have entered the staging area of dreams still melancholy where
Want was first ever made and handed to the untrained in its use next and most formable is to offer your
Heart most divine act but cruelest of beast dwell in these surroundings you are powerless is there is no
Savagery that can inflict this kind of pain your face tells of your dance in paradise boundless profane
And there is no explanation or end as someone said lost love opens up on the high way of infinity its
Worth her affection but if she must ever say never will I open my arms of love again know a most
Wonderful sea harbor that holds mist crashing waves highs and lows of pleasure fulfillment of the
Highest order nothing more tender flows between man and women yes *** is a mystery it fuses the
Whole person higher than natural mountains and truly deeper than any ocean nowhere else can
Tenderness Employ such grace such truth such caring and can end with the admixture of both partners
With the Unbelievable gift of a child that you can even love more than your selves if there is any greater
Art than that if there is any greater I don’t know of it this is the end of this encounter know this he was
Enriched and is most thankful he sometimes broods about southern climes it’s understandable Jim
If that’s your name you have been in the presence of a special one

In a caravan
Driving a beaten up Humvee
Down the road we go
pulling security (Pow, Pow, Pow)
See the villagers
hiding behind donkeys
Now it’s time to hit the gas cause
they’re shooting right at me

Oh, 7-6-2, 7-6-2,
bullets flying my way
Oh it ***** to have to drive
through Afghanistan today (Hey!)
7-6-2, 7-6-2,
bullets flying my way,
Oh it ***** to have to drive
through Afghanistan today.

Driving down the road
On a routine resupply
Did the bomb squad
clear this route
cause I don’t want to die (Hi, Hi, Hi)
Checking with HQ
to make sure it is clear
The 2nd Lieutenant in the TOC
says, “There’s nothing to fear.”

Oh, 7-6-2, 7-6-2,
bullets flying my way
Oh it ***** to have to drive
through Afghanistan today (Hey!)
7-6-2, 7-6-2,
bullets flying my way,
Oh, it ***** to have to drive
through Afghanistan today.

For nearly twenty years we've fought
A war against the Taliban,
As U.S. and allied forces have
Chased a mirage in Afghanistan.

A war that spanned four presidents
And bad policy decisions
Will soon be coming to a close,
Despite the Afghans' ongoing divisions.

To many Afghan girls and women,
Our presence there has been a relief.
Having endured years of oppression,
They had had their share of grief.

Once we leave, Taliban forces
Most likely will achieve their goal
As city after city falls
And they are able to regain control.

If only we could have said to the people,
"If you want to get out, leave now.
We will find a safe place for you
Elsewhere in the world somehow."

But, alas, that didn't happen.
The idea didn't resonate
With other countries in the world.
And so the Afghans are left to their fate.

I'm afraid to imagine what
Will happen to the women then,
As the extremist leaders cut off
Their path to education again.

And woe to all the translators
Who helped the Western forces there.
If we can't help them flee the country,
Their safety will be up in the air.

Western leaders who tried to contain
The region's volatility,
Have--with our four presidents--
A shared responsibility.

I pity the poor people who must
Be ruled by the Taliban,
But we cannot continue to fight
An endless war in Afghanistan.

-by Bob B (8-6-21)

Everyday
The taxi driver
Must drive the
Most dangerous

Highway in Afghanistan
The Taliban attacks
American convoys
Civilians are often
Killed in the crossfire

His family calls
Worrying when he
Does not make it
Home on time

One time he had
No other choice
But to drive straight
Through the fire

Of course this is the
Only work he can do

The small Hindu family
Cannot educate their children
The women cannot walk
Outside without a man
Accompanying them
They are too poor
They have no future
In Afghanistan

A war torn nation
Life is difficult
For Afghanistan

Life is going to get
Much more difficult
For Americans now

When ideology joins brutality
And deadly fire rains down from above--
When plaintive human cries punctuate the skies
And the hawk devours the gentle dove--
Then we should all assess what our hearts express
And wonder if we've done all that we can.
But who can mitigate vicious, cruel hate
And suffering in poor Afghanistan?

When uncertainty belies stability
While the Taliban are on the move,
Insurgents will demand to have the upper hand,
Although other countries disapprove.
Twenty years of knowing how the winds were blowing,
Twenty years of guessing from afar…
Our underestimations and gross miscalculations
Had optimists all wishing on a star.

As hopes begin to ebb, the spider spins its web
And patiently awaits its helpless prey.
Extremist factions gain the power to remain.
How sad for the poor souls who must stay!
The day has turned to night; the Taliban will fight,
Determined to pursue their cruel quest.
They'll erase the past as they remain steadfast.
The Bamiyan Buddhas can attest.

People will cry "Shame!" and try to pass the blame.
At this point that is meaningless to do.
For years plans were unveiled, and many of them failed.
Here we go again: déjà vu.
So what happens now? Does anyone know how
The Afghans can withstand the cruel regime?
Sympathies fall flat. Just remember that
Things are often much worse than they seem.

What was bound to occur is not what we'd prefer
For the people's sake to see unroll.
The Taliban has more money than before,
And that has helped the rebels gain control.
It's hard not to obsess about the ghastly mess
Created by the brutal Taliban.
One can't overstate the sadness of the fate
Of all who suffer in Afghanistan.

-by Bob B (8-15-21)

By Stephen E. Yocum

In 1974, from out of Kabul,
The bouncing open back of
An old flat bed truck,
Eating dust and Diesel fumes,
Two alone we journeyed.

A round the world exploration
Of adventure and discovery.
Of lands and cultures,
people never before encountered.
Naive Ecotourists, before there
Was such a thing, called by a silly name.

The land there about, dry and dusty,
Sparse vegetations, Inhospitable to all,
Featureless and drab beyond comprehension.
Harsh lands breed harsh unforgiving people,
Matching their dire extreme surroundings.
This being one of those places.

I was on an adventure,
More so than she with me,
A rocky marriage at best,
Stressed further by months of travel.
I seeking the raw, the real,
She wanting first class comforts,
Like the “Good Life as seen on TV”.
A rough open flatbed truck, eating dust,
Not even close to fitting that description.

We were going to a small distant town,
Where I might see a game as old,
As that culture, of those Afghan plains,
A game, no truly more of a passion,
A long held national obsession,
Not so much played,
As combated, a war on horseback,
Brutal, ****** and thrilling.

Under noonday sun, yet chill of weather,
An hour out, four mounted horsemen
Appeared over a low hillock horizon,
Their horses in gallop, snorting, prancing,
High stepping, bounding, on a mission,
Kicking up a cloud of yellow/red dust,
The riders making straight for us.

These were the days before the AK-47,
Before the Russian invasion of ‘97.
The tribal Afghan men back then toted old,
Long Barreled, flint lock looking weapons
Often adorned with ribbon or paint,
Looking at first glance merely ornamental,
Not quite dismissing their lethal intent.

I had seen a sheep shot by one of
These old rifles, the entry spot was
The size of an American Half Dollar,
The exit hole the size of a tennis ball exploded.

As they approached, at my direction,
She withdrew further back towards the
Cab of the truck, beside a wooden crate.
I still sat, legs dangling over the tailgate,
One hand holding onto the wood slatted
Vertical, side rail of the bed.
The other hand on the hilt of my 8 inch Buck Knife.
That given the impending situation, would have
Done me as much good as my ******* into the face,
Of a very strong hurricane wind,
Doing me and us more harm than good.
All the while, still watching the horsemen,
As they rapidly approached ever closer.

Ignoring our dust, they reined in less than
Fifteen feet from our rear bumper,
(If there had indeed been a bumper.)
Horses wild eyes rolling, saliva snorting
From their mouths and nostrils,
Lather of sweat coating sleek bodies.
Looking more akin to fierce Dragons than Equines.

Their dusty riders looked like mounted warriors,
Escaped from out of a Hollywood movie,
Full bearded, hard men, with Scars on their faces,
Their serious dust laden red eyes burning like fire.
Jaws firm set, faces otherwise devoid of expression.
Dressed in traditional head to toe garb,
A style unchanged in hundreds of years,
Large curved Knives in wide leather belts,
Two, sporting hefty British holstered revolvers.
All four with long rifles in one hand,
Horse reins in the other.

Just like that, there we all were face to face,
I could not avoid their eyes, locking mine on
The bigger man near the center,
Hiding as best I could, my concern, no my fear,
With a neutral expression, neither smile nor sneer,
That might give me away. Yet the hair on the back
Of my neck did tingle, throat too dry and constricted
To speak should it even be required.  

The bigger man into whose eyes I stared,
As if I had issued some challenged invitation,
With but a single practiced move of his,
Right arm and hand,
(Horse reins held in the other),
Quickly shouldered his menacing weapon,
And sighted down its long barrel, right at my head.

Perhaps it was only a few seconds,
Yet it seemed an eternity,
That gun’s bore looked immense,
Like the gapping open mouth,
Of some great ballistic cannon.
For a moment I ceased breathing.
It felt as if my heart stopped beating.
I could not but sit there waiting,
There was no escaping.

That throw back to a fiftieth century man,
Held the power, of Life or sudden death,
In his hand, my life on the tip of his trigger finger,
He and I both instantly understood this.

It was clear in that one moment,
That to him, this was nothing new,
Or even of the slightest importance.
A thing to which he was plainly indifferent.

Down that bore, was a place in which lurked,
A lethal bullet with my name written upon it,
I felt trapped, like screaming, but remained silent,
Eyes open, and then why I will never know,
Still looking at him I narrowed my eyes and smiled.

As perhaps a reply on the man’s harsh face,
There appeared an ever so slightest grin.
Then he hefted his weapon back down under,
His arm and silently smiled and laughed,
In my direction.

I could not help but notice that one of his
Upper front teeth was of bright gold, while the
One next to the gold, was completely missing.

He nodded just once his head, to me a message,
All said with no words actually spoken,
“Today traveler,
I could have killed you,
Taken your woman.
Out here no one would know,
No one would have cared,
Not even the truck driver.
You are in my homeland,
I control it and you,
Today I choose not to **** you,
Tomorrow I might feel different.”

Then he and his unsmiling companions,
****** their straining unyielding horses,
to their left, galloping away in an obscuring
cloud, of yellow and reddish dust billowing.

While adrenaline turned my arms and
Legs to jelly, and shortly thereafter,
My stomach to sudden fits of
Wrenching regurgitation.

When in a few years I first heard,
That the Russians had invaded
That harsh unforgiving land,
I told a friend,
“Those fool Russians,
Have grabbed a fearsome,
Tiger by the tail, and that beast
Might just devourer them,
And not the other way around.”
It came to pass, I was not far off,
In my knowledgeable easy prediction.

The lesson I learned that day?
No matter who you think you are,
Or where you might come from,
What Nations impressive seal,
That your Passport reveals,
When you travel far and wide,
Trespass in another man’s back yard,
You best beware, of all the possibilities.

Upon our return trip the next day,
We took a bus of public conveyance,
Imagining perhaps there would be,
More safety in a convergence of numbers.

Footnote:

Over the centuries many invaders
Have attempted to subdue the wild
Land of the Afghans’ and nearly all failed.
A land and a people offering absolutely,
No forgiveness, not even to themselves.

Rudyard Kipling wrote of the British Empires brief
Excursions into that land, offering some sage advice;
“When you’re wounded and left on the Afghanistan’s
Plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to
Your God like a soldier.”

All present and would be conquers take note,
This remains Wise advice.  No one truly conquers there,
They just visit and bleed and then eventually go away,
Tails tucked between their knees. If indeed they still
Have one.

Folds, fur, creases and greases on your clothes
Have you had a nice breakfast?
No, no, it doesn't seem so.
You've had a bad day since you've risen from your bed.
Your hands are shaking and don't even notice it,
Probably because of the nicotine hidden in the left pocket of your jacket.
Ahh! Shut up! You were thinking! It's annoying!
Get out! Get out! I need to go to my mind palace!
Also, if you think that I'm a psychopath,
I'm just a high-functioning sociopath.
With your number! -smiles-

Oh, John Watson? You've got a limp from your last war from Afghanistan.
Your hand stays steady when you're suspicious or feel like you're being threatened.
Hmm, you like the battlefield, don't you, John?
Ahh, you can be my colleague! Come on, John!
Wait, what? Who are you?
The name's Sherlock Holmes and I live on 221B Baker Street.
And, I'm a consulting detective who uses,
*The Science of Deductions

Freedom reigns where ever we are
It's the reason our warriors fight
Upon their return, show them support
So they know what they fought for was right

From Montezuma to Bataan
and the shores off of Japan
Show each woman, show each man
They were there for us at home

From the jungles of Vietnam
to Iraq and Afghanistan
Show each woman, show each man
they were not out there alone

When they come on home
Show them what is in your heart
Show the pride you have in them
the pride you had right from the start

Welcome them as heroes
To the land they left to fight
Let them sleep in freedoms home
A peaceful rest in the dark night

No matter where they battled
Show them exactly how you feel
Support them in their troubles
Let them know your love is real

Be there to share their stories
Say thanks to them with pride
Welcome them as heroes
They'll feel ten feet tall inside

From Montezuma to Bataan
And the shores off of Japan
Show each woman, show each man
They were there for us at home

From the jungles of Vietnam
To Iraq and Afghanistan
Show each woman, show each man
They were not out there alone.

In a cell within his mind,
In a prison made of sand,
With some boots on his feet,
And a rifle in his hand,
Stands a boy we all know, but wouldn't recognize anymore.

So freaked out, so tweaked out,
On his regiment of pills,
Reliving everyday,
How his buddies all got killed.
And god bless America is the last thing on his mind,
And he tries and he cries, but there's just no hope left to find.

Up late, filled with hate,
For his country and himself,
With a bottle in his hand,
He pulls those pills down from the shelf,
I'm finally gonna do this, he shudders then he drinks.

So he makes his last confessions,
And find's solace in thoughts,
And now the little boy who left home,
Is returning in a box.
Tell everyone I love them,
Is all that the note read,
And they cry and they cry, but,
Still their little boy is dead.

"Don't work with the Americans."
"Don't help the Americans."
This is what some of the Afghan interpreters are saying
After their poor treatment by the United States government

The Afghan Interpreters are angry
And they have a right to be
After most U.S. troops have left
Some are stuck hiding in Kabul

The Taliban tell the local people
That they are infidels
The Taliban **** many interpreters

The Afghan Interpreters struggle
Only about 30% get their visa

Some only have enough money
To make it to Greece
They live together
Barely any money
No hot water
Persecuted by the local police

One interpreter saved the life of an American soldier
The soldier helped him put together his visa packet
His visa took three years!!!

This interpreter had fought with them for 7 years
Had saved the lives of five American soldiers
Had been the personal interpreter for 12 U.S. senators

One interpreter
Did not leave on a flight approved by the U.S.
He had to leave on the next flight
Because the Taliban  was threatening to **** him

Thankfully the U.S. soldier
Had a place for him to stay
And could give him some money
The soldier promised him
He would help him get resettlement benefits
Even though the U.S. government stated
He was not eligible to receive his benefits
Because he did not arrive on a U.S. approved flight

The Vice Interviewer
Learns from the lawyers working for the interpreters
That there is a massive bureaucracy
The Department of Defense doesn't consider them veterans

The soldier tried to get a bill introduced
That would streamline the process
And increases the number of visas
To help the Afghan Interpreters

No legislation regarding immigration was introduced
Because of bickering among Republican members
The program ran out in September of 2014
So now thousands will be stuck in Afghanistan

One interpreter that was interviewed
Was stuck in Afghanistan
Working as a taxi driver
Fearing for his life

Many of the Taliban prisoners
Have been released
Now he fears for his life
He doesn't know what will happen

6,000 applicants
For 280 available visas
As of July 2014

May God bless the Afghan interpreter
Trying to live his life in peace
May God bless the Afghan people
It seems things never change for them

So let us now place monetary value on information.
Let us return to the source,
Mining & prospecting that fertile intel seam.
To wit: WWII and G-2 shenanigans.
Wild Bill and OSS-capades,
Artificial disseminations.
Partial recriminations.
And PSYOPS:
A literary nightmare--
THE CYCLOPS from The Odyssey,
For example,
If you lack your own,
Your own personal Bogey Man.
Or men. For me:
Allen Dulles or Richard Helms.

The Intelligence Community:
It was a small tightly knit crew,
Less than battalion strength in 1942;
A few myopic soldiers,
Who, although could barely type,
Were still too cerebral to
Waste as infantry fodder.
It was a huge converted Army-green warehouse,
Space strategically partitioned,
Sectioned off into cubicle-like spaces,
By giant 4-drawer file cabinets
Standing tall like MPs,
Sentinels & Guardians,
Monuments to pre-electronic storage,
Data relatively comprehensive, and an
Archive secretive & intimidating.

Within the Army-green incunabula,
Scattered throughout the intel landscape,
Here and there a few commissioned officers,
A smattering of college psychology majors,
Personalities with predilections,
And penchants for mind games.
These self same WWII vets,
Would morph into Cold War Mad Men.
Stalwart, stouthearted men of Eisenhower,
And J. Walter Thompson,
De-mobbed, as they say in the UK.
Consumptive.
Self-indulgent,
Particularly when it came to the kids;
Children of the peace,
Called Baby-Boomers,
An entire generation enabled & destroyed.
Who would produce little of value
Except medical marijuana and
Coupons, clipped by that sober ruling class—
Fat interest-bearing college-loan portfolios
Held by that neo-Calvinist Elect: The 1%.
Fat cats one and all,
Loaded dice & canasta cronies--
In concert a stacked deck,
“Una mano lava l'altra.”
The words of my namesake--
My grandfather Giuseppe--
His vowels reverberating,
Rattling in my dreams.
Not friends, but
Fiends in high places, like
The Fed and dark liquid pools.
Thank you, Barack, for
Fooling us again.
For giving us
“Belief we can believe in.”

But I digress.
It was when the Government Secrecy Act,
In all its transnational incarnations,
Embraced capitalism in a big way,
Elevating the ideology to whole-Earth saturation,
Systemizing the ethos of Darwin,
Into one global Moby ****,
One solitary leviathan,
A multi-level marketing labyrinth,
Where wealth is the end game--
Greed: pure, unbridled & unrestrained.
Bond--James Bond—
Did his bit, supplying catchy
Slogans & tag-lines:
“For Your Eyes Only.”
“On a need to know basis.”
“Confidential Information.”
“Top & Ultra-Top Secret.”
“Hush, Hush & a Bag of Chips.”

The sealed letter sits in a locked drawer,
In that stout desk,
In the Oval Office
In The White House,
“To be opened by my VP in the event of my death.”
Another staggering work,
Of achy-achy-heart breaking genius,
The culture commoditized,
A disease containing its own cure,
Assayed, graded,
Portioned & packaged.
Priced accordingly,
To a logic that goes something like:
“Anything this tightly controlled,
Anything the government deems to be
This illegitimate and/or & secret
Must be really, really God-awesome,
Must really be Da ******* Bomb.”

Brother Coolidge was right:
“The Business of America is Business.”
And INFORMATION:
“The Most Valuable Commodity on Earth.”
So said Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III,
19th Century robber baron, and
Consummate Fat Cat.
Get the picture:
We were smoking cigars and sipping cognac,
Mighty comfortable in leather armchairs,
Muted billiard clicks,
Punctuating the atmosphere
In this spacious lounge,
His East Side
Downtown & private
Manhattan club.
I, his guest, had not the slightest idea
Why I was there.
"By God, man," he went on,
My eyes speared by his laser gaze,
His bushy eyebrows,
His monocle.
His bulbous nose;
His thick wet mustache.
And those EYES:  
Those crazy,
Insane eyes.

"I am talking about a profound change,” he continued.
“Back when the steamship
Gave way to electronic wireless radio."
He puffed smoke,
Removing the cigar from his mouth,
Holding it,
Examining it critically for a moment.
"I'm talking about communication,
Instant communication
With business associates, &
Cronies far away,
Way out there,
Far beyond the places we know well.
Picture it:
You're running a fleet of
Ramshackle Filipino banana boats,
Out of some nameless cove,
Indenting the south coast of Mindanao.
A cyclone comes out of nowhere.
Good God--there’s sixteen banana-packed
Coal burners lying on the bottom of the Celebes Sea.
Think about it:
You've got telegraph radio.
Everyone else has the post office.
Now, I ask you:
‘Who's going long,
Who’s getting rich on the
Caracas Banana Exchange?’
Good Lord, man, it would be
Like being omniscient!"
“This very conversation,” he went on,
“Could well be a verbatim transcription
Of a conversation right here in this very room,
Between people like: J. Pierpont Morgan
And some lesser Gilded Age nabob;
Some Astor, some Rockefeller,
A Gould or Vanderbilt,
Whitney or Duke,
Some Frick or Warburg--
To name just a few, old sport.”
He stopped suddenly.
He looked down at his hands,
As we both realized he had counted these names
Out on his fat curled fingers.
He looked at me and smiled.
I was afraid.
Why had I been invited to this meeting?
I smiled back at him,
Doing my best to mirror his
Carnivorous menace.

I knew it.
He knew it.
He knew I knew it.
Mr. Whitehead’s growling rabid jowls,
His slobbering canine smile held me steady.
“Okay. Touché. ‘Ya got me.”
He shook off the phony smile,
An absence, accentuating
His stare: lethal, carnal & rare.
“I never had much formal schooling.
I’ve been hungry.
Hungry enough to know for sure
That the correct fork,
Don’t mean ***** from shinola.
When I’m dining out, fancy-like,
Me manners is the least of me problems,
Far less important than
The dinner chit they
Hand me after I slake
My thirst & appetite.”
Again, he stopped suddenly,
Recognizing that, perhaps,
He’d revealed too much of his
Bedford-Stuyvesant pedigree.
He turned again and stared at me.
“None of that,” he said.
“None of that means squat to me, Boyo.
What matters now is I’m rich.
I’ve got mine, By God,
And ******* It!
Tough ***** on the rest of you losers;
The rest of you fecking whiners can go
**** yourselves over at Zuccotti Park.”
He pounded the armrest,
The padded armrest of the rich Corinthian leather—
( . . . ***, Ricardo?
Get your Montalbán
Mexicano ***, back in
Random Access Memory Land,
Where you belong.
**** ya’ Fantasy Island
Hospitality, Mr. Roarke,
Go be wrathful Khan Noon Singh,
Somewhere else.
Now is not the time, or,
Let me rephrase that:
This narrative will not allow your meme here . . .)    

Whitehead pounds the armrest again.
“My point is this:  
None of JP Morgan’s decidedly,
un-nattering lesser nabobs of negativity . . .”
BAM!  Again, he pounded the leather . . .

(Back in your ******* hole, Spiro!
Do you realize just how far back,
Just how far back
Maryland’s reputation
Has been set back by your venality?
Not to mention any shot at ethnic assimilation,
The rest of us grease ball non-Wasps
Have in this country?
You ******* Greek!)

I stopped thinking
When I realized Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III
Was reading my mind.
“So that’s what it’s really all about,” he said,
Rank smugness in his voice.
“So, I’m just a nouveau riche upstart,
A socially inept parvenu,
Yet they still let me
Join their tony clubs.
It chaps your ***, Boyo, don’t it?
I’m still Scotch-Irish, and
A WASP, Laddie.
Something your skinny
Greaser-Guinea-****-Spaghetti-*** ***,
Ain’t ever gonna be.”
But I digress, again.

So I joined one of Uncle Sam’s
Lesser-known clandestine services,
An assignment appropriate to my ethnic identity,
Namely GLADIO in Italy,
A NATO stay-behind operation &
Cold-War comedy.
I infiltrated the Brigate Rosse.
I drove the Aldo Moro kidnap vehicle.
I cooked minestrone for General Dozier.
I sliced off J. Paul Getty’s ear in Calabria.
Ironically, I lost my hearing during
The Stazione Bologna bombing.
I am consequently pensioned off,
Off both the radar and the payroll.
Years later now,
I live in one of those gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55, sunny southern California
Lunatic asylums.

Most days I am drunk at 9 AM.
I fill Bukowski mornings,
Conjuring up Jane Fonda,
Jazzercised in camo spandex.
She is high atop a Vietcong tank in Hanoi.
Or Daniel Ellsberg
Enjoying a second act in American politics,
Praising Snowden & Assange,
& Bradley Manning,
I summon up the ghosts of
Julius & Ethel,
Benedict Arnold,
Rose of Tokyo & Mata Hari—
And Ezra exiled at Rapallo,
And John Walker Lindh,
A Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Born in Washington,
District of Columbia,
By way of Afghanistan,
Taliban Americano,
Kangaroo-courted,
Presently residing at the
Federal Correctional Institution
At Terre Haute, Indiana.
Spies.
Traitors.
Saboteurs.
And Poets?
No longer capable of keeping secrets.
Desperate now to tell
The truth.

Western Forces
Are not leaving behind
A stable country
With a government able to protect
Its own people

Hospitals at max capacity
Children with skull injuries

The doctor laughs
When the interviewer asks him
If life has improved
Nothing has changed for the people!

I guess it will always be this way on earth
Fighting and killing
Evil people doing evil acts

Good people try to do what is good in the eyes of God

May God help the Afghan people
Who have suffered so much

I lived my half dictionary life before I could
comprehend compulsory compromises.
Collectors arise, disguises and devices beeping,
chastising my blindness.

Gather geography from Afghanistan and Myanmar
graciously growing gold gilded gift horses,
gleefully gloating about floating far away.
My hoof beats above concrete match my heart’s defeat
across borders and mountains
embroidering cardboard cut-outs
calling deserts, decorating front covers.
Exhaling handcrafted letters for my missing half,
half demanding highest caliber commanders and half commanding completion.

Jade jays joyfully lay arrays of bouquets
fragile flowers decay faraway
in jawbones and jail cells.
Begging farewells in a hotel’s lobby
began my hobby,
early morning coffee and carbon copies
concurringly cocky around his dead body.
Gang ciphers for cartels are
Christmas bells hissing at collars,
half dollars embellishing bar crawlers
godfathers hollering at car haulers.

Atrocities across cities attack,
attachable atrophies audibly ambush arthritic anthologies.
Anomalies begin apologies between apostrophes,
advancing autonomy arousing ancient animosities.
All eluding Antarctica,
giant frozen crests, multi-coloured ice
hidden in my illustrations
anxious for my distant half.

Friday cassettes and cigarettes
deliberately making bets following “M”.
Breaking bindings and finding “beta” in alphabet,
may feasibly end in debt.

Uhh..Young Ston Poet..
**** America, They really ain't doing nothing for us but causing mayhem & more trouble.. **** America.. (Yeah2)..America,don't give no ***** about what country is terrorizing us,its all lies propaganda, all they care for is that (dollar2)..bill dawg, that's all..its time to start realizing that before we all are silenced..Uhh, **** America,.. Yeah they really don't give a **** about us bru..man they rather see us killing each other & beefing over some dumb ****, they rather see us in these streets (doing nothing2)..but thuggin.. So (we gone **** Yeah4)..but we gone **** against America my *****...
(**** America2)..(Yeah2)...(**** America3)..(Yeah2)..
/(**** America3)..( Yeah2)../2
(We gone **** Yeah3)..We gone **** against America man,..

We gone stand together dawg. We gone overcome..Yeah, we gone take back our control, Yeah we gone, (overthrow2), all of this corruption, that's in front of us dawg, **** America, Yeah, they been lying to us for years & years, we still slaves mentally, got ****** mane, am I the only person who realize this, its like a witch has put a Ray Charles curse on all of us, the way we just let all of this fucc **** go on & on over our heads & just do nothing man..***** we so trapped, ***** we ain't free, Aye..
We need to wake up before its just to late & stop being so gullible & blinded by this curropt government.. **** America *****, Noo they don't want us to be nothing.. They rather just see us be bums man..They rather see us, be Thugs..well (Yeah we gone ****3)..We Thuggin, against America, we standing up for what is rightful ours, We taking care  of each other..Uhh..

Shoutout to all of my real leaders, that's still here doing they **** thing man..Its so many false prophets just telling lies,&  brainwashing our minds yeah making us into human robots, we working hard for nothing.. **** America my *****, don't trust em, or don't follow after them..Only God, my ***** don't even follow me, my ***** follow yoself, look up to yoself, be yo own leader man..Yeah..Uhh
Stand up for what's real,..Uhh..
/(**** America3)..(Yeah2)../2

Uhh,..The end of days is coming soon mane, I can feel it, ****, its like its so close my *****, I can taste it..Uhh its so much death around me dawg, can't you smell it my *****, Wake yall ***** up, dawg its America that has been the real terrorists this whole **** time my *****..Yeah America is IsIs,..& they tryna make it seem like its just Afghanistan man..Noo its not just them, the whole government system is, they always lying to us homie..
I'm going hard , like a lion, I'm wit my pacc, OFTR, we hungry & we fighting, Yeah we ready for war,..Ayee, its bout to get violent, Uhh..Only For The Real ., Im real ****** companion..I got my own campaign man, Yeah..but you don't even gotta vote for me *****..
I'm electing myself...Aye

(**** America2)..(Yeah2)..(**** America3)..(Yeah2)..(**** America2)..(**** em4)..(**** America2)..(Yeah2)..Uhh..(**** em3)..(**** America2)..
They don't give a **** about us..(Noo2,)Uhh,my *****,Noo..
They don't give a **** about us at all ..So..
(**** America8)
(Yeah2)..Uhh..We gone **** Yeah..We gonna **** Yeah...(**** America2),..Yeah *****.. We gonna **** Yeah..We gone **** Yeah..We gonna **** Yeah..(**** America2)..Yeah ***** we gonna **** Yeah..***** we gone **** Yeah..
/We gone **** Yeah..,We gonna **** Yeah, we gone (****3)..Yeah/2
(**** America2)..(Yeah2)
We gonna **** Yeah..We gone **** *****,Yeah we gonna **** *****..(**** America2)..We gonna **** Yeah..

OFTR man, we bout to start so many **** riots all across the world man, so yeah you better beware,Cuhz we bringing so much chaos & destruction to the white house kitchen table, now eat that up Obama, Uhh..you only betraying us behind our backs anyway..**** *****, you a ***** *** president.. Along wit the rest of them , Aye man Instead of being a puppet on a string my *****..(Imma be whoever I wanna be, Yeah2)..Imma be me my *****..I spit  my own verses & I clean  my own **** , no man can take control of me *****..Yeah..
(I'm gone **** Yeah..I'm gonna **** *****, yeah3)
**** America

(**** America3..)Yeah2)
They don't care about us they just want us all dead..They don't want us to be nothing Yeah..
So..(**** America3)..(Yeah2)
They can *******..They can all burn in hell...
President Obama is a Uncle Tom ***** *** *****..Yeah..(**** America3)..(Yeah*4)

My daddy passed away today
Though he died a long time ago
Brought a monkey back from Afghanistan
That killed our once happy home

There was horror in his eyes
Which really was no surprise
I hated what that monkey did
Every time he took a bite

My mommy died the day
My daddy passed away
Left an emptiness in all us kids
That will never fade away

Have to wonder what was going on
Inside my daddy's head
What that monkey took away
And what the war behind him left

Of this once a happy home
It's hard to understand
The day my daddy went to war
And brought a monkey back from Afghanistan

Captain Jesus
smile on me
the battle is over
I'm finally free
now I can rest
in the sweet Mother's arms
and dream of emerald meadows
on your father's farm.

r 20 Feb 2013

I wish the words would come to me
as easily as they used to,
but I fear that I need some kind of
dissatisfaction
to expel the words in my mind correctly
so how do I express
what I truly hold dear to me?
In the cold night with these blankets wrapped around me,
I hold your memory closer
and pray for you to come home
because that word is the strongest expletive I can think of
and it took you from me.
I'm defenseless,
restless,
and I don't know how to protect you from so far away.

Miraji: Urdu Epigram translations

I'm obsessed with this thought:
does God possess mercy?
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, see this dance, the immaculate dance of the devadasi!
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
when my life has come and gone,
when I am dead and done,
perhaps someone
                            hearing again in a distant spring
will echo my songs
the world over.
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I understand things correctly, Miraji wrote the lines above after translating a verse by Sappho in which she said that her poems would be remembered in the future. I suspect both poets and both prophecies were correct! Keywords/Tags: Urdu, translation, translations, God, mercy, dance, prophecy, song, songs, world, mrburdu

OTHER URDU POETS

These are my English translations of Urdu poems by Jaun Elia, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmad Faraz, Nida Fazli, Mirza Ghalib, Gulzar, Rahat Indori, Allama Iqbal, Amir Khusrow, Mir Taqi Mir, Miraji, Momin Khan Momin, Munir Niazi, Rabindranath Tagore, and other outstanding Urdu poets.

ANONYMOUS

You will never comprehend me:
I pour out my feelings; you only read the words!
―original poet unknown, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tears are colorless―thank God!―
otherwise my pillow might betray my heart.
―original poet unknown, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

MIRZA GHALIB

It's Only My Heart!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s only my heart, not unfeeling stone,
so why be dismayed when it throbs with pain?
It was made to suffer ten thousand darts;
why let one more torment impede us?

'Love is exquisite torture.'—Michael R. Burch (written after reading 'It's Only My Heart' by Mirza Ghalib)

There are more Mirza Ghalib translations later on this page.

FAIZ AHMED FAIZ

Last Night
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart—
as spring sweeps uninvited into barren gardens,
as morning breezes reinvigorate dormant deserts,
as a patient suddenly feels better, for no apparent reason …

Published by Reader’s Digest (website) in "Best Romantic Poems"

There are more Faiz Ahmed Faiz translations later on this page.

AMIR KHUSROW

Strange Currents
by Amir Khusrow aka Amir Khusro
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O Khusrow, the river of love
creates strange currents—
the one who would surface invariably drowns,
while the one who submerges, survives.

There are more Amir Khusrow translations later on this page.

AHMAD FARAZ

The Eager Traveler
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even in the torture chamber, I was the lucky one;
when each lottery was over, unaccountably I had won.

And even the mightiest rivers found accessible refuge in me;
though I was called an arid desert, I turned out to be the sea.

how sweetly I remember you—oh, my wild, delectable love!—
as the purest white blossoms bloom, on talented branches above.

And while I’m half-convinced that folks adore me in this town,
still, all the hands I kissed held knives and tried to shake me down.

You lost the battle, my coward friend, my craven enemy,
when, to victimize my lonely soul, you sent a despoiling army.

Lost in the wastelands of vast love, I was an eager traveler,
like a breeze in search of your fragrance, a vagabond explorer.

There are more Ahmad Faraz translations later on this page.

RAHAT INDORI

Intimacy
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I held the Sun, Stars and Moon at a distance
till the time your hands touched mine.
Now I am not a feather to be easily detached:
instruct the hurricanes and tornados to observe their limits!

There are more Rahat Indori translations later on this page.

ALLAMA IQBAL

These are my translations of poems by Sir Muhammad Iqbal, also known as Allama Iqbāl, with Allāma meaning "The Learned One," a Lahori Muslim poet, philosopher and politician.

had-e-Tifli (“The Age of Infancy”)
by Allama Iqbal aka Muhammad Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The earth and the heavens remained unknown to me,
My mother's ***** was my only world.

Her embraces communicated life's joys
While I babbled meaningless sounds.

During my infancy if someone alarmed me
The clank of the door chain consoled me.

At night I observed the moon,
Following its flight through distant clouds.

By day I pondered earth’s terrain
Only to be surprised by convenient explanations.

My eyes ingested light, my lips sought speech,
I was curiosity incarnate.



Withered Roses
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What shall I call you,
but the nightingale's desire?

The morning breeze was your nativity,
an afternoon garden, your sepulchre.

My tears welled up like dew,
till in my abandoned heart your rune grew:

this memento of love,
this spray of withered roses.



Excerpt from Rumuz-e bikhudi (“The Mysteries of Selflessness”)
by Allama Iqbal aka Muhammad Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like a candle fending off the night,
I consumed myself, melting into tears.
I spent myself, to create more light,
More beauty and joy for my peers.



Longing
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, I’ve grown tired of human assemblies!
I long to avoid conflict! My heart craves peace!
I desperately desire the silence of a small mountainside hut!



Life Advice
by Allama Iqbāl
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This passive nature will not allow you to survive;
If you want to live, raise a storm!



Destiny
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Isn't it futile to complain about God's will,
When you are your own destiny?



MOMIN KHAN MOMIN

Being
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are so close to me
that no one else ever can be.

There is a legend that the great Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib offered all his diwan (poetry collections) in exchange for this one sher (couplet) by Momin Khan Momin. Does the couplet mean "be as close" or "be, at all"? Does it mean "You are with me in a way that no one else can ever be?" Or does it mean that no one else can ever exist as truly as one's true love? Or does this sher contain an infinite number of elusive meanings, like love itself?

Being (II)
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You alone are with me when I am alone.
You are beside me when I am beside myself.
You are as close to me as everyone else is afar.
You are so close to me that no one else ever can be.

There are more Momin Khan Momin translations later on this page.



FAIZ AHMED FAIZ

Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984) was an influential Pakistani intellectual and one of the most famous poets of the Urdu language. His reputation is such that he has been called "the Poet of the East." His name is often spelled Faiz Ahmad Faiz in English. These are my modern English translations of Urdu poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.



Last Night
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart—
as spring sweeps uninvited into barren gardens,
as morning breezes reinvigorate dormant deserts,
as a patient suddenly feels better, for no apparent reason …

Published by Reader’s Digest (website) in "Best Romantic Poems"



Last Night (II)
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart ...
as spring steals uninvited into barren gardens,
as gentle breezes revive dormant deserts,
as a patient suddenly feels better, for no apparent reason ...



Last Night (III)
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your lost memory returned ...
as spring steals silently into barren gardens,
as gentle breezes stir desert sands,
as an ailing man suddenly recovers, for no apparent reason ...

Raat yunh dil mein teri khoee hui yaad aayee
Jaise veeraaney mein chupkey sey bahaar aayee
Jaisey sehra on mein howley se chaley baadey naseem
Jaisey beemaar ko bey wajhey Qaraar aaye.



The Desert of Solitude
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, as performed by Iqbal Bano
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

In the wastelands of solitude, my love,
the echoes of your voice quiver,
the mirages of your lips waver.

In the deserts of alienation,
out of the expanses of distance and isolation's debris
the fragrant jasmines and roses of your presence delicately blossom.

Now from somewhere nearby,
the warmth of your breath rises,
smoldering forth an exotic perfume―gently, languorously.

Now far-off, across the distant horizon,
drop by shimmering drop,
fall the glistening dews of your beguiling glances.

With such tenderness and affection—oh my love!—
your memory has touched my heart's cheek so that it now seems
the sun of separation has set; the night of blessed union has arrived.



Speak!
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, while your lips are still free.
Speak, while your tongue remains yours.
Speak, while you’re still standing upright.
Speak, while your spirit has force.

See how, in the bright-sparking forge,
cunning flames set dull ingots aglow
as the padlocks release their clenched grip
on the severed chains hissing below.

Speak, in this last brief hour,
before the bold tongue lies dead.
Speak, while the truth can be spoken.
Say what must yet be said.



Speak! (II)
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, if your lips are free.
Speak, if your tongue's still your own.
And while you can still stand upright,
Speak if your mind is your own.



Tonight
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Do not strike the melancholy chord tonight! Days smoldering
with pain in the end produce only listless ashes...
and who the hell knows what the future may bring?
Last night’s long lost, tomorrow's horizon’s a wavering mirage.
And how can we know if we’ll see another dawn?
Life is nothing, unless together we make it ring!
Tonight we are love gods! Sing!

Do not strike the melancholy chord tonight!
Don’t harp constantly on human suffering!
Stop complaining; let Fate conduct her song!
Give no thought to the future, seize now, this precious thing!
Shed no more tears for temperate seasons departed!
All sighs of the brokenhearted soon weakly dissipate... stop dithering!
Oh, do not strike the same flat chord again! Sing!



Do Not Ask
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Do not ask, my love, for the love that we shared before:
You existed, I told myself, so existence shone.
For a moment the only light that I knew, alone,
was yours; worldly griefs remained dark, distant, afar.

Spring shone, as revealed in your face, but what did I know?
Beyond your bright eyes, what delights could the sad world hold?
Had I won you, cruel Fate would have ceded, no longer bold.
Yet all this was not to be, though I wished it so.

The world knows sorrows beyond love’s brief dreams betrayed,
and pleasures beyond all sweet, idle ideals of romance:
the dread dark spell of countless centuries and chance
is woven with silk and satin and gold brocade.

Bodies are sold everywhere for a pittance—it’s true!
Besmeared with dirt and bathed in bright oceans of blood,
Crawling from infested ovens, a gory cud.
My gaze returns to you: what else can I do?

Your beauty haunts me still, and will to the last.
But the world is burdened by sorrows beyond those of love,
By pleasures beyond romance.
So please do not demand a love that is over, and past.



When Autumn Came
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

So it was that autumn came to flay the trees,
to strip them ****,
to rudely abase their slender dark bodies.

Fall fell in vengeance on the dying leaves,
flung them down to the floor of the forest
where anyone could trample them to mush
undeterred by their sighs of protest.

The birds that herald spring
were exiled from their songs—
the notes ripped from their sweet throats,
they plummeted to the earth below, undone
even before the hunter strung his bow.

Please, gods of May, have mercy!
Bless these disintegrating corpses
with the passion of your resurrection;
allow their veins to pulse with blood again.

Let at least one tree remain green.
Let one bird sing.



Wasted
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

You have noticed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips...
In whose imagination I have lost everything.



Countless
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I recounted the world's countless griefs
by recounting your image countless times.

Keywords/Tags: Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translation, Urdu, Pakistan, Pakistani, love, life, memory, spring, mrburdu



The Condition of My Heart
by Munir Niazi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is not necessary for anyone else to get excited:
The condition of my heart is not the condition of hers.
But were we to receive any sort of good news, Munir,
How spectacular compared to earth's mundane sunsets!

There are more Munir Niazi translations later on this page.



Failures
by Nida Fazli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I was unable to relate
the state
of my heart to her,
while she failed to infer
the nuances
of my silences.

There are more Nida Fazli translations later on this page.



My Apologies, Sona
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My apologies, Sona,
if traversing my verse's terrain
in these torrential rains
inconvenienced you.

The monsoons are unseasonal here.

My poems' pitfalls are sometimes sodden.
Water often overflows these ditches.
If you stumble and fall here, you run the risk
of spraining an ankle.

My apologies, however,
if you were inconvenienced
because my dismal verse lacks light,
or because my threshold's stones
interfered as you passed.

I have often cracked toenails against them!

As for the streetlamp at the intersection,
it remains unlit... endlessly indecisive.

If you were inconvenienced,
you have my heartfelt apologies!

There are more Gulzar translations later on this page.



Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have struck us as deeply profound...
Hell, we might have pronounced you a saint,
if only we hadn't found
you drunk
as a skunk!

There are many more Mirza Ghalib translations later on this page.



Come As You Are
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come as you are, forget appearances!
Is your hair untamable, your part uneven, your bodice unfastened? Never mind.
Come as you are, forget appearances!

Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.
If your feet glisten with dew, if your anklets slip, if your beaded necklace slides off? Never mind.
Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.

Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?
Flocks of cranes erupt from the riverbank, fitful gusts ruffle the fields, anxious cattle tremble in their stalls.
Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?

You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.
Who will care that your eyelids have not been painted with lamp-black, when your pupils are darker than thunderstorms?
You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.

Come as you are, forget appearances!
If the wreath lies unwoven, who cares? If the bracelet is unfastened, let it fall. The sky grows dark; it is late.
Come as you are, forget appearances!



Unfit Gifts
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At sunrise, I cast my nets into the sea,
dredging up the strangest and most beautiful objects from the depths...
some radiant like smiles, some glittering like tears, others flushed like brides’ cheeks.
When I returned, staggering under their weight, my love was relaxing in her garden, idly tearing leaves from flowers.
Hesitant, I placed all I had produced at her feet, silently awaiting her verdict.
She glanced down disdainfully, then pouted: "What are these bizarre things? I have no use for them!"
I bowed my head, humiliated, and thought:
"Truly, I did not contend for them; I did not purchase them in the marketplace; they are unfit gifts for her!"
That night I flung them, one by one, into the street, like refuse.
The next morning travelers came, picked them up and carted them off to exotic countries.



The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.



This Dog
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each morning this dog,
who has become quite attached to me,
sits silently at my feet
until, gently caressing his head,
I acknowledge his company.

This simple recognition gives my companion such joy
he shudders with sheer delight.

Among all languageless creatures
he alone has seen through man entire—
has seen beyond what is good or bad in him
to such a depth he can lay down his life
for the sake of love alone.

Now it is he who shows me the way
through this unfathomable world throbbing with life.

When I see his deep devotion,
his offer of his whole being,
I fail to comprehend...

How, through sheer instinct,
has he discovered whatever it is that he knows?

With his anxious piteous looks
he cannot communicate his understanding
and yet somehow has succeeded in conveying to me
out of the entire creation
the true loveworthiness of man.



Perhaps
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The cohesiveness between us, you may remember or perhaps not.
Our solemn oaths of faithfulness, you may remember, or perhaps forgot.
If something happened that was not to your liking,
the shrinking away that produces silence, you may remember, or perhaps not.
Listen, the sagas of so many years, the promises you made amid time's onslaught,
which you now fail to mention, you may remember or perhaps not.
These new resentments, those often rehashed complaints,
these lighthearted and displeasing stories, you may remember, or perhaps forgot.
Some seasons ago we shared love and desire, we shared joy...
That we once were dear friends, you may have perhaps forgot.
Now if we come together, by fate or by chance, to express old loyalties...
Our every shared breath, all our sighs and regrets, you may remember, or perhaps not.



What Happened to Them?
by Nasir Kazmi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Those who went ashore, what happened to them?
Those who sailed away, what happened to them?

Those who were coming at dawn, when dawn never arrived ...
Those caravans en route, what happened to them?

Those I awaited each night on moonless paths,
Who were meant to light beacons, what happened to them?

Who are all these strange people surrounding me now?
All my lost friends and allies, what happened to them?

Those who built these blazing buildings, what happened to them?
Those who were meant to uplift us, what happened to them?

This poignant, very moving poem was written about the 1947 partition of India into two nations: India and Pakistan. I take the following poem to be about the aftermath of the division.



Climate Change
by Nasir Kazmi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The songs of our silenced lips are different.
The expressions of our regretful hearts are different.

In milder climes our grief was more tolerable,
But the burdens we bear now are different.

O, walkers of awareness's road, keep your watch!
The obstacles strewn on this stony path are different.

We neither fear separation, nor desire union;
The anxieties of my rebellious heart are different.

In the first leaf-fall only flowers fluttered from twigs;
This year the omens of autumn are different.

This world lacks the depth to understand my heartache;
Please endow me with melodies, for my cry is different!

One disconcerting glance bared my being;
Now in barren fields my visions are different.

No more troops, nor flags. Neither money, nor fame.
The marks of the monarchs on this land are different.

Men are not martyred for their beloveds these days.
The youths of my youth were so very different!



Nasir Kazmi Couplets

When I was a child learning to write
my first scribblings were your name.
―Nasir Kazmi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When my feet lost the path
where was your hand?
―Nasir Kazmi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everything I found is yours;
everything I lost is also yours.
―Nasir Kazmi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Memory
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, as performed by Iqbal Bano
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the wastelands of solitude, my love,
the echoes of your voice quiver,
the mirages of your lips waver.

In the deserts of alienation,
out of the expanses of distance and isolation's debris
the fragrant jasmines and roses of your presence delicately blossom.

Now from somewhere nearby,
the warmth of your breath rises,
smoldering forth an exotic perfume―gently, languorously.

Now far-off, across the distant horizon,
drop by shimmering drop,
fall the glistening dews of your beguiling glances.

With such tenderness and affection—oh my love!—
your memory has touched my heart's cheek so that it now seems
the sun of separation has set; the night of blessed union has arrived.



Speak!
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, if your lips are free.
Speak, if your tongue is still your own.
While your body is still upright,
Speak if your life is still your own.



When Autumn Came
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So it was that autumn came to flay the trees,
to strip them ****,
to rudely abase their slender dark bodies.

Fall fell in vengeance on the dying leaves,
flung them down to the floor of the forest
where anyone could trample them to mush
undeterred by their sighs of protest.

The birds that herald spring
were exiled from their songs—
the notes ripped from their sweet throats,
they plummeted to the earth below, undone
even before the hunter strung his bow.

Please, gods of May, have mercy!
Bless these disintegrating corpses
with the passion of your resurrection;
allow their veins to pulse with blood again.

Let at least one tree remain green.
Let one bird sing.



Last Night (II)
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your lost memory returned...
as spring steals silently into barren gardens,
as cool breezes stir desert sands,
as an ailing man suddenly feels better, for no apparent reason...



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not the blossomings of songs nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my dark, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different
but this weakness has burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing—
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.



The Mistake
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All your life, O Ghalib,
You kept repeating the same mistake:
Your face was *****
But you were obsessed with cleaning the mirror!



Inquiry
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The miracle of your absence
is that I found myself endlessly searching for you.



Couplets
by Jaun Elia
loose translations by Michael R. Burch

I am strange—so strange
that I self-destructed and don't regret it.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wound is deep—companions, friends—embrace me!
What, did you not even bother to stay?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My nature is so strange
that today I felt relieved when you didn't arrive.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night and day I awaited myself;
now you return me to myself.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Greeting me this cordially,
have you so easily erased my memory?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your lips have provided thousands of answers;
so what is the point of complaining now?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Perhaps I haven't fallen in love with anyone,
but at least I convinced them!
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The city of mystics has become bizarre:
everyone is wary of majesty, have you heard?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Did you just say "Love is eternal"?
Is this the end of us?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are drawing very close to me!
Have you decided to leave?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Intimacy
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I held the Sun, Stars and Moon at a distance
till the time your hands touched mine.
Now I am not a feather to be easily detached:
instruct the hurricanes and tornados to observe their limits!



The Mad Moon
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stars have a habit of showing off,
but the mad moon sojourns in darkness.



Body Language
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your body’s figures are written in cursive!
How will I read you? Hand me the book!



Insatiable
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This mighty ocean, so deep and vast!
If it sates my thirst, how long can it last?



Honor
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Achievements may fade but the name remains strong;
walls may buckle but the roof stays on.
On a pile of corpses a child stands alone
and declares that his family still lives on!



Dust in the Wind
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is how I introduce myself to questioners:
Pick up a handful of dust, then blow...



Dissembler
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In your eyes this, in your heart that, on your lips something else?
If this is how you are, impress someone else!



Rumor (M)ill
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard rumors my health was bad; still
it was prying people who made me ill.



The Vortex
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the river whose rapids form a vortex;
You were wise to avoid my banks.



Homebound
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If people fear what they meet at every turn,
why do they ever leave the house?



Becoming One
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have become you, as you have become me;
I am your body, you my Essence.
Now no one can ever say
that you are someone else,
or that I am anything less than your Presence!



I Am a Pagan
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a pagan disciple of love: I need no creeds.
My every vein has become taut, like a tuned wire.
I do not need the Brahman's girdle.
Leave my bedside, ignorant physician!
The only cure for love is the sight of the patient's beloved:
there is no other medicine he needs!
If our boat lacks a pilot, let there be none:
we have god in our midst: we do not fear the sea!
The people say Khusrow worships idols:
True! True! But he does not need other people's approval;
he does not need the world's.

(My translation above was informed by a translation of Dr. Hadi Hasan.)



Amir Khusrow’s elegy for his mother
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wherever you shook the dust from your feet
is my relic of paradise!



Paradise
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If there is an earthly paradise,
It's here! It's here! It's here!



Mystery
by Munir Niazi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She was a mystery:
Her lips were parched...
but her eyes were two unfathomable oceans.



I continued delaying...
by Munir Niazi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I continued delaying...
the words I should speak
the promises I should keep
the one I should dial
despite her cruel denial

I continued delaying...
the shoulder I must offer
the hand I must proffer
the untraveled lanes
we may not see again

I continued delaying...
long strolls through the seasons
for my own selfish reasons
the remembrances of lovers
to erase thoughts of others

I continued delaying...
to save someone dear
from eternities unclear
to make her aware
of our reality here

I continued delaying...



Couplets
by Mir Taqi Mir
loose translations by Michael R. Burch

Sharpen the barbs of every thorn, O lunatic desert!
Perhaps another hobbler, limping by on blistered feet, follows me!
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My life is a bubble,
this world an illusion.
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Selflessness has gotten me nowhere:
I neglected myself far too long.
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I know now that I know nothing,
and it only took me a lifetime to learn!
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love's just beginning, so why do you whine?
Why not wait and watch how things unwind!
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Come!
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, let us construct night
over the monumental edifice of silence.
Come, let us clothe ourselves in the winding sheets of darkness,
where we'll ignite our bodies' incandescent wax.
As the midnight dew dances its delicate ballet,
let us not disclose the slightest whispers of our breath!
Lost in night's mists,
let us lie immersed in love's fragrance,
absorbing our bodies' musky aromas!
Let us rise like rustling spirits...



Old Habits Die Hard
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The habit of breathing
is an odd tradition.
Why struggle so to keep on living?
The body shudders,
the eyes veil,
yet the feet somehow keep moving.
Why this journey, this restless, relentless flowing?
For how many weeks, months, years, centuries
shall we struggle to keep on living, keep on living?
Habits are such strange things, such hard things to break!



Inconclusive
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A body lies on a white bed—
dead, abandoned,
a forsaken corpse they forgot to bury.
They concluded its death was not their concern.
I hope they return and recognize me,
then bury me so I can breathe.



Munir Momin writes poems in Balochi. Balochi is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken primarily in the Balochistan region of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Only for an evening
let my heart
soar momentarily
with the starlings of silence
fleeing the solitude of your eyes.
—Munir Momin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They sail ahead at the same speed
yet the moon reaches the beach
long before the boats.
—Munir Momin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Night and Day
by Munir Momin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night after night
the world screams
invective against
my solitude,
then sneaks out
the cracked backdoor window
but doesn’t make it far
beyond the city’s confines;
then in the morning,
acting as if nothing untoward happened,
it greets me,
having forgotten all about its rants
and my loneliness,
then accompanies me
like a friend
through the front door.



Wasted
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have noticed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips...
In whose imagination I have lost everything.



Countless
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I recounted the world's countless griefs
by recounting your image countless times.






Every Once in a While
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Every once in a while,
immersed in these muggy nights
when all earth’s voices seem to have fallen
into the bruised-purple silence of half-sleep,
I awaken from a wonderful dream
to see through the veil that drifts between us
that you too are companionless and wide awake.



First Rendezvous
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This story of the earth
is as old as the universe,
as old as the birth
of the first day and night.

This story of the sky
is included in the words we casually uttered,
you and I,
and yet it remains incomplete, till the end of sight.

This earth and all the scenes it contains
remain witnesses to the moment
when you first held my hand
as we watched the world unfolding, together.

This world
became the focus
for the first rendezvous
between us.



Impossible and Improbable Visions
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eyes interpret visions,
rainbow auras waver;
similar scenes appear
different to individual eyes,
as innumerable oases
coexist in one desert
or a single thought acquires
countless shapes.



I Have to Find My Lost Star
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Searching the emptiest of skies
overflowing with innumerable stars,
I have to find the one
that belongs
to me.

...

Gazing at galaxies beyond galaxies,
all glorious with evolving wonder,
I ponder her name,
finding no sign to remember.

...

Lost things, they say,
are sometimes found
in the same accumulations of dust
where they once vanished.

I have to find the lost star
that belongs to me.



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.



Picnic
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My friends laugh elsewhere on the beach
while I sit here, alone, counting the waves,
writing and rewriting your name in the sand...



Confession
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your image overwhelmed my vision.
As the long nights passed, I became obsessed with your visage.
Then came the moment when I quietly placed my lips to your picture...



Rain
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why shiver alone in the rain, maiden?
Embrace the one in whose warming love your body and mind would be drenched!
There are no rains higher than the rains of Love,
after which the bright rainbows of separation will glow with the mysteries of hues.



My Body's Moods
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I long for the day when you'll be obsessed with me,
when, forgetting the world, you'll miss me with a passion
and stop complaining about my reticence!
Then I may forget all other transactions and liabilities
to realize my world in your arms,
letting my body's moods guide me.
In that moment beyond boundaries and limitations
as we defy the conventions of veil and turban,
let's try our luck and steal a taste of the forbidden fruit!



Moon
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All of us passengers,
we share the same fate.
And yet I'm alone here on earth,
and she alone there in the sky!



Vanity
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His world is so simple, so very different from mine.
So distinct—his dreams and desires.
He speaks rarely.
This morning he wrote: "I saw some lovely flowers and thought of you."
Ha! I know my aging face is no orchid...
but how I wish I could believe whatever he says, however momentarily!



Come
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, even with anguish, even to torture my heart;
Come, even if only to abandon me to torment again.

Come, if not for our past commerce,
Then to faithfully fulfill the ancient barbaric rituals.

Who else can recite the reasons for our separation?
Come, despite your reluctance, to continue the litanies, the ceremony.

Respect, even if only a little, the depth of my love for you;
Come, someday, to offer me consolation as well.

Too long you have deprived me of the pathos of longing;
Come again, my love, if only to make me weep.

Till now, my heart still suffers some slight expectation;
So come, ***** out even the last flickering torch of hope!



I Cannot Remember
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I once was a poet too (you gave life to my words), but now I cannot remember
Since I have forgotten you (my love!), my art too I cannot remember

Yesterday consulting my heart, I learned
that your hair, lips, mouth, I cannot remember

In the city of the intellect insanity is silence
But now your sweet, spontaneous voice, its fluidity, I cannot remember

Once I was unfamiliar with wrecking ***** and ruins
But now the cultivation of gardens, I cannot remember

Now everyone shops at the store selling arrows and quivers
But neglects his own body, the client he cannot remember

Since time has brought me to a desert of such arid forgetfulness
Even your name may perish; I cannot remember

In this narrow state of being, lacking a country,
even the abandonment of my fellow countrymen, I cannot remember



The Infidel
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ten thousand desires: each one worth dying for...
So many fulfilled, and yet still I yearn for more!

Being in love, for me there was no difference between living and dying...
and so I lived each dying breath watching you, my lovely Infidel, sighing afar.



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Life becomes even more complicated
when a man can’t think like a man...

What irrationality makes me so dependent on her
that I rush off an hour early, then get annoyed when she's "late"?

My lover is so striking! She demands to be seen.
The mirror reflects only her image, yet still dazzles and confounds my eyes.

Love’s stings have left me the deep scar of happiness
while she hovers above me, illuminated.

She promised not to torment me, but only after I was mortally wounded.
How easily she “repents,” my lovely slayer!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s time for the world to hear Ghalib again!
May these words and their shadows like doors remain open.

Tonight the watery mirror of stars appears
while night-blooming flowers gather where beauty rests.

She who knows my desire is speaking,
or at least her lips have recently moved me.

Why is grief the fundamental element of night
when blindness falls as the distant stars rise?

Tell me, how can I be happy, vast oceans from home
when mail from my beloved lies here, so recently opened?



Abstinence?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me get drunk in the mosque,
Or show me the place where God abstains!



Step Carefully!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Step carefully Ghalib―this world is merciless!
Here people will "adore" you to win your respect... or your downfall.



Bleedings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love requires patience but lust is relentless;
what colors must my heart bleed before it expires?

There are more English translations of poems by Mirza Ghalib later on this page.



No Explanation! (I)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Please don't ask me how deeply it hurt!
Her sun shone so bright, even the shadows were burning!



No Explanation! (II)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Please don't ask me how it happened!
She didn't bind me, nor did I free myself.



Alone
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why are you sad that she goes on alone, Faraz?
After all, you said yourself that she was unique!



Separation
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Faraz, if it were easy to be apart,
would Angels have to separate body from soul?



Time
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What if my face has more wrinkles than yours?
I am merely well-worn by Time!



Miraji Epigrams

I'm obsessed with this thought:
does God possess mercy?
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, see this dance, the immaculate dance of the devadasi!
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
when my life has come and gone,
when I am dead and done,
perhaps someone
hearing again in a distant spring
will echo my songs
the world over.
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If I understand things correctly, Miraji wrote the lines above after translating a verse by Sappho in which she said that her poems would be remembered in the future. I suspect both poets and both prophecies were correct!



Apni Marzi se
by Nida Fazli Shayari
translated by Mandakini Bhattacherya and Michael R. Burch

This journey was not of my making;
As the winds blow, I’m blown along ...
Time and dust are my ancient companions;
Who knows where I’m bound or belong?

Apni Marzi se kahan apne safar ke hum hain,
Rukh hawaaon ka jidhar ka hai udhar ke hum hain.
Waqt ke saath mitti ka safar sadiyon se,
Kisko maaloom kahan ke hain kidhar ke hum hain.



Every Day and in Every Direction
by Nida Fazli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everywhere and in every direction we see innumerable people:
each man a victim of his own loneliness, reticence and silences.
From dawn to dusk men carry enormous burdens:
all preparing graves for their soon-to-be corpses.
Each day a man lives, the same day he dies.
Each new day requires the same old patience.
In every direction there are roads for him to roam,
but in every direction, men victimize men.
Every day a man dies many deaths only to resurrect from his ashes.
Each new day presents new challenges.
Life's destiny is not fixed, but a series of journeys:
thus, till his last breath, a man remains restless.



Couplets
by Nida Fazli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It was my fate to entangle and sink myself
because I am a boat and my ocean lies within.
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You were impossible to forget once you were gone:
hell, I remembered you most when I tried to forget you!
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don't squander these pearls:
such baubles may ornament sleepless nights!
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The world is like a deck of cards on a gambling table:
some of us are bound to loose while others cash in.
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is a proper protocol for everything in this world:
when visiting gardens never force butterflies to vacate their flowers!
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I lack the courage to commit suicide,
I have elected to bother people with my life a bit longer.
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Changing Seasons
by Noshi Gillani
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each changing season
reveals something
concealed by her fears:
an escape route from this island
illuminated by her tears.



Dust
by Bahadur Shah Zafar or Muztar Khairabadi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unable to light anyone's eye
or to comfort anyone's heart...
I am nothing but a handful of dust.



Piercings
by Firaq Gorakhpuri
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No one ever belonged to anyone else for a lifetime.
We cannot own another's soul.
The beauty we see and the love we feel are only illusions.
All my life I tried to save myself from the piercings of your eyes...
But I failed and the daggers ripped right through me.



Salvation
Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Anxious and fatigued, I consider the salvation of death...
But if there is no peace in the grave,
where can I go to be saved?



Child of the Century
by Abdellatif Laâbi (a Moroccan poet)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’m a child of this dreary century, a child who never grew up.
Doubts that ignited my tongue singed my wings.
I learned to walk, then I unlearned progress.
I grew weary of oases and camels infatuated with ruins.
My head inclined East only to occupy the middle of the road
as I awaited the insane caravans.



Nostalgia
by Abdulla Pashew (a Kurdish poet)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How I desire the heavens!
Each solitary star lights the way to a tryst.

How I desire the sky!
Standing alone, remote, the sky is as vast as any ocean.

How I desire love's heavenly scent!
When each enticing blossom releases its essence.



Oblivion
by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi (an African poet who writes in Arabic)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Discard your pen
before you start reading;
consider the ink,
how it encompasses bleeding.

Learn from the horizon
through eyes' narrowed slits
the limitations of vision
and hands' treacherous writs.

Do not blame me,
nor indeed anyone,
if you expire before
your reading is done.



In Medias Res
by Shaad Azimabadi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I heard the story of my life recounted,
I caught only the middle of the tale.
I remain unaware of the beginning or end.



Debt Relief
by Piyush Mishra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We save Sundays for our loved ones...
all other days we slave to repay debts.



Reoccurrence
by Amrita Bharati (a Hindi poet)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It was a woman's heart speaking,
that had been speaking for eons...

It was a woman's heart silenced,
that had been silenced for centuries...

And between them loomed a mountain
that a man or a rat gnawed at, even in times of amity...
gnawing at the screaming voice,
at the silent tongue,
from the primeval day.



Don't Approach Me
by Arif Farhad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don't approach me here by the river of time
where I flop like a fish in a net!



Intoxicants
by Amrut Ghayal (a Gujarati poet)
translation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

O, my contrary mind!
You're such a fool, afraid to drink the fruit of the vine!
But show me anything universe-designed
that doesn't intoxicate, like wine.



I’m like a commodity being priced in the market-place:
every eye ogles me like a buyer’s.
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If you insist, I’ll continue playing my songs,
forever piping the flute of my heart.
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has risen once again, yet you are not here.
My heart is a blazing pyre; what do I do?
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Drunk on Love
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Drunk on love, I made her my God.
She quickly informed me that God belongs to no man!



Exiles
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Often we have heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.



To Whom Shall I Complain?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To whom shall I complain when I am denied Good Fortune in acceptable measure?
Dementedly, I demanded Death, but was denied even that dubious pleasure!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You should have stayed a little longer;
you left all alone, so why not linger?

We’ll meet again, you said, some day similar to this one,
as if such days can ever recur, not vanish!

You left our house as the moon abandons night's skies,
as the evening light abandons its earlier surmise.

You hated me: a wife abnormally distant, unknown;
you left me before your children were grown.

Only fools ask why old Ghalib still clings to breath
when his fate is to live desiring death.



Bi Havre ('Together')    
possibly the oldest Kurdish poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I want us to be together:
we would eat together,

climb the mountain together,
sing songs together, songs of love,

songs from the heart, sung from above.
I want us to have one heart, together.

Many words in this ancient poem are in doubt, so I have excerpted what I grok to be the central meaning.



How strange has life become:
Our evenings drag out, yet our years keep flashing by!
―original poet unknown, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Dilemma
by Michael R. Burch

While I reject your absence,
I find your presence equally intolerable.

it's not that i'm writing this: because i didn't have an analogy looking at me... it's not that i'm writing when it's too late... it's that the simplest answers always come too available over a period of time, and with that come too many vulnerable circumstances: because so much was invested in the supposed "truth" affair... maybe i needed a Heidegger or a Kant to complicate me enough, to write out the analogy? and that's putting it mildly: to avoid the Einstein bubble and a return to Newton... yes, big names, but am i to be apprehensive about using them, am i asking them to be my mules? it's when you hear too much that you begin to filter the well-wishers... and want to hear the bare minimum... i wrote what i wrote away from the umbrella of subjectivity, as a non-patriot... if you want objectivity, this is how it sounds... when everyone's damning subjectivity i can see nothing but patriotic demands... and when no one is asking for objectivity, i see lacklustre in teaching a carnation's worth of being a citizen... because i also think your dog ******* on my lawn is gagging for a shotgun's tongue should you not clean it up. that's the basics, my friend. it's not too late that i should i have said these words... it's that you didn't do anything prior to that, that shouldn't have delaid me saying such things as i have said, in the skeleton of analogy... i say them now, because all emotions have been numbed... from someone without any thought for a patriotism... i can express in the simplest way... because after the fact: i didn't see anything worth a noble maintenance to be made a standard for 21st living... disagreeing with me is a futile as telling me that a stone thrown will not sink, over a body of water when upon it it's thrown. you can write as much spaghetti as you want within the framework of quantum physics... but when simple physics comes your way... i'm bemused why you're startled at a punch, and the pouch-clot of blood smitten into your cheek to denotate a bruise... it's almost as if you were expecting deviation from being prone to gravity, endowed with wings... no wonder the event was sober... try repeating the bohemian liberation of the 1950s and 60s... impossible! i didn't do anything too late... the analogy comes when it so chooses... because too many ignoble demands were met and satiated... that this one noble simplification... is so painstakingly unsatisfying!

when i listen to the music of my
youth... dunno... just get stiff-*******...
winter air helps make this
phenomenon acute...
i mean music from the year 1997
through to 2001 -
   the years preceding American
undermining and the narrative
of paranoia...
call it what you like, i call it a
feeling of stiff-******* when i hear it
down the years...
it's not even a nostalgia...
    it's a sort of embarrassing clue...
i am actually embarrassed
at having such tastes...
    it's not the kind of music you'd
be happy about, nostalgic about
the 1980s...
              the embarrassment?
probably because i now realise i was
an incubator for so much delayed
teenage-angst in the artists who
reigned this period...
       the clue is in: mostly rock orientated.
i remember that chubby kid
donning his baggy jeans and black
t-shirts with bands' prints on them...
but i find unquestionable is
the indentation of representing
that call for vogue...
                i remember wearing
a t-shirt with the slogan: *******
is not a crime
          on non-uniform days in
a catholic school...
           and not being touched or told to
take it off...
             it's like i've become father:
or simply memory - to the person i
am today...
           because i can't imagine anything
beyond this day-to-day...
       but whenever i put on the mind
that was influenced by those bribes back then,
i remember the Ilford shopping centre,
and the colours of Gants Hill's park
with those bird cages...
           getting the bus to Ilford,
then a one-stop trip to Seven Kings
wearing the guilty-as-seen uniform...
   i can't see any nostalgia behind,
given my music taste: i get stiff-*******,
a feeling of cold shivers and
embarrassment...
      but it happened before the invulnerable
essence of america died...
      once upon a time people dreamed
of wanting to move to america...
   these days the narrative is a bit like:
and succumb to that paranoia narrative?
i think i'll pass...
       i can get the escapism of
conspiracy theorists... i too thought about
the later mentions of why those buildings
fell down as if someone ticked-off
a domino effect implosion...
    it really did slightly unnatural -
   those twins really did seem like a domino
effect...
       so you hear those stories of very sloppy
murderers...
who forget to shave off their fingerprints with
razors, and shave off their crop of hair
and eye-brows...
                           by writing this i can't
make the situation worse...
                      it just seems like even though
the plain did hit the buildings,
the actual downfall of the buildings seemed
too staccato... i mean that: a stacked tower...
but if you play a game of *jenga,
doesn't the jenga tower fall to the side?
                           it doesn't fall-onto-itself, does it?
i'm sure the same physics principles has
to apply to that fateful event of 2001...
     you'd expect the upper half of the twins
to break-away and fall off...
rather than the whole building literally
cascading and imploding on itself...
folding...
                               you attack a jenga tower
in the middle, and the top bit falls off...
the tower doesn't implode vertically...
      a bit like chopping a tree in the middle
of the trunk... you'll still get a stump,
even if you chop at the root of the stump...
               satan in zeitgeist...
only then dawkin's the god delusion was
published years later, did i read that, apparently,
satan's face donned one of the burning towers...
   me thinks: spot satan and read the *******...
the easiest thing is to now claim that we
are insane... but it's still about the jenga tower
magnified... a jenga tower unravels and the top
bit falls to the side... a jenga tower doesn't fall apart
from top to bottom...
                it falls apart like a lumberjack hacked tree:
to the side...
              i really could write about some
other nieche topic... but it's hard not to write
about the abomination of physics...
     the fact that there was an implosion -
  and that the towers folded vertically,
means that even if a horizontal agitation occured,
the towers couldn't have behaved as they did:
(vertically) folding...
                                 but since the agitation came
from a horizontal perspective, and the fact
that the towers folded vertically,
      the agitation came on a horizontal perspective,
a jenga tower would fall off to the side...
                        yet the towers folded vertically...
   i don't know if that's really only about
writing a + b = c, given b + c = d,
  or whether it already is 1 + 1 = 2...
             **** me, if this isn't the opening bewilderment
we all feel about the 21st century,
no war in iraq or afghanistan can help us...
    attack a jenga tower in the middle:
it doesn't fold vertically! a jenga tower attacked
   horizontally will only ask for you to shout:
timber! who need the bewilderment of quantum
physics, when you have the physics of 2001
to look-up your *** at and muse.

dear western society,

no one cares for the peasant who provides
the pheasant for the royal table -
but when the pheasant isn't there -
the royal orchestra cries out:
where's the pheasant! where's the pheasant!
as if both pheasant and peasant were alike...
indeed, the peasant isn't there to
provide the pheasant for the feast-
and with such vitriol you proudly say:
once these roaming stars that go against
all reason in cosmology disappear, you'll
know that i was here - you'll know -
perhaps the pyramids were only overshadowed
by the Eiffel tower, but many more pyramids
were mentally tattooed into the minds of men -
and rose far greater and were more
harder to overcome that man took to
climbing Everest - stone by stone his legs
encountered a new form of laying brick-on-brick -
for if western society deems me mad
to purge the old hopes of colonial rule - then
i have already chastised my body to have no heart,
and let it be carried on course toward Iran
or Afghanistan - and there entombed -
i hope Western society loves its humour as much
as it loves it's panic and paranoia and picnics
of waiting for the far right to wake up -
and this liberal-leftist mush of kind words to
be shoved into Disneyland of other fantasia.

yours sincerely,

                             Vermin.

When you were just a babe,
They took you far away,
They cut your hair and sent you there
with boots much too big for your feet.
I still remember the november you returned with the title you had earned
You were so young, full of life and pride.
That was before the strife began
Before Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan.
You were different then.
When the day came that I finally saw your face, I rejoiced that you had came back from that awful place.
But in your eyes I could see that a part of you would always be so very far away.
I would have told you not to go if I had anyway to know that though you would stay alive a part of you would never survive.

I **** the mood in a sour June,
opulent misery, scorched Earth,
exchanging platitudes with old faces,
full of *******; full of hot air.
Both sides of the fence
at war with themselves,
feigning inner peace and profit
across the beer garden table.

I talk of hangmen and floods,
child brides and dressing gowns,
my hometown under the mythic spell
of collective memory loss.
We have forgotten our place
in the comfort of our urban sprawl;
sirens caterwaul past the high-rise,
past the vacant church with locked doors
and the homeless on the street.

A commonplace emergency,
young male suicides, women *****
in the safety of their homes,
taught a kindness through physical force,
the way the gun drops to civilians
in countries saved through the filter
of television screens; of dust and distance.
I sit and write and think of ****,
of old loves, anxieties-
they call me crazy all the while
for not committing to the scene.

Now Afghanistan is a blueprint,
extended diagram of steady-state destruction,
a conspiracy of white man dreams,
farmlands bruised by machines of war,
by the ******* Boot,
the feeling we have been here before.
All the while, the illusion persists,
car parks filled with smoke, professional escapists
with their 9% lager, bags of tobacco,
and the megalomania of art.

I **** the mood of a whitewashed June,
advertised freedom, a mortgaged Earth,
exchanging currency for a chance of peace,
the zen garden smoker, the looted mind.
Both sides of the fence are collecting bones,
at war with themselves, whilst my eyes are red
and my philosophies, ******.
They call me crazy for dreaming of escape,
whilst never leaving the confines of home.

well, it's hardly a dostoyevsky novel: this western journalism; there's no elaborate plot, no complex characters, if western journalism deems itself fit for purpose, and by purpose i mean demeaning the poles as the eastern irish, plumbers do all, i dare say they ought to consider the balkan slavs for a natural selection cocktails of augmented purposiveness in demanded bourgeoisie opinion, in the safe abode of having a piano in the lounge; socialists in the framework of ably philanthropic, but penniless by nature.

that's the thing with the reincarnation of the roman empire,
the areas of europe not conquered
due to the romans' fear of icy goosebumps
is hilarious,
not to mention the trick western "philosophers"
(psychiatrists) have give us, us, children of the setting
sun - weight & measures, chevrolet sized wheels & bonnets
in ***** envy over our counterparts -
the conquered lands suddenly feel they have
a legacy to fulfil - if i was ****** the soviet would be neutral
and the belief in the luftwaffe would be minimal,
i would be the anti-thatcher, believing in the dwarf miners
of coal rather than diamond: to dig under the channel
and invade from beneath the breathable earth
rather from the sky on failure of the zeppelins...
i wouldn't follow napoleon from the pyramids of giza
into the realm of the oninion domes of russia...
what fate, what travesty! everything i say seems to
be far right albeit it isn't.
that's the thing with western "philosophers"
(psychiatrists), they think ireland (err land)
is on some strange continent known as eastern europe,
central of the ural mountains,
poland the ireland of the east? i dare say iceland.
amsterdam lost to st. petersburg over being the claimant
of the twin: venice of the north - too many ******,
too much of life worth living without fashion
and what someone else thought, edinburgh stood
still whole while the athenians just talked crap
although thee twinning was accurate:
never mind that, the zenith of travis' musical output
the 12 memories output is staggering,
like in that club in edinburgh i wondered
what the guy was playing, he was playing,
and years later knew it was neil young's old man...
managed to play it with scarce notes resounding...
but i tell you, western society is not the zenith...
syrians over their own... just to look into a loo
rather than a magic mirror on the wall...
loo loo on the tiles... who's **** stinks more than mine?
so before the sun set i had a drink,
i got out from bed on the promise of a drink,
not the goldfish wish fulfilment of passive sadism
watching my mother cry at what she and they did...
i got up for a will of life with a drink,
skimming the ice rink for some cubes in mathematics,
i got out of bed for the drink, and nothing else,
the else otherwise is revealed in people living
fully amused lives...
you know...
we're doubly animate, there's the animate bit of us
that residues animals as your counter-points,
but the doubling effect lies in our thinking,
we can be immobile: stephen hawing on alladin's
flying carpet sort of speak... it's not exactly
the expression via telepathy or telekinesis,
the former being a projection of pathology -
the spreading of mental illness via mere thinking
and the egg throw ogling into another man's happiness
of possessions priceless, like: wife, children, house.
begin with fakes... i'm not sure why it's called
artificial if not simply placebo intelligence to add
to the illusionary spectacle gratified...
artificial seems to only add to the confusion
between synthesis and psychoanalysis...
but of course we're not synthesising souls
(pashtun *sa, breath, a rendering, esp. if only in
afghanistan), we're synthesising replicas,
clone wars tore us apart, the en masse greys
of the daily walk on the land once in bloom
now in square paving, or by masonry spiders
cobweb.
yes, i left my soul in scotland, on the climb up
gleann comhann - with ben nevis the tallest
peak visible through the shroud of cloud seen through,
but i still, i still just, don't, get,
the fact that western society sees me like it
sees itself, with a colonial past that needs self-repression
(prefix self and hyphenate and you get automation),
i was without land for some time,
the four partitions of poland between austro-hungarians,
russians and prussians learned via scolding
taught me... what i learned i'm not quite sure, but
i did learn the lesson...
but psychiatric treatment can't teach me anything,
it can't turn a physical problem into materialising
a metaphysical condition,
but as i said, english existentialism has no human
affairs to be concerned with, english existentialism
is more concerned with monkeys and dinosaurs,
sweet & sour bits of life, coupled together
you only get *** tree fruit pastels: sweet & sours.
i can't imagine a worse off exile...
but i read of one in a book what took to foot
from england straight into afghanistan...
i heard it... literate or illiterate, nonetheless sung...
the pashtun women singing landays (syllable
restrictive songs of 9 or 13 syllables while
cooking or washing clothes in the river),
with the "little horrors", all that mature man
and me attired in wrinkles beneath the niqab,
the parchami (member of the afghan communist party),
unlike persian dari poetry, thus like:
fate brought me a spouse a child to raise
god, while he grows tall & strong, i age and i grow weak.
but the western nations will not be so assured
in fermenting their colonial past among their european
neighbours who weren't colonial... and that i vouch
with an ardency to simply prove them unable to
take a holiday in southend's pebble beaches
rather than silky white sand of the carribean.

Kickin' all the way the Live Coolio
deep in ya Culo/
it's that Boy Yosef comin' with major Flavas/
with so Many Styles more than a Hair Doo Voodoo/
got ya eyes on ya know Who?/
so many ****** wanna Smoke me
Cuz im the New Joint/
puttin' sparks to ya Head ****** Red/
if u thinkin' about Frontin'' Me/
ill make u Crossover like EPMD/
Rap Fanatic since i was Swimmin' in the ******* the Mack Attack/
hittin' all your perspectives
im takin' out all the Primitives/
in the Rap Game Shoot ya Stick
try again my- Flows erected as a ****/
in between ***** *****
so take Chance it ya Want/
Watch the gun taunt
in ya Face  a sad Disgrace/
Slappin' a new taste
in ya Mouth i Dropped it
my Style can't be Competed
you Obsoleted
i'm Makin Profits the Funk Baby!!!!


Many Emcees sweet as a KitKats
so cut the Chit Chat/
cuz im bout to Splatter their careers into pieces
Gotthem Envisionin' Doubles
like Noah i Told ya
the Tru Soldier Rollin' Dogia/
marchin' to the Beat with my Vocal
a Tru Loco/
when i'm sippin E & J **** an Airplay pinin' Indo/
playin' suckas close like who's holdin' the most/
weight? Pushin' rhymes like weights
Loots stay Connected like freight Train Crates/i Dominate from all states
that's why they Call Me All-State/
but ya Ain't in Good Hands
-tryna Step to the Big Man
keep u heated galore like Afghanistan gettin' in that *** like Sand/
so take Stand and a Bow cuz im the Prowl/
for that Number One Slot
ya rhymes loose as Jar Jelly
**** what the critics tell me
"Mr Big Stuff" girls call me "Heavy D"
From then shaft that lays between me
the Funk Baby!!!