dangerous pitfalls
I call it pitfalls
Because in,people fall
Engineers, doctors and lawyers
Have fallen and covered by the layers
The poor and the rich alike
Fallen and choked by spikes

We call it recreation
Which has caused fallen creation .
***** mark to leave
In how precious we live
Pitfall of drugs
In pleasure we get in a drag
Alcohols and bhang
****** and madrax
Cigarette and ****
All were traps
My worry is how they strap
And make people their prey
I fear going astray
And make a choice to pray
Calling ***** a *****
Thus pithfalls I evade.

The ******* of embezzled glory staunchly defend their counterfeit stature by defalcating the public trust of industrious societies governed internally by compunction and sabotaged externally by the tempests of acerbic fate met with inclement aleatory convergence. To supply a society with ingenuity without being complaisant or officious with unctuous pleas to the overlords we must fashion a new vogue that taps the bustle of giants and aggrandizes the margins to oversee their own creative destinies with scaffolded arrangements of titanic promise and justifiable fluidity to conquer the blinkered dogmatism of a dissolute chastity to inveterate apocryphal tenets of factitious but unmerited perspectives. Democracy crumbles when the convenience of sensationalism supplants the resolve of those that fossick hidden wealth and promulgate validity instead of undergirding pomp with precarious prevarications of duplicitous omission guarded gingerly by the gatekeepers of a ****** sanity that whitewashes the discussion with invented hobgoblins and purblind catharsis. To defeat simplicity and enshrine byzantine elegance as the paragon for voguish commentary rather than abide by a bowdlerized decorum for appeasing simpletons with divisive balkanization through identity politics we can overcome the impediments to human progress that are engineered to persist because of the inertia of the listless and the stubbornness of doctrinaire politicization and invent vivacity and festivity anew. We need to divorce ourselves from pedestrian quibbles of hero-worship that endanger the vitality of the common discourse because of fastidious pedantic disempowerment that ravages us with debased dreams by underscoring nuisances and tolerable nightmares that emasculate the virulence of the liberated individual and subvert his ambitions to contend with a picaresque world of limitless promise and self-motivated internal wealth.
      The bane of modernity is how chary the world becomes because of fractured histories intersecting with controversial destinies and the antidote to that poisonous self-defeating self-censorship is the audacity of brazen challenges to expurgation through assiduous resourcefulness and delicate diplomacy in wrangling controversies with outspoken courage rather than whispered resentment. Temerity waged in inclement circumstance is justified and curiosity stoked by lambent flames of fulgurant individualism should be fortified to the extent necessary to conquer the feckless spoilsports of unctuous puritanism and institutional obedience. The quacksalvers that blather about inconsequence strand the imagination in a desiccated desert that is ostracized from the palettes of the artistic whim to wield efflorescence rather than squander life in pursuit of perfunctory lucre or tenuous solidarity around banal idealism promised by social justice warriors that forget the biggest war being waged on humanity is on the ingenuity of the common discourse and the liberty to opine about real issues rather than saccharine conventions of emasculation through linguistic imprisonment and epicurean slavery to fashimites who relish the buzzword but never the enlightened audience that scoffs at feeble attempts at cultural commentary like Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video. This particular artifact is a demonstration of how childishly fickle the plebeian mentality really is, stitching together a bricolage of violence to engineer controversy and serenading it with the most banal music imaginable and exhorting people to herald it as a high artform while inundating the world with unimaginative comic book movies and Star Wars rip-offs because of the lucrative business of formulaic replication. “This is America” should be regarded as a parody of itself because of how hackneyed its design is and how cacophonous it sounds and mocks its audience with lowbrow tactics of adding tinsel to trash and marketing it as the glory of tatterdemalions rather than the refinement of true cinematic achievements that have been relegated because Warhol’s Campbells-Soup-consumerism trumps true belletrist in the public view.
        Cultural watersheds punctuate our history with salient achievements in experimentation, but the formulaic profiteering of buzzword sensationalism and yellow journalism and the ostentatious glorification of promiscuous boasting and fancy cars tantalize the mice to continue playing slot machines rather than penning a novel or doing something promethean. The world scoffs at Trump but ignores the bigger institutional caveats that endanger us much more than a pragmatic albeit unconventional pontificator who is complicit in constructing a false narrative to enslave mindless people to fret about eminence rather than delight themselves in the consequential nuances of established refinement that used to serenade the world with flourish and spectacle. The world kowtows to the crusade against flavor-of-the-week enemies of the liberal-conservative syncretism because it has been conditioned to believe that synthesis is the only logical solution for the polarized worldviews of churlish people that become parvenus not on their merits but on their marketable pitfalls and their public foibles. Peccadillos are more important to people than virtues and this makes society morally bankrupt if we loiter around Astroturf causes that have been infiltrated by corporatism and venal debauchery and acquiesce as disempowered gossip hounds that hunt in packs to find jest in aberration rather than achievement in self-created narratives that defy the stupid purblind boorishness of the mainstream media and its haughty liberalism or the persnickety condemnation of priggish conservative moralities that had an expiration date 50 years ago. Who the **** cares about transgender-touting-gender-fluidity quidnuncs and the snooty obsession with lurid personal endeavors of reputable people that made minor ****** transgressions in a world policed by wide-eyed feminazis that seek to ransack men of their vital virulence to spotlight their unjustifiable oppression. Women are oppressed but the carnal nature of their calumniation and their vindictive powers of persuasion are deployed with such vehement vigilance and such distaste for the majority that the world relegates itself to quibbles of celebrities rather than substantive issues. There is a systemic feminization of society occurring that seeks to demarcate despotic uxorious pleasantries as an incarceration of vocal dissent against supercilious women and their tamed men that slavishly grovel in repudiation of anything prickly.  Men historically have oppressed women but the solution to this quandary isn’t a reverse discrimination where the minority concern is spotlighted as a majoritarian issue that overshadows the disproportionate nature of our society where nominal accreditation is afforded in a non-meritocratic way to absolve people of their carnality and demote the vigorous defense of human liberty as secondary to compromise solutions that appease more people than they offend but simultaneously result in suboptimal conditions that reward arbitrarily coachable people while jettisoning anyone witty enough to be capable of insubordination of a hedonistic epicurean world obsessed with appearance and ravaged by the decadence of formulaic profiteering at the expense of originality and true promethean art that is herculean enough to defy hackneyed tropes and siphon the best elements from a piecemeal world variegated with complexity but stifled by fomented hatred.
The solutions to these problems is to create a watchdog group of artistic critics who become eminent and ubiquitously heard enough to offer creative consultation to the artistic endeavors that we consume and the music that is curated for fastidious ears that crave euphonic originality rather than the banality of easily dovetailed bass-heavy cookie-cutter garbage and the gaudy tactics of talentless rappers whose swagger derives from  the intersection of opportunism and the divestiture of an industry that rewards gloated supercilious epicureanism and meretricious marketability. Am I the only one jaded by second-rate superhero movies that infest the cinemas that borrow from Michael Bay while thrusting pulse-pounding but narratively bankrupt movies down the throats of consumers that might prize the cinematic originality of the heyday of filmmaking? Is it always high art to invent controversy that is witless or half-witted just because it will create buzz? Shouldn’t we condemn the laziness of society in acquiescing to the penury of the modern cultural narrative which belabors the dead horses of racism and sexism ad nauseum? Shouldn’t we fight the war of against inequity through legislation rather than hibernating about scandalous eminence and testy malfeasance?
          Liberty should be championed above all else and we are turning our backs on the future unless we muster the resolve to diminish the sway of the common narrative and aim our spotlight at consequential endeavors rather than the tropes of prosaic and pedestrian bastardization of art and culture. We need to fight artistic laziness which has ravaged our culture and castigate the tactics of wannabee celebrities that use lurid tactics to attract an audience by bedizening themselves with Pyrrhic ostentations and rampant fakery to create more melodrama in a world that needs to be less histrionic. YouTube celebrities swarm us as they get high on ******* and lean-- at our expense-- and vandalize property and convincing nine-year-old’s like Lil Tay to flex her money like it is infinitely renewable in a finite world where all our attention is wasted on artless artifice of less talented people that know how to engineer a ruckus by strutting themselves beyond all decency and selling out to a corporatist nightmare of enslaved convenience. We need to be more vocal about the dissolution of artistic merit and the formulaic repetition of successful formulas that jade us and make us yawn about another retread of a previously successful idea that is milked to the point of cruelty.                                                         ­                       
       Let’s change the narrative and focus on creating true art rather than reacting to the meretricious tinsel of the vogue consensus which is so impotent in its ability to rivet audiences because it has become so notoriously lazy. Fight laziness in art, dismiss your news feeds, be resourceful, seek true happiness rather than find yourself hoodwinked and duped by the idea that Trump is the most important issue or getting caught in thought loops and brooding about sexism and inequality. Let us strive to be egalitarian but within limits that would also appease hominists rather than just the hypertrophy of the leftist narrative that seeks to cage us with the doublespeak of complaisant conformity.  Reject the unctuous charlatans that pretend priggishness when their banausic purpose is barbaric but beguiling to be a lullaby for laggards. We need to fight for the future of civilization rather than hobnob with convenience and loiter around decrying false perpetrators rather than systemic injustices that could otherwise be rectified if enough people fought for it. We can invent a future that is a great festivity serenaded by cultivated artistic refinement and forget about the trifles that divide us. United in ambition and fueled by ingenuity we can defeat artistic laziness and be resourceful with how we decide what is newsworthy. Spurred by the argosy of proactive motivation we can change the world in a substantial way by deciphering the subtext that governs the world. The subtext is everything!

Urdu Poetry: English Translations



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



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



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.



Last Night
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation 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 ...

There are more English translations of poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz later on this page.



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 English translations of poems by Rahat Indori later on this page.



Strange Currents
by Amir Khusrow
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 English translations of poems by Amir Khusrow later on this page.



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.

And 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 English translations of poems by Ahmad Faraz later on this page.



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 English translations of poems by Munir Niazi 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.



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?

There are more English translations of poems by Nida Fazli 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 English translations of poems by Gulzar 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.



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.

NOTE: 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.



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/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Those who came 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 these strangers 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?

NOTE: This poignant 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.



Tonight
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation 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!



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 ...

There are more English translations of poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz later on this page.



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.



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?

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



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.



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.



Do Not Ask
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation 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.



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



Excerpts from “Going, Going ...”
by Miraji
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each unfolding vista,
each companion’s kindnesses,
every woman’s subtle sorceries,
everything that transiently lies within our power
quickly dissolves
and we are left with only a cupped flame, flickering ...
Should we call that “passion”?

The moon scrapes the horizon
and who can measure a star’s breadth?

The time allotted a life, if we calculate it,
is really only a fleeting breath ...



1.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
after my life has come and gone,
perhaps someone
hearing my voice drifting
on the breeze of some future spring
will chase after my songs
like dandelions.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch

2.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
after my life has come and gone,
perhaps someone
hearing my voice drifting
through some distant future spring
will pluck my songs
like dandelions.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch

3.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
when my life has come and gone,
and when I’m dead and done,
perhaps someone
hearing me sing
in a distant spring
will echo my songs
the whole world over.
—Miraji, translation 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!




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.



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



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?

Keywords/Tags: Urdu, translation, love poetry, desire, passion, longing, romance, romantic, God, heaven, mrburdu

whence the word special is said, be wary of the speaker
whence the word special is said, be wary of the speaker
pitfalls are in the making, one can trip up
pitfalls are in the making, one can trip up
pitfalls are in the making, whence the word special is said
be wary of the speaker, one can trip up

the memory stores info well, an utterance hollow ne'er forgot
the memory stores info well, an utterance hollow ne'er forgot
wising up seeing the light, one is misguided
wising up seeing the light, one is misguided
one is misguided, the memory stores info well
wising up seeing the light, an utterance hollow ne'er forgot

a revelation did dawn, that guy wasn't legit
a revelation did dawn, that guy wasn't legit
his line but a fallacy, clearness of sight now prevails
his line but a fallacy, clearness of sight now prevails
clearness of sight now prevails, that guy wasn't legit
a revelation did dawn, his line but a fallacy

a revelation did dawn, one is misguided
pitfalls are in the making, whence the word special is said
that guy wasn't legit, an utterance hollow ne'er forgot
his line but a fallacy, wising up seeing the light
one can trip up,the memory stores info well
be wary of the speaker, clearness of sight now prevails

Robert Frost once talked of taking the ‘road less travelled’.
Well, I didn’t.
When the time came, I blindly went and took the safest road.
A very long path where the pitfalls were plenty.
I stumbled in the bracken. Stymied by the darkness that fell quickly as I ambled along.
The soul bruised, battered and exhausted at every infrequent stop.
It was not apparent then that in this venture there was a bleak dead end ahead.
I plowed on even though something inside was telling me again and again to turn back.
But, slowly, a gleaming light of hope crossed my vista beckoning me home.
I crawled. My strength regained as the light intensified.
Then the end was in sight - the portal was within grasp.
And so, yes, I now take that road less travelled.
Standing tall and proud as I gleefully stride down its glowing thoroughfare.  
Smiling at the diverse and playful changes that cross my pathway.
All told, it’s never too late to trust your instincts and make a difference.
Just ask me.
And Robert Frost.

In my forty-sixth year
I have learned to stay clear
of the pitfalls which once
befell me

Lessons I've learned
as the years burned
have turned out
to warn me

the voice in my head
quells urges to tread
where once  it seemed
I ran blindly

perspectives  have changed
like  land after the rains
have rushed by and scoured
it dry

feelings have changed
as I watch with dismay
society falling around me

the lines of the past
no longer last
blurring to a grey
hazy outline

it is claimed to be
kinder and gentler to thee
but a savageness
does underlie

all that remains
of the kindness that's claimed
cheap fascia, wrecked by the rain

gentleness does apply
to those who ask why
ignorant of their surrounds

a kick in the rear
still it appears
is truly a step forward

as I have related
these feelings belated
again the changes occur

to all I must say
thank you this day
for reading the
words from my soul

Greasy hair tied back
pink scrunchies haphazardly holding together the unbrushed strands
rosemary mint chapstick smeared between lips and lips and lips on lips
backseat bouncer, I'll leave when the dance is done
The same type of ***** this visual you get when you watch the sky turn in the AM
pink, blue, green, gold, gone
shoes off in hand, feet itch on concrete
to corner store barely open fifteen minutes
cherry coke slushies are so good at 7AM  
how dare you preach to me calling me
"Honey, Baby Girl, Peach"
listen to me for a change
Im no lesser than you because I prefer to live like wind
with a here today gone tomorrow mindset
It wasn't love, this isn't love
wont answer your calls, at school a nod in the halls,
baby my motto is pitstops and pitfalls
a brief rest for restoration, then back to hopping barbed wire fences
I don't mean to be mean but this is the last you'll see of me for a long time
because Love isn't real and if it is she took it with her

With you


Let me be with you
We can rewrite the stars
With each other side by side

Let me fall with you
We can climb up the mountains
With each other hand in hand

Let me walk with you
We can jump over the pitfalls
With each one step together

Let me dream with you
We can build our own world
With creative imaginations

Let me fly high with you
We can roll over the clouds
With wings of freedom in the sky...

Up early as usually but this time with a mission to complete Halloween Costumes.
Not a pain free day most definitely, but have kids who rely on me to be a good mom.

Everyone has haters; the two faced, "your girls" wanting your guy or envy clothes style,
or randoms you never met, desiring your life, home or new car bought with hard work.

Most days what's posted on sites about me makes not a bit of difference in my world,
I ignore and move on with my life, know haters have nothing better to do than gossip.

No news is good news and nothing from my usual "Town Criers" saying "Guess What?"
One day got messages in text, "You have been labeled Babylon's ***** by Craiglisters!"

Not a "lol" nor "Roflmao" situation. Thinking, What in the world? and How in the world?
Me, Ms. Abstaining and they, who love assuming and posting drama without thought.

Their world; small town America and believers of truth in "all" internet rumors and media,
not willing to give benefit of doubt, once minds, so limited in thought, have been made up.

E-mail inquiries from potential employers I never met from destinations far far away,
asking and informing that person with such low morals shall never be part of their world.

Drama finds me and neither welcome nor do I seek it out, way too emotionally draining,
believer in live and let live, authored "Celibacy" poem to stop jokes made to my kids.

Who knew that trying for your dreams could bring forth bringers or illogical pure hatred?
Who knew that emotions of my children whom I love, would be affected by narrow minds?

After family conference and with full support, by the way, had to explain "*****" to son,
this mom carries on and still on second journey pursuing dreams and making realities.

If I give up dreams it will never be because someone posted bold faced lies on open forum,
it will be because I choose to do it with good reasons and those reasons are mine alone.

Pitfalls? Have been numerous. Will? Strong and still determined to see this through to end.
Tomorrow isn't promised and hear my dad say, "Daughter, go forth and let haters be fuel!"

The letter was a warm invitation  and a perfect getaway I needed to lay low after are  brief rise to cult status i had partaken of the
rewards of semi obscurity and had a few angry fathers searching for me.

The big apple it called to me like a stripper apon a pole demanding thats all you got is ones you cheap *******?
My true sidkick  like robin to batman just less gay and good looking.

Met me at the station  Amigo how the hell are you now were's the bar?
Drinks on you right?
Cause when your a semi celeb slash rockstar of hello why the **** should i pay.
Why should women be the only ones to walk into a bar with three dollars  in there purse and get rip roaring drunk.
Besides if i was a chick id be a **** *****.

The stage was set the bar was filled with strange sounding people
all asking my well know  brother in madness who tha  ***** this *******.
****** good man im not just any ******* im Gonzo.

Beer on another mans tab always tasted better   just remember ******
im not putting out   well unless  you ask me niceley  or pay  me
like that rich old lady used to who  also was missing her leg.

yes what memeories id slip her a mickey  rearrange her  clothes and after she woke  up tell her what a wild night we had yes i know
true romance.

BUT ENOUGH WITH THE FOREPLAY CHILDREN!

We began are quest like any other  seeing how much ***** we could
hold  till  normal people began to make sense.
I work everyday busting my freakin ***  still it aint enough Gonz.
The angry little italian man who's wallet i had borrowed said beside me.
Hey a girls gotta eat.
Dear lord man you mean you actully have to go back everyday hey is this a gold card   your worse than my wife freakin ***.
Sir you are a charmer  what angry little people  lived here.

Bill lets hit the ******* im in need of culture  and some naked women amigo  come on im  drinks are on Vinny who gives a ****.

After bill  dipped into his life savings to pay the tab we hopped
a cab headed for Manhattan  to the place  of great myths and wonder
it called to great men from arond the world to bask in its beauty.

No not the statue of the giggantic woman  with a torch although i wondred  as i stood below her ****** why cant she be wearing a mini skirt.
You gotta love a big girl  she was such a tease.

No as i stood  tears meeting my bloodshot eyes
befor the mecca  the big apple and the home  of legends and playground to the *****.

Hey get the **** outta the street *******.
It"s Gonzo  man ****** how many times do i need to repeat myself.
Scores a ******* to the rich  a fools paradise **** Disneyland.
Ive been on spacemountian most my life anyways.

As through the doors we were met by a scene of true
art much like the Mona Lisa  if she were a stripper named candice cane  in red high heels hanging from a stripper  pole.

the drinks flowed  the lap dances were well you get the point.
I realized my two drink minimum freind was a little how should i say it poetically.
******* wasted.

As he tried  to give a stripper named honey a lap dance  
never mind him ladies he's my  ******* brother.
In a plan of true drunken genius i explained he was sick and
his last wish was for his older brother to hookup with
some   hot  strippers to have  ahh  some  after hours activities  
Who's ***** bingo.
how i love  bango I mean bingo.

Tears welled up in there eyes  thank god they didnt question why my little brother was 58.
Hey there strippers  and if they  were all going to college  then
this would be a ******* library  not a high  dollar  titie bar.

Librarians with there hair up short tight skirts and glasses
i swear you get busted for  having a little alone time on a public
computer   in that over rated book store for a second time and everyone  flips ****.
Society is so judgemental  but that's another story  
and court case   away.

The plastic fake boobie women had fallin for it.
So like drunken ninjas in a fog of  dellusion and wild turkey we made are last exit to brooklyn.
  
Hey  Gonz why do these chicks keep asking how much longer do i have.
Smacking my friend swiftly in the head had drawn the attention
of the strippers away from counting there tips and comparing there fake breast.

He's got brain dammage sometimes you have to hit em in the  
head to get him unstuck  ****** just look at the poor *******
he thinks he's not sick  oh dam life i need a cuddle girls.
Bill hold the camera.

We hit my friend's apartment like tourist slipping across the boarder grabing and  consuming great amounts of ***** and some sort of white powder  must have been for allergies.

Like squirrels  on acid  running down the interstate we were  
half nuts by the time that big orange ball thats causes me to wear sunglases did appear.

The ladies who names i cant recall  but honestly who gives a ****.
were passed out in bed Bill  in the fish tank  
calling himself captian nimmo  at this point led me to belive just maybe he had  a little  to much  but theres  many pitfalls on the road to Gonzo pacman.

Few men had the liver  or insanity of your's truely.
so after i talked my  tripping amigo off the frige.
Reassuring him its okay   amigo   thats what women look like naked.

I assure you  just cause they broke theres off doesnt mean they'll do the same to yours.
****** son why have a computer if not to look at **** and read long rants by insane people who call themself Gonzo?

After are long disscussion   about good touch bad touch and happy endings  we were off  again.

                                                 Ground Zero

                                        Silence And Respect

Standing there there was a shared  moment.
And a pain any soul could feel.
It wasnt about race or religion  it was about people
we all lost that day.
John Patrick Robbins stood beside a brother without a word
said as it spoke a million feeling's to the soul.

                           No one ever truley leaves there.

At the bus station a few cocktails behind us me and the kiddster
parted slightly hung over   and strung out smelling of reckless abandon
and strippers and wild turkey.

Apon the bus sitting by the window and some large man.
Who reaked of sardines  and  resembled a  cerial ******.
yes ladies he's single  and will probaly **** ya.
Wonder why he has a hard time getting dates?

As Bill waved goobye to his demented  brother from his own planet.
I waved back saying hey amigo  is this your debit card hell no worries
i'll keep  good care of it and reward myself.

As the bus left the station  my semi ******* friend chasing behind
yelling Gonzo i'll get you for this you freakin *******.
Kidster  that hurt i yelled but not as much as it's gonna hurt you bank account cheers.

That guy in black is ******  you  better watch out he's probaly connected.
No worries my funny smelling oversized friend
so am i replied.
I have the internet as well.

Bound for parts unknown Gonzo  made many stops
and if not for legal reason's  id share most of them.
Yes as i sat apon the beach  after taking a little side trip to Florida.
Drink in hand lost in deep thought's for which i cant remember.
      
Reflecting apon my time in the big apple.
And my friend the Kiddster
A toast to my friend.
Hope you like the post card  and the three week vacation
i treated myself to.

Sorry about the whole life savings thing but
who needs to retire in there 80's  work will keep you young girlfriend.

Cheers your slightly insane friend Gonzo.

I’ve kept to the high road in life,
only in my mind.
Thinking myself wise to avoid
the pitfalls others faced.

A warm wind blew up from my past
and there you stood.
A memory of childhood
and view to my future.

Old and new, my path I find in you.
You’ve led me to the back roads,
on trails I’d left ignored,
looking outside the familiar at you.

For a while we walked together,
hand in hand following love’s path
caught up in the voice it called.
Suddenly, I found you had gone, taking another path.

Now I’m left abandoned, alone again
blinded by my fear to move.
For I’ve lost my way on these back roads
without my guide and without my love.

Can you find me hiding here beneath this veil
Can you see the real me?
Did you look inside this woman to find the
frightened insecure girl wanting only to be loved.

If I could write my life as a poem
For millions who'll read, understand, think
I'd conjure an epic, a mystery
A tale on edge, a tragedy's brink.

I'd weave gripping waves of pleasure
Together with heart-wrenching tides of pain
A sea of battles with no leisure
Of joyful wins going against the grain.

I'd stitch metaphors with gleeful pride
Constructing rhythm with a bit of rhyme
I'd dabble with similes here and there
It'd be my thread on the sands of time.

But when I see my life as it is now
How different it is from my lovely tale
It retains its mystery, some agony
A once-green crop grown dead and stale.

A lost yarn of mistakes and pitfalls
With regret binding the threads as one
Repeated faults with no known structure
A once-free verse that is trapped, undone.

So I'll cast away my dream of a life
In a graveyard as a forgotten goal.
Some dreams never come true, it seems
Just like some lives will never be whole.

Here is were it all begins
Now a life time to unfold
A future lies deep within
And stories will be told.

Your road it will be rocky
You will face those stormy seas
There'll be times you will be happy
And times down on your knees.

You will find that life's a journey
You'll get lost along the way
But your not alone there's many
Who get back on track again.

So put on that suit of armour
It's a dangerous world out there
Beware of all the trappings
Their are pitfalls everywhere.  

Don't look back you have a future
And hope is what you need
Your life will be your teacher
And lessons will be learned indeed.

You will find that new horrizon
It is there behind the door
That door will surely widen
And the world it will be yours.

Who decided that the top of the mountain was the goal in climbing? I mean, I guess I understand the concept of why but thinking more abstractly, who decided what the rules were?

People.

Just people.

We are people, right? Does that mean we decide the rules? Not always. Most of the time the rules and goals are set by the mindset of the masses. Whoever is loudest or has the most connections sets the trends, makes those rules, and decides the goal.

Why?

Why are people so looked down on for going against the grain of the popular mindset?

You go to high school.
Okay - that's the law.

You go to college.
I mean, I guess.

You borrow tens of thousands of dollars from the government and even private banks to go to college.
Well, I don't really want to do that.
Well, you have to or you won't get a good job.
Well, why?
Because education shows you how things are done and how to do them right.
Okay, I mean, I get that. But what if that isn't for me? What if I don't thrive from that and instead of learning and growing, you are just creating bad habits, watching your confidence tank, and thousands of dollars go in the toilet.
Well then go work a minimum wage job.
Okay.

You get a job. Or not.
Okay, I guess.

You work to save up money to buy a house but you still have to pay rent which is very expensive.
Well, I guess that's okay but won't it take me forever to save?
Yes, with the job you have from a lack of university education, yes.

You spend years saving.
Cool.

You buy a house.
Awesome! My first house! But I spent all this money that I spent years saving and now I am locked into this and if anything ever goes wrong, I'm *******.
This looks like it will happen sooner rather than later with how cheap this house was.
Well, that's all I could afford.
Well, maybe you should get a better job.
Well, I can't because I don't have a degree.

You work until you are 70.
Oh yeah, I've had to give 10% of my salary to my 401k in order to pay for my future without working. But, inflation is a thing and now all that planning puts me back at the amount I needed 40 years ago, not what things cost now.

You move out of your house and into a cheaper apartment.
Well, I guess this is all I can afford at this point.

You live out the rest of your days there and pass away.




What a life right? Sounds like a book I would read - NOT.

Give or take a few privileges and/or road blocks some people may have, this is pretty much it. Even if you pay for the college education, you still don't have much of an advantage. You pay off years and years of college debt - so unless you make 6 figures, that will take you until you're 70. This means you will likely get your house much later and also just be stuck in the same ending.

Why?

Why is this the path we are 'supposed' to take? Who decided this?

We do.

Every day that we get up, WE decide our actions that day. WE determine our own future - not the societal mindset.

Sure there is more friction going against the grain. It's hard. But is it harder than living a life that doesn't bring you fulfillment?

Think of mountain climbing. The goal is to get to the top right? Wrong. The goal is decided by each climber. If you want to go to the top, great. If you don't, also great. Each climber has a different way of getting where you want to go - some take an incline (upper class, money, prestige), some people pay a guide (university education), some people drive (start your own business), some depend on others to carry them (disabled, poor), some are the ones who carry others (volunteers, charity, servants). No specific way is wrong and no specific goal is wrong. If your goal is the top, then to the top you shall go. Your path may have different pitfalls, you might go a different speed, you might die before you make it to the top; but some people don't even go to the top. Some people take their time.

My goal isn't the top. I want to live for the views as I climb, whether clouded by blankets of green or the most crystal clear blue sky meets the horizon. I want to find beauty in the little things around me, not just rush to the top because its the option chosen by many. I want every hammock tree spot, every waterfall creek pool, every season change from a soft layer of snow to the sloshy mud underfoot, every critter discovery, every art-inspired shot. I want to settle in a place that other might just rush by but only settle for a little while - until I want a new view.

People say that the best view is the one from the top where you can see it all - but I disagree. The best view is the many you will see along the way - the little details on each tree, each rock, or on the ground. From the very top, you don't see the detail - you see the bigger picture. I'm sure the picture is great, but rather than buy the print, I would prefer to do the puzzle - that would be far more fulfilling for me.

Gates climb


News and paraphernalia
Modern communication
Internet on vacation
Today, rural Australia

Goes awol in valleys, hills
As seeking when hiding
Frustration biding
Trees, various pitfalls

An Insufficient population
Say Cannot build towers
Excuses bely hours
Trying, for connection

Work with what's known
Try cavalier solutions  
It's the execution
When, creativity shown

First try computer waving
Above head I'm shaking
Signal not taking
Despite, the swaying

Next option lying on floor
Hint of access, fleeting
Patchy greeting
So slow, won't store

Then stand on top of bed
Try to reach high ceiling
Wobbly feeling
Response, still lead

Despite heat, go outside
The temperature violent
Connection silent
If Home far, just beside

Time past, similarly stung
Found access best rate
The paddock gate
Balancing, top rung

Troop to gate hopes keen
As Searing heat, metal
Stand and settle
Tightly, cradle machine

Process long, time lost
A Connection success
Finally access
But who, counts cost?

Eventually, its loaded mail
As Balancing hold keen
Humorous scene
As Sway, in light pale

Internet access by Gates
Not Bill, Steve, Microsoft
Hung steel aloft
So basic, surely debates

Climbing for a signal now
Is the practical response
Sadly ensconced
As Rural, area know how

But surely it must be time
When access essential
Internet critical
Yet today, gates climb

There are open trap doors
lying up ahead.
Sometimes we can get ******
in and could end up dead.

Pitfalls setup by some whom we
consider to be a friend.
They're not happy with you, unless
you're trapped in a lion's den.

Smiling faces sometimes, they
can seem so dear.
They can also cause so much pain
like the pierce of a spear.

We live in a world where respect
seem to no longer exist.
Some people like to see you down
living as their accomplice.

There’s no if or almost in tennis or with love
No half feeling it.
No hitting half in.
Your mind cant be there one moment
And not be there the next
Love is everything & nothing at all.
You can be too bitter
Not to hit a winner
Love & tennis will play you just the same
With It’s tough game.
You must keep your eye on the ball
Trying not to hit the intentional pitfalls
If not played right on the line
Will knock you out every time
When you stretch to make that shot just right
Of continuing to believe its worth the fight
Logic & emotion intertwined
Remember love & tennis are just games of the mind

i fall in love too quickly

i let the air slowly drain through a pinhole in my lungs
because just looking at your face,
hearing your name mentioned in casual speech
is cause enough for rose red to colour my cheeks.

i dive so deeply into loving
that at times i've lost myself
in the maelstrom & had to pick up the pieces, forget your name
so that my vision could return to clarity.

i get ****** noses & butterflies
buffeting the organs inside my body, the body
that i just want belonging to you
for long enough to feel loved
& be your lover.

i wish i could express myself
in a more beautiful way than this
with words of silk & not sorrow, knowing
you're only to leave me lying here again someday.

i fall in love too quickly
& forget that love can rend my heart into nothing so quickly.

Alone within my emotional wilderness

A reverie along memory lane when, this lviii sea sunned
row man (stills paddles in oarlocks and serenely quizzically,
lackadaisically, and harmoniously drifts) along the slip
stream of time. Awash on his figurative manual navigated
opportunistic prideful quintessential schooner reflects,
regales, and revisits ebbing lapsed instances (fast receding
into the past time, when psychological instability grounded
fragile my self esteem (generated venting, steaming, and
piping hot brickbats). As a newly minted harrumphing,
grubbing, and floundering dada enmeshment (analogous
to a fish caught in a net, hence quickly ricocheting, rabidly
splashing, and sloppily thrashing) predicated my foray
into das fatherhood. Aye experienced nearest approximation
Bing battered, rammed, and torpedoed from glomming
(par for the course riot ting heaps) necessarily imposed
adult responsibility. Such metaphorical motoring across
avast Battle Creek with no landfall in sight, this then nada
so Grand Turk (key in the straw) Otto man continually
snapped, cracked and popped. This human ping-pong
fitbit part player papa felt akin to subjection re: thralldom).
At this juncture in me cross currents of existence I can
harken back to those most exhausting, fatiguing, and
grueling endeavors. Hindsight offers this aging baby
boomer the luxury to cast astern. Retrospective leisurely
trawls along the shoals throes of fatherhood allow,
enable and provide and opportunity to scrutinize per
chance, where arises this on account of the empty nest
syndrome. Ordinarily the wife (i.e. missus to appear
more formal), would caw out my name nonstop….
”Matt”…”Matt”…”Matt”…, but she opted to organize
the cluster of assorted household items at the apart
ment (located in Crum Lynne – Ridley Township),
we hope to move within a fortnight. Thy spouse
volunteered her own mini reprieve by setting order
to the miscellaneous fixings gradually amassed,
appropriated, and gifted thru out the twenty plus
years of marriage, which hodgepodge of personal
possessions downsized whence circumstance dictates
evaluating goods having keepsake meaning versus
anomaly of belongings to be unloaded, repurposed
for someone else, or ordained as unworthy to schlep.
Alone asper like a very brief sabbatical from marriage
finds stillness amidst the white noise of the whirring
fan. Thus, I sit here ruminating how to dredge up
some idea for a poem,  (non) fiction or essay. This
husband became acclimated, conditioned, and em
bossed with a mate a tete for two plus decades,
whereby both thee dos delightful daughters on
Track 742 heading west. Honest to dog, I miss
the role of fatherhood when either off spring
(with an age difference of approximately twenty
five plus months) romped, scampered, and trotted
as toddlers, and upon childhood, thy little girls
found exultant excitement dashing higgledy-
piggledy, hither and yon, to and fro across the
playground as most glorious human indulgence.
Despite the plaintive wail vis a vis Juliet saying
goodnight to Romeo (…parting is such sweet
sorrow) haint pleasurable atoll. Hitherto un
known that during the most vexing, trying,
and quaking bouts when both kin of thy ****
fought like angry cats would there transpire
the occasion of sincere tearfulness ululating
vain warbling. Now a pang of nostalgia arises
when I drive past their happy go lucky stomp
ping turf, or reflect on answering the trumpet
call to chauffer one or thee other to amusement
park, play date, mall, favorite toy store such as
Fivebelow, birthday party, et cetera. Even
certain tunes recalled to mind and/or heard
being broadcast across the audio logical spec
trum a cause for moistened tear ducts. Wince
with sadness also mixed with sigh lent bundled
expostulations of joy. Both progeny metamorphosed
into able bodied, minded and spirited lasses,
whose attainment far exceeded any projections
internally forecast. Initial onset of parent role
found me all thumbs. Prior to begetting two
darling dames, this chap spent disproportionate
number of hours sequestered within some hide
away, which frequently happened to be the
designated bedroom at 324 Level Road, College
Ville, Pennsylvania, 19010. Never did thee major
rit tee days of mine life point to babysitting or
working with that chronological demographics
comprising the adoring blessed innocence,
murmuring newborn obliviousness, that bespoke
penultimate unsullied, utmost virtue necessitating
interaction with tender infants beckoning being
cradled, endearingly fondled, demonstrably easing
fondness gripping heartstrings issue jetblue kinks.
Aye felt pitched headlong into this foreign territory,
and initially experienced utmost awkwardness when
attending, pampering and pulling (albeit gently)
upsy daisy, the nascent hint of autonomy. Remembrance
and recollection of élan, joie de vivire, and yea those
ear splitting threshold of pain screaming tantrums
all boxed into tidy wholesome Zen announcing
nuggets of greater meaningfulness and absolute
value. The above long winded reverie intended and
meant tubby a semi biography, but leave hit up to
his hie n hiss, he went way overboard, and will give
a one line summarization to describe his i.e. yours truly
life sentence fate decreed. He (this Anglophile chipper
chap lived under duress of extreme anxiety, obsessive/
compulsive behavior, panic attacks and essentially
schizoid personality disorder for the greater part
of his life and hard times, which raw bits would
warrant fleshing out to extrapolate how these psychic
pitfalls represented critical factors at various and
sundry turning points in his life.

The phone rang and as usual I answered with that touch of vocal swagger I'm so greatly
known for.
the voice on the other end was timid and who could blame her it's not often
A writer gets to speak with a semi legend in the making well kind of look I can ******* dream okay.

Is this Gonzo?
The voice asked unsure in a world of pitfalls and scammers she had stumbled upon  the
true voice behind the madness it was like Christmas minus the annoying little ******* and terrible music.

Why yes yes it is.
Hey this is Lily Mae  it's really awesome to finally talk to you.
I understood her happiness it must have been what it was like to first realize
your idols were real  Lily was thrilled with excitement she rattled on a star struck
fan in the glow of the great one.

I'm so used to this by now as you can imagine being as awesome as I.
We spoke for hours on some of my favorite subjects like myself.
Duh what else is there to talk about well besides ******* and what a ******* this site has become.

You know you really are a mystery to most and it really works for you.
Well honestly that's mainly because of the whole outstanding warrants thing I said.
To which she laughed.
Although I don't know why being I was serious.

We chatted for hours on every subject under the sun.
she told me all about her interests like miniature golfing and arguing with  airhead teens
at writers café.

And A bunch of other things I cant recall cause I was far to busy hearing about how awesome I was .
Well you can't argue with the truth folks I know they  don't call me captain kickass for nothing.

So I bet you get a lot of girls writing you huh?
Duh of course I mean it gets so bad cause I mean I hate having to turn them down cause I'm like
yeah I know all you poetic chic's want to get with me but like I got to rest my ding ding sometime.

You wouldn't believe how bad it is I mean there's a lot of really weird people out there on the internet.
Yeah and I think I'm talking to the weirdest.

Seems this hamster was getting a bit jealous I couldn't blame her.
But I was like a wild turkey I  had to run cause I couldn't fly and that and I'm afraid of heights.
But I'm usually cool with getting high not that you should ever do drugs.
Cause look what doing to many drugs can do to your brain.

Hell the effects are clear just look at the people that run this place.

Umm Gonzo I got to go.
Seems being in the presence of greatness  had all the normal side effects
but honestly enough about peoples personal problems.

Hey don't take this the wrong way or anything.
I knew what she was going to say next oh silly fans like I told my last one
of course you can send me **** pics just not if your a dude.
Duh who wants to look at some dudes hairy sack it was just a faze I was going through okay!

Besides I had to have proof Justin Bieber was really a guy .
I'm kidding like he has hair on his *****.
Not that I would know but I mean he is Canadian it's just there culture okay.

Of course Lily just remember I have high standards I'm kidding I'm a total ****.
What she said confused seems she was experiencing a contact high yes I'm just that good.
What the hell are you talking about?

Look I know how it is to be in the presence of Gonzo
trust me even I cant keep my hands off myself.
Big shocker there Gonz  but hey switch it up sometimes and call it a double date.

Lily Mae not only is she a poet She's a pretty good smartarse as  well.

Gonz what I was going to say was .
Is that don't be hurt but your kind of  weird so don't try calling back cause I'm going to block your number.

I heard what she was saying and like most men I didn't let reality get in the way of my own ego fed
*******.

Sure she was saying I was weird and after talking to me she really wanted to take a shower .
But what she was really saying was.
She knew I was a loner a outlaw  and a true freebird minus the really long *** song
and drunken redneck fans with lighters held up.

She knew she couldn't tame the king of crazy so she would simply admire from afar like all the rest
hopefully without  a restraining  order or pepper spray that *******
**** burns much like the clap.
Not that I would know.


Umm Gonz are you there?

Yes little hamster I am and I fully understand be free my friend and stay crazy.
Uhh yeah you to and well I got to go your really creeping me out.
Adios Lily.

And just like that she was gone but I believe she took a great deal from the conversation
like don't talk to people from the internet and sometimes people who play crazy
truly are ******* crazy.

So remember if your ever alone and feel like just talking to someone.
You probably want to avoid me cause it's really not a act.
And I'll probably scare the ***** outta  you or make you take a bath  and if so I'm
just saying that web cam is got to get some use sometime.

Stay crazy hamsters  

Gonzo

The Pitfalls and the Pebbles
F J McCarthy on May 3, 2009


Wandering through life,uncertain of my path.

Just stumbling my way across this world.

Wanting to be more than what I am.

Just not sure how to get there.

So many bumps along the way.

I trip and fall and bleed,but still I’m here.

Does this road have an ending?

A goal that I can reach and call my own.

Like a blind man in the forest, I just keep walking.

Hope against hope, I will see the light.

So long on this journey beaten ,pushed ,passed by.

Others on this road moving so fast they barely notice me.

Perhaps around the next bend my goal will come in sight.

The reason I have come so far will be clear.

Til then I just keep walking, watching for the pitfalls and the pebbles.

It seems they both can make you fall.

there's much gesture in thinking out the nonsensical,
the un-thinkable - the un-pardonable - with sheer gusto
you tend to think out the unsolvable -
the nonsense people are afraid to
think about - the impractical -
and that's for one reason alone -
                  it doesn't create real problems...
you do not engage with real struggles
people encounter - because by doing
all the above stated... you are not the one
who says to a person: you can't do this,
and you can't to that.
                 which is why i don't understand
the English aversion toward philosophy:
say the word, and the English immediately
succumb to the notion of pedantry and
snobbism - when in fact: it's hardly that -
          perpetually philosophers entertain
themselves with invoking awe, as with ageing,
and seeing the many pitfalls of romance
and comedy and tragedy... awe becomes
very hard to find... it's simulated ignorance
in a way... for example Heidegger championing
Aristotle is a gesture intended in this direction -
and his concept of dasein is another
way to stage a coup against the world...
              it's an antithesis to what would otherwise
be regarded as activism... or more piquantly:
hedonistic activism, which primarily encompasses
staging a higher moral authority -
but never reaching for the fist making a signature
for the cause... that phrase: just empty words...
and humble pie. well... if you're a bachelor,
have this instilled aversion toward having a private
relationship with women: suitor - Kierkegaard -
well... you are bound to create pointless problems...
because... to be honest... you'd rather throw
"imaginary" problems into the metaphysical arena
than sit there... as a competent English gentleman
and speak of philosophy with about two or
three terms... reality... god... monkey...
                  or at a chessboard with a desire to provoke
a telekinetic pandemonium.. x-men apocalypse and
all that ****** imagery...
                             it's odd... but it's just so...
the English had an idyllic life,
                                      as any island dwellers might...
which is why they don't like impractical problems...
because they blabber about practical solutions,
to practical problems... that never get solved,
i.e. engrossed in more politics than anything:
the English have no ear for philosophy -
the mere word frightens them should anyone admit
to being the stated adherent: for god's sake,
the Scots are perceived as barbarians with the
deep-friend Mars bars (and pizzas) - but Hume
rang the eardrum in Kant's ear... and wallah!
a new chapter... Locke? only Darwinism,
popularised with images, as they say:
best leave these skeletons in the closet.
                             what am i working up toward?
well... it's a bit specific...
                                     first... the easiest proof
of solipsism... a crowded train... someone farts...
     guess what... the person who farted is
the only person on the train who appreciates the stink...
            hence: the theory - you like your own -
hence the abstract of the self, competing for a theory,
the self - as an optical itinerary: from head to foot,
from hand to toe - a long list of self-serving
          accomplishments in detailing all acquired
difference...                    but it's not about that...
          for all the reasons that life can become perfect...
at precisely that moment people began to
philosophise -                       and that condemnation
of reading a book on the topic in youth
rather than old age?        well... the glory of old age
is kinda slipping away...    if not now? when?
obviously you might jump the wagon too eagerly...
but at least you'll soon realise how
    a philosophy book (excluding Plato) can actually
help you in forming a dialogue -
                       i think that's what they teach primarily,
the art of dialogue... not the art of persuasive speaking
(rhetoric) - but the art of dialogue... after all...
   Plato... right? all dialogue...
                                  and they do: it only takes one book
in this literary region, i became convinced of it
after only being introduced to the subject area quiet late
in life (21)...        prior to that? fiction and poetry...
   and science... nothing else...
                              like a fish to water...
the necessary 21 years of strain having avoided the subject
(not on purpose, mind you).
                  yes, a glorification, why not?
     it's because these nonsensical problems arrive
as a reflection of a defence mechanism...
     the English don't like "too many words" or
the continental verbiage they coin as the psychiatric
phrase word salad - precisely because, sometimes,
language is not about entertaining someone with
tragic choke-jokes and songs...
          great singers, great comedians,
   great engineers... but in this field? obnoxious *****.
  the English are the first instigators of
     enshrining a quicksand pit of a person's
esteem in his ability to use and comprehend language,
primarily because they can't comprehend
the complexity of language being thus expressed
they immediately conscript against him
    this... odd... quack-wacky need to teach
the person in question refer himself to the Jane Austen
clinic of correct language parameters -
            nothing beyond! nothing foreign and
original! we need novelists who only travel in
straight lines (preferably on a Benelux plateau)
        and never dazzle with a tarantula bite of
disorientation (akin to the cut-up method)...
        and you will find that the English are primarily
concerned with making people suspicious of
   their sanity... strange... i once had a work-horse
work ethic and that became undermined,
                       then my use of language became undermined
because, as already stated: the English don't
do impractical things with their thought:
                it has to be practical...
like the Germans and time... everything has to be
efficient... or the Japanese and space (*******
cardboard sized hotel rooms)...
                             which brings me to the point of my
original intention:
                 deleuze's and guattari's searching ambition -
the anti-oedipus, or: body-without-organs...
             in turn the dark ages of Cartesian thinking (in England)
or how            mental health is somehow a lesser
   health to physical health -
                 sweat... and exocrine glands v. endocrine glands...
    <yes, telegram mode, precursor to a detailed
        explanation>
                                i'm just proposing what i dare believe
to be a thought-object, or more precisely a
             thought-***** -
                    no point looking for a shortcut with this,
      it's either the sort of verbiage compound you'll
reason with... or you'll treat it as *******...
                     as ever, whether that's investing in
a gym membership and a suitable diet...
         you won't get the ****** six-pack on your torso...
  this concept is reserved for what i find problematic
in mental ailments - which, in turn... somehow,
"miraculously" translate into physical ailments -
           but of course, amputees get the priority seats
in the eyes of every Jack and Dolly... because it's easier
that way...
                        my back-reading in psychiatry? well,
it's not exactly limited... on the plus side -
a theory is nothing more than a placebo trial -
                   you're not thinking about it being effective,
that's the default point of applying thinking where
pharmacology cures are pretty crap and its side-effects
catastrophic... and talking therapy ends up being
a monologue with a table filled by notes with single
words on them and being asked: to identify their meaning...
anyone who has experienced these practices
can also say: i'm actually conscious you're making me
feel like a ******* ******... you've just insulted my
intelligence... and i'm back to square one at kindergarten...
   have you ever watched you-tube frustrations?
well... a thought-***** has nothing to do with
    that map of the brain...
                                feeling goes here,
  seeing goes here...             a mash-up and a mess akin
   to the map of the European union...
          because some rich boy scumbag drew it
in crayon at the beginning of the 20th century means
it has to be right...
                                  but if i treat thinking as a thought-*****,
i know how the ***** works...
            a heart is a muscular pump...
  the stomach is a digestive acid swamp...
                        the esophagus is stretch-armstrong...
should i feel guilty writing about this?
          should i? touchy subject? well... you won't
find any pills around here... well, apart from the sleeping
pills... they're sacred (to me, at least, as if the bourbon,
but that's my private affair... you walk down this
route: it heals me... not necessarily you) -
  this is to simply end the whole pseudo-Cartesian dichotomy
of philosophy popularised by psychology and
psychiatry - for these two areas are bound to simply
popularise philosophy... and given that most people
don't read a book in that area... it's easier to manipulate
people in therapy with the knowledge passed down
from on high.
                                       and it's there...
the dichotomy parallelism is primarily due to the fact that
most people think of the brain with two categories:
a. when physical pain strikes it (a headache)
and b. when physical pain is absent (with what ease
    they think)...
  the problem lies in the perception of b.,
most people can conceptualise that there's something
deeper than the raw physicality of things...
i do remember times when i encountered that
ease of thinking...
                                        i experienced it...
it was there... ****, i lost it... but that provided me with
an un-inhibitory trance of a writing capacity...
   the question is... how can merely thinking be painful?
most mental health problems never ask this:
thinking is painful...
                                      isn't that what most melancholics
state, but with a more emotional language of
feelings and emotions?                  
             if the thought-***** is damaged...
then all thinking coming from this compartment of the brain
will be painful...
                               so what sort of paracetamol
do you take? it's not as easy as being prescribed
high-blood pressure pills...
                                      popping pills like that
you're only escaping a conscious moment of what
an automated ***** feels

marvel at the complex-pattern
painting such a span of swirls
light-panels less than shimmer
in the afternoon shadows on the wooden kitchen-table
biggest fear - your leaving


1.
beautiful summer-days lost in your eyes
oblivion dances like a wily-***** at hypnotising fire-licks
from our languid-bed, I'd lazy-feed you lox-on-crackers
and everything you liked
heaven never had it so good

........................till

woke up and *you weren't there
where'd you go to?
no letter, no call.. for days


2.
to overcome this fear
I brought in a  b-i-g-g-e-r  one
that used to drive me to serious-pitfalls in the past

off to the exotic pet-shop, my toes marched me
and I got one - very toxic thing on legs
without a natural terrarium

once home, I set it free
I set free.... my biggest fear
        to blot out your absence
        to overcome your presence
        to forget you

it crawled around and made a home
while I hardly breathed nor slept
and moved about on ginger-steps


3.
I kept feeling strands of your hair
          in my sleep
          on my cheek
          inside my cry
and woke to moonlight bathed in sweat

I did not wash your pillow, after weeks now
I bury my face in olfactory-memory lingering
and pine for you, but I see your missing set of keys and..

/ scratch .. scratch /

I hear a sudden scurrying
heartbeat jumps out cage
eyeballs to the parquet-floor

nothing.


4.
I'm getting used to this new pet
and she doesn't mind my breathing
                    oh, I swear she's a brain-scanner
                    when she looks at me that way
                    like she can read me.. through and through

I dare not pet, I dare not touch... ohhhh no!
       I leave her the daily-bowl of delicious, fresh worms
       to find it empty in the evening
I guess, thanks for freedom.. of sorts

one day, I left the window open
as I jotted down some poignant thoughts
at my antique-escritoire
    espied her legs upon the solar-sill
    thought she'd be running... a leaver, too
but no..    
                 she was sunning all her legs awhile


5.
the season's changing.. leaves are falling
crackle of wind in the air

now, I'm making me some coffee in my silver whistle-***
hot, solo beverage to calm my settling-mind
when.. ping-ping.. comes a text
lo and behold....
it is you...

you!


6.
delirium / delirium /
(I'm on cloud-nine... you're coming home tonight..
                                      you love me so much, you say..
                                      made a mistake..
                                       you've got something big to share..

I've taken time to prepare a special-meal.. candles and all your faves
but must pop out quick to get some lox...)


I'm back now, got the stuff now
key in lock
but the door.. jammed by a weight.. of sorts
can't seem to push the ****-door open...
shoving hard, I see........







fear compounded by a minus
simply multiplied
disaster




S T - 4 dec 13

A perturbed philosoper perches precariously atop a pedestal, preaching in poetic prose of the pernicious pitfalls of man's avowal to avarice; as a braindead banker bellows "BUY BONDS!" and boasts boisterously of his brand new Bugatti.

Who am I?
Who am I?
A rebel? A hero?
A monster with blood and bones?
Not one of these things.
A little lion girl, maimed and alone.
A coward, needy and ashamed,
A girl trapped in darkness, begging for a light,
But all she could manage were stumbles through the night.

In the midst of it all, the struggle and fall, I felt my legs give out,
Weak and worn out, I lay in the pit.
For what shall I fight for? This hell? This ****?
Many gathered around and yelled 'you can't quit',
They rattled but could not touch, could not help, for they too are sick.

I heard a gentler voice in the crowd, and I wanted to answer,
But dropped my head in the mud,
With every effort, the pain just grows tenser.

In my heart,  I asked "Who are You?", "Where have You been?" I spat.
Still, You called my name, and cleared the brush and pitfalls so I could get up and walk back,
But I was trapped in a pit,  I was ashamed, without a thought, I sent You away,

Still, You came closer and knelt down to my level so that we were face to face,
"What are You doing?" I bitterly noted, when I saw that You reached for me,
I then swatted your hand and said, "No one tends to these scars, it's too much of a demand".
But you replied; "Not for me, I heal every wound with My love and My own right hand."
So I just sighed and gave into His embrace, what did I have to lose?

With Your hands on my back You picked me up,
You took my feet and set them on a rock,
You breathed into my heart and for the first time, I felt life,
You touched my eyes with your finger, and I saw heaven on earth,
You whispered to my mind, "You can trust Me, Holly.  I am the way the truth and the light"

And in that very moment I knew, I was reborn with the Son,
I walked to the mirror and saw a new reflection, a brave face with purpose,
A lioness who may inherent all of His kingdom under the sun,

And so, this is the end of a testimony, I run down a new road now,
With my hand in God's hand and a smile on my face remembering His first embrace,
Wherever I travel, even in the valley of the shadow of death, I keep a hand stretched out and a heart of trust,
Because My Lord never fails, and already He has conquered all things for us.

And now You're here,
My heart is at rest,
You crushed  my fears.
My life is blessed.
I found the savior,
Praise Jesus Christ.

I will serve you, great God,
For the rest of my days.
For what life can become,
Living for Amazing Grace!

Till kingdom come,
Till kingdom come,
Glory in the highest,
I lift up all praise,
I will love You forever,
My Lord and His Son.

When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty,
He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him,
He shot the white-browed mountain tiger,
He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye.
Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles,
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.
...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's thunder
And that Tartar soldiers perished in pitfalls fanged with iron,
General Wei Qing's victory was only a thing of chance.
And General Li Guang's thwarted effort was his fate, not his fault.
Since this man's retirement he is looking old and worn:
Experience of the world has hastened his white hairs.
Though once his quick dart never missed the right eye of a bird,
Now knotted veins and tendons make his left arm like an osier.
He is sometimes at the road-side selling melons from his garden,
He is sometimes planting willows round his hermitage.
His lonely lane is shut away by a dense grove,
His vacant window looks upon the far cold mountains
But, if he prayed, the waters would come gushing for his men
And never would he wanton his cause away with wine.
...War-clouds are spreading, under the Helan Range;
Back and forth, day and night, go feathered messages;
In the three River Provinces, the governors call young men --
And five imperial edicts have summoned the old general.
So he dusts his iron coat and shines it like snow-
Waves his dagger from its jade hilt in a dance of starry steel.
He is ready with his strong northern bow to smite the Tartar chieftain --
That never a foreign war-dress may affront the Emperor.
...There once was an aged Prefect, forgotten and far away,
Who still could manage triumph with a single stroke.

HWilliams

Foot to sidewalk, cement to shoe
     step to song beats or give beats to silence.
            Step with feet tired from too much tread,
                   guess I'll walk on hands instead.
                         beat to song, gust to mast
                             sound of travel, its own song.
Foot to sidestep pitfalls or potholes,
     skip steps get applause for pratfalls.
            Step to pulse and make hearts skip beats.
                   Take bow, step outside, sidewalk to feet.
Door to frame
     button to lock
            ignition to key
                   motor noise, engine block.
Radio, radiator, radius, ulna
     cylinders under hood
            cylinders filled with soda
                   serpentine belt squeaks, fix it you should.
The car is no Chevelle,
     but Chevelle's in my speakers
            keep pace with traffic well
                   "learn to choose to breathe."
Stuck behind brake lights
     as soon as headway is made.
            Sigh as loud as music plays
                   click volume arrow upright.
Anger builds when traffic fills.
     Stomp throttle or else you'll throttle someone.
            Throw insults like a mime in summer,
                   lip service they might see in mirrors.
Can't point at points A or B
     trace stress to line that traces in between
            Between the 2 spaces where my car parks
                                      mile markers, tail-gaiters, nail biters.
Foot to sidewalk, cement to shoe
     step to song beats or give beats to silence.
            Step with feet tired from too much tread,
                   guess I'll walk on hands instead.
Foot to sidestep pitfalls or potholes,
     skip steps get applause for pratfalls.
            Step to pulse and make hearts skip beats.
                   Take bow, step outside, sidewalk to feet.

A path seldom walked, it seems, overgrown by the broken
Things of this world, scattered here and there ,
Threatening to remove clear light found so deep,
So bright, at its destination end.

Where I am called, I think, by the divine, heavenly
Counsel above, to wait for feet which soon will
Tread upon this trail laid from foundation of
World, created for this moment, this meeting Divine.

So I wait, upon a bench of prayer, placed along side
By spiritual hand, knowing by chance encounter,
Laid out from beginning of time; I sit, I pray
Encounter living God, nourished by His Word,
His plan—His hope, makes mine!

I notice now, that here by bench upon which respite
Comes, paths diverge, goes every way which
Feet may trod, while still I sit, and pray, and
Wait, as those go by, no connection still, He
Enters in, through Spirit, Holy, divine!

One path is huge, and easy staggered down, no resistance
Found. The way that many want, of comfort,
Ease it seems, yet leads only to the stagnant
Waters of this world, of brokenness profound,
A bellyful of emptiness offered all around.

Others not so wide, not so easy a stroll, yet still leads
To pitfalls, shattered lives, cracked, ruined,
Destroyed. Leads to defeat, but to the feet
Walking along, not so easy to see. But lives
Crushed are offered on its way.

So, still I sit and watch, wonder why I’m here when
All surrounding me, people go, not realizing
He has put me here, as a guide, knowing path
To blissful life, a heavenly price, a toll, already
Paid by One that came, is yet to come.

I see the path, some take, bright light upon their lift-up
Face. Cool breezes of rest, refreshment, come
Tumbling down. I want to scream for all to
Take, but heavenly hand tells me to wait;

Something inside, it stirs my soul, speaks so clear,
So encouraged to my heart; a spark of His
Reflection consumes my desires, my dreams,
And makes me only His. Time is soon, I
Know—I watch with His given eyes.

I see a soul, so lost, so broken, alone, come staggering
Down this path of life upon which I’m called
To sit; to pray; to wait. I gaze upon this life—
A life of knowing defeat, without hope it
Seems—my  heart breaks as does His.

A connection made, as eyes meet, mine full of life,
Comes from Him, with eyes that know no
Peace, no calm, no serenity; eyes that are
Searching for meaning and purpose, and
Above all else, unconditional love!

The One speaks to me, my soul responds, as slowly I
Rise from this bench of mine—I seek this
Lost soul, to find a connection only He can
Provide—to walk with, to guide, to hopefully
Choose this path of life.

This lost soul, a boy so young, so broken still,
Misses the path I so long for him to take,
Choosing death, destruction, empty promises
Of Prince of this world, whispers seductively
Into his ear; he listens—Treachery!

But still, the One speaks to me, prods me to go down
The path with him for just a while. I’m scared!
Assurances come from up above, that His
Guide, His Spirit, will accompany us as we
Seek, we see, what brokenness this world offers.

I realize now, this path divine, as I look around, take
In, learn; this path can be found all along this
Path of life. And so I’m called to walk alongside
Those who do not know, who will not find, unless
Drawn by Spirit divine.

So I walk for now with this lost soul, on a journey of life,
In hopes that He will use me to introduce to path
Of heavenly hope, of lives made clean. He chooses
Wrong path now, but, oh, the hope of broken one
Discovering that path divine.

What if there was no light,
No inclination to fight,
Mountains, all feasible to climb;
To be in anyplace, and anytime.

What if love was a verb,
No pitfalls, no feelings to curb,
True loves lost in abyss,
No one to meet nor miss.

What if death was avoidable,
and people weren't exploitable,
Earth as Eden;
No sin, no wrong, even.

What if sadness was eliminated,
No choice debated,
Just action, speaking before thinking,
Leaving all people sinking.

For death is still a shadow,
The bite-mark is in the apple.
Love is fate,
ships of sadness and pain:
Humanity as the first mate.

Always surrounded with quandary and question...
But one thing yet to mention:
Eliminate all questions of "what if" in mind,
Then there shall be answers to find.

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.

Quick! Call the poetic constabulary
I'm mincing words about my vocabulary
Help! I'm drowning in my thesaurus
evidence that i'm merely a brontosaurus

Listen up to my Greek chorus:
"Such silly word play should place her in poem prison
a ponderous place from which few have risen
Locked in the cell, losing her sense
consequence of writing with no poetic license"

Writing on with no reason or rhyme
just doing my poetic time
iambic meters bite me in the ****
trying to force me out of my sonnetic rut

stumbling on ideas most trite
all the pitfalls of making the choice to write

I
--
The LORD is asking, “Do you trust Me, child?”
And surely He is worthy of all trust,
but visceral reactions oft’ seem just
in keeping soul’s anxieties well riled.
While panic, shame and dread stir doubting winds,
obsessive, tight, compulsive thoughts pour fuel
into this downward spiraling boil of gruel
where toxic interactions breed more sins.
So for relationships I feel unfit,
and now old interests die and pleasures wane,
as each new hope in Earth’s good brings fresh pain,
where dark depression’s presently my bit.
Yet in this wilderness I hear God call,
“Child, look to Me. I am your ALL in all.”

II
--
I meditate upon the word of God
to heal a mind that’s broken from the fall,
and lying in morn’s bed I now recall
the former paths of fullness I have trod.
I clear the course of tangling debris
that fogs perspective’s distance-viewing sight
and clogs the narrow way which lets in light,
so with God’s truth I’m able to agree.
I gaze toward the future that is sure,
to glory that is promised out of trial.
I push through lying voices of denial,
rememb’ring my inheritance secure.
So healing first begins by sizing scope,
for in true measure I can grasp true hope.

III
---
Long sheltered in the recesses of mind
on pedestals that overshadow truth
are lies which I have entertained since youth
like tape recordings stuck on forced rewind.    
There‘s something of appeal in misbelief,
some comforting, perverted, dressed-up face
which keeps foul strongholds rooted into place
and lets such rotten seedlings harvest grief.  
But I must choose to undermine their message,
uncovering deception’s hidden lairs
whose cultivation grounds for growing tares
leave roadblocks to integrity’s safe passage.
God’s probing, piercing words—what precious gifts!—
can excavate, expose and extract myths.

IV
---
I apprehend these truths in David’s psalm:
“I’m fearfully and wonderfully made,”
and all my days of life are firmly laid
within the sovereign care of God’s own palm.
And yet another voice keeps creeping out.
“You’re too unfit for blessed community,
hence from belonging full immunity
is your dim lot,” says paralyzing Doubt.
For ‘gainst the Word that says I‘m rightly hewn
rub all the bristling edges of myself,
but would one set forever on a shelf
a Bösendorfer piano out of tune?
No, value is a function of creation,
and He who made has promised restoration.

V
--
Restoration’s anchored in redemption,
and my redemption‘s grounded in God’s love.
Nowhere in far reaches man has thought of
could mind unfurl the breadth of such conception.
Sloshing, hesitating in the shallows,
I wander close to shore in Love‘s vast sea.
Then from the swell I hear a coaxing plea
to dive into the deeper wake of hallows.
What‘s this weight that pins my frame from racing
toward His unknown billows of delight?
Do I not trust that He will clasp me tight,
help me bear the fiercest waves I’m facing?
What guile of devils am I heeding here
which keeps me bound by paralyzing fear?

VI
---
Disheartened by my want for firm resolve
to swim toward agápē’s unplumbed depths
for int’macy with Him who paid my debts—
the only One from sin who can absolve,
I wander, wond‘ring what I’ve missed to see
within my comprehension of Christ‘s love
when He would vacate majesty above
and suffer cruelest death to set me free.
They stripped Him, flogged Him, spit, pulled out His beard,
then pressed a crown of thorns down on His head.
They nailed Him to rough cross to leave for dead—
Creator of the world now by it jeered.
In love this traitor by her King was served:
Christ Jesus bore God‘s wrath which I deserved!

VII
----
Considering what labors Christ performed
to buy my freedom off sin’s slav’ry block
that of His fullness, with Him, I could walk
in resurrected life (not just reformed),
can I not trust that He will see me through
each trial, tribulation, sorrow, loss
when He would not forsake me at the cross
but carried all my grief and suff‘ring too?
And just as death‘s cold grave could not contain
my Savior but gave way to watch Him rise,
whatever loss my path has to comprise
shall work for me eternal glorious gain.
So while my courage may still be in lack,
the settled thing is there’s no turning back.

VIII
-----
Wading through fresh tidal pools of mercy
along a piece of coast that‘s not too wide—
among the crags and caves where stragglers hide,
hoping to evade crowd controversy—
I know I‘ll have to move on before long.
But in the warm meanwhile of the day,
I kneel to rest; and as I start to pray,
my heart begins to open to a song—
a gentle, soothing lullaby I’ve known
sung to the tune of ‘Eventide‘ as hymn,
reminder that this life is fading, dim
but that in Christ I never walk alone.
And as I raise the words, “Abide with me…,”
here comes my Shepherd, walking by the sea.

IX
---
What now is this waylaying, sin-sick soul?
Diversional winds from cliffside descend.
Where‘s pressing fire my devotions attend?
Brain‘s robbed of sanity, sleep, self-control.
Jesus comes near numb heart in distraction
and bids me again to clean deadwood out.
Jesus, I‘m desperate, drowning in doubt!
Help me expel what‘s needing subtraction!
Discipline, prudence, wisdom, contentment
can work to restore both body and brain,
while worship will lift locked heart from restraint—
its untethering from woe’s resentment.
I won‘t, without wisdom, taste truest Love,
yet Love holds true keys to wisdom above.

X
--
Mottling mind’s hazed subconscious sockets—
bedecked by ego’s restless crave for fill—
infections grow to permeate my will,
ladening, with dross, affection‘s pockets.
Foul seepage soon coagulates to plaque,
forces clefts which weaken my foundation,
foments psyche’s stormed disintegration
till half-light’s flushing falls to midnight‘s black.
Yet amid murk‘s rotting, rank confusion
with ev‘ry faculty succumbed to rift,
My Shepherd plucks me fiercely from the cliff,
tending thorn-torn blight with Love‘s ablution.
Healing, though, requires my surrender—
all cooperation I can lend 'her.'

XI
---
Jesus asked a question at Bethesda,
the pool by which an invalid was lain,
for thirty-eight lost years left in his pain—
twisted, timed, tormenting, teared siesta.
“Do you desire to be made well?” He asked.
“I’ve none to help me!” was the plaintive cry,
then Jesus spoke miraculous reply
that to get up and walk the man was tasked.
That’s not to say all healing will be found
within this present life of ills and woes,
but still I hear Christ probing through the throes
if I am truly willing to be sound.
Or would I rather lie on crippling bed,
an invalid of spirit, heart and head?

XII
----
Shuffling through some past miscalculations
surrounding toxic breakage of the vines
that ought secure the healthy bound’ry lines  
guarding interpersonal relations—
rememb‘ring my susceptibility
to ego-shuttled, codependent err‘rs
which strain to manage others‘ own affairs
and so invert responsibility—
I ponder if I‘ll ever grow to learn
proper seeds for sowing mutual trust
with vital tools for gently sanding rust
to help stave off a bondship‘s breaking-burn.
One thing I know, that trusting in the LORD
steers love‘s impetus to carry forward.

XIII
-------
“I’m not enough and yet too much,” I've read.
Succinctly that describes my current angst,
and I can‘t justify to war against
these arguments which whirl around my head.
I’ve been told, “You’re just a little intense,”
by many people, not just one or two,
and this they voice clangs manifestly true,
as gaping holes defect my bound‘ry fence.
Voluminous in content and in force,
bestowing as prized gifts what isn‘t sought
or wanted by those for whom gifts are brought,
I falter in my need to change set course.
And where it comes to giving what‘s desired,
real competence seems found to have expired.

XIV
-----
Someone wrote, “true soul mate is a mirror“—
like limelight they‘ll reveal your unseen faults.
Where no one else delights to search your vaults,
“soul mate“ renders time to be apt hearer.
It matters not, was said, that they don‘t stay,
so long as they‘re an agent for reform—
the one who makes you desp‘rate to transform
by breaking heart and making ego fray.
Danger lies in nuanced underpinnings.
I thought I‘d found my soul mate in abuse
and used “he needs my fuel“ as excuse
to take a twisted game to extra innings.
Here I’ll grant these crazed imaginations
were at core demonic machinations.

XV
-----
Casting down romantic schoolgirl notions
that sin-drenched bonds might fashion souls complete,
I drag bewitching grails to Jesus’ feet—
spurning now to drink past guile‘s potions.
As I linger longer in His presence,
I‘m freshly bathed from marring guilt and shame,
reminded I‘m made whole in Jesus‘ Name—
partaker in the fullness of His essence.
Identified eternally with Christ,
secured by His unfailing love through grace,
one day I‘ll walk perfected face-to-face
with Him from whom true life is all-sufficed.
And as I muse, I taste true heart‘s desire—
rekindling, renewed with holy fire.

XVI
-----
Attitude is prime, determinant hinge
on which the door of restoration swings—
deciding what response subconscious brings
and on which morsels mind should bestly binge.
Plenty is dependent on perspective.
Mountain, plain or valley alter sight 
and size by which is measured present, plight.
Simply switching lens can be corrective.
In Christ, Ephesians tells me, I‘ve been raised,
seated with Him in the heavenly realm—
positioned by the One who steers the helm
that Father, Son and Spirit would be praised!
Worship, like a rudder, sets the outlook
to keep me highly grounded in God‘s Book.

XVII
------
Why should I to the worship of false gods
surrender my outlook frivolously?
Idols grab first gaze notoriously,
rob joy as will‘s defenses yield heart‘s nods.
What then? Can I suppose I might steal back
a measure of exuberance through more
skewed genuflecting to gilt calf before—
itself beleaguered, plagued by woeful lack?
Now heed, wayfaring soul of mine, what‘s true:
Creation‘s bounty-goods will make you slave
and with sweet Siren‘s flutes your mind deprave
when to them you lend focus Christ is due.
Lay firm your eyes on Him—pure, restful bed,
cover, fuel, completer, Fountainhead.

XVIII
-------
Wandering down some cobbled, crowded street,
I‘m nowhere headed, rapt in mindless thought,  
and as I saunter south I happ‘ly spot
a friend long-lost but fiercely longed to meet.
Just up ahead, he’s mixed well in the throng
but might be caught if I push through and race!
Heartbeat quickens. Oh, to see his face,
this one with whom I’m sure I must belong!
Yet when I actually seize him and he turns,
I’m devastated, sunk. It isn’t him.
Then moping northbound—dazed, dejected whim—
I stumble on the One for whom heart burns!
How strange, as I had grappled, chased and shoved,
that I’d been running from the One I loved!

XIX
-----
He‘s reservoir for which parched spirit begs,
familial feast cast heart longs to attend,  
elixir fractured psyche craves, to mend,
secure foundation ‘neath soul‘s skittish legs.
Jesus is hearth fire, garden blooming,
joy‘s kiss that welcomes prodigals with tears,
arms’ tender brawn consoling weak ones‘ fears,
shelt‘ring lullaby as nightstorm‘s looming.
Who else can scatter stars, strew mountain snow,
to whet beloved‘s taste for pristine grace?
What other love’s like this, that He‘d embrace
excruciating death to grace bestow?
And best, most faithful lovers of this earth?—
dull pennies next to Christ‘s resplendent worth!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VOLUME II:
(** — XXXII) [Edited in 9/27-29/21]

**
----
Closing the door on chaining obsessions
requires some short-circuiting of thought
previously allowed to flow uncaught
and forge ever-deepening depressions.
Pathways in my brain can be rerouted
by changing interactions with my world,
observing what’s most easily unfurled—
presently what’s to five senses suited.
‘Mindfulness’ can be a Christian practice
and doesn’t have to rest on Buddha’s shelf—
“awak’ning non-existence of the self”—
or from unseen, eternal things distract us.
True mindfulness is found in gratitude—
joyful, eucharisteo attitude.

XXI
-----
A biblical version of ‘mindfulness‘
is found in 1 Thessalonians 5,
revealing as God’s will that saints should strive
for ever-prayerful joy and thankfulness.
Pond‘rous gratitude staves off resentment,
greed and pride. As was taught to Timothy,
what‘s created and giv‘n by God should be
received in sacred thanks with contentment.
Creation reflects God‘s bounteous glory
and demonstrates His loving grace and care,
so in same grace and glory we can share
each time we recognize Him in our story.
Ten thousand tiny gifts write each day‘s page,
and he who welcomes most is most like sage.

XXII
------
In restoration, elasticity
of mind is a factor to celebrate.
So please don‘t ever underestimate
the wonders of neuroplasticity.
New brainpaths form and old channels falter,
depending on what choices I might make.
Fresh experience of which I partake
will physically help my brain to alter.
Here‘s one great hope I must now remember:
What’s hardwired today can still be displaced,
and thoughts might soon flow on paths greenly graced,
as I feast my soul’s eyes on brain’s Mender.
Bent mindfulness toward Giver and His gifts
best brings joy‘s healing for my mental rifts.

XXIII
-------
Realizations that some obsessions
are desires to vicariously ride
the mindfulness of others who don‘t hide
their own keener sensory possessions,
aptly are aiding to turn my focus
from curiosity to understand
their thoughts, which often‘s led my heart-demand—
want to consume their minds‘ crops like locusts.
What I‘ve perceived as love, concern to know,
empathy for others‘ worlds internal,
might be more escape from mine external—
attempts to hide from life‘s real, present show.
Avoidance wears all sorts of vibrant masks
to keep me blinded to here-moments‘ tasks.

XXIV
-------
Viewing secondhand eviscerations,
as others spill their innards on the page,
may seem the safest way to heart engage—
surrogated life participation.
Substituting others‘ honed perceptions
where I ought learn observance of my own
will keep childlike experience ungrown,
smother creativity’s conceptions.
Social media’s pitfalls lie therein,
along with greater dangers lurking large.
Despite its many goods, there’s needed charge
that gorging on a good thing leads to sin.
Shutting website windows is like trailhead,
opening mountain path to higher tread.

XXV
------
I‘m learning to sit with anxiety
raised by self-denial of habit’s fix,
mindful how my heart solicits tricks  
to alternate for true society.
Discomfort speaks in volumes to soul’s ear
like smoke alarm alerting to a fire.
It tells me, “Quick, investigate! Inquire!
Please find the source of inner burning fear!”
Nervousness as friend might offer insight
if I can hear and listen to its warning,
objectively without the shame-filled scorning
that tends to follow panic-stricken plight.
Practice putting tension in glass cage
to monitor its undercurrent’s rage.

XXVI
-------
It’s time to preach a sermon to myself,
for fears are overtaking me in waves;
and spirit must combat what habit craves—
flesh seeking consolation in false pelf.
Scrutinize what’s underneath such worry.
Do I believe the LORD is still in charge
of details of my life and world at large?
Look to Him. Don’t yield to anxious hurry.
Do I believe He’s with me and He’s good,
a faithful Shepherd tending to each need?
Then look to Him. Don’t drown in fretting’s greed.
Christ’s sheep don’t have to look elsewhere for food.
Each wait is opportunity to grow,
for God has holy riches to bestow.

XXVII
--------
God’s character and sovereign wisdom hem
my life, as His responsibility.
No wrong will steal my true identity,
whatever slips or schemes might spill from men.
Christ’s Ruler over all, but do I let
Him fully reign as Master in my heart?
Do I acknowledge I’m His work of art
and purpose for His hammers, chisels get?
Intimacy and glory are the friends
to which His sanctifying lessons point
and meld together as love’s dovetail joint
whenever I surrender to these ends.
Soul, set your hope on grace to be revealed.
Entrust to God strain’s mysteries still sealed.

XXVIII
---------
LORD, HELP! Why is my mind so distracted?
And why then, letting it be drawn away
for half an hour, am I now okay
to let my compulsions be retracted?
Give in to let go feels like solution,
but know it only deepens the desire
for later curiosity‘s inquire—
grants no satisfying resolution.
Those thirty minutes mindfulness was lost,
yet could it be empowered by the fall,
as I look closer inside to recall
that giving way to habit bears great cost?
I won‘t grow discouraged by the setback
but seek to further understand self‘s lack.

XXIX
-------
Low-pitched, humming anxiousness was sitting
all day inside my torso‘s cavity.
Mindful sensing lent no gravity
to coax the stubborn squatter through outwitting.
Head was tired from too little sleeping,
so frankly seemed to coast and just make do.
Soul felt no fresh excitement by woods‘ view
and lacked bright energy for much guard keeping.
One moral of this story is night‘s rest
must become priority for healing.
Otherwise this shaky default feeling
will grow into another panicked crest.
Though it‘s no excuse to say I‘m tired,
it‘s clear reformed sleep habits are required.

***
------
Changing what’s practical opens a door
to transforming what’s spiritual, mental
and emotionally experiential.
Habit alterations might well restore
enough equilibrium of body,
restfulness, clarity, reason and time
to give me needed aid to better climb
above oppressive moods, both low and haughty.
“Early to bed, early to rise...”could be
one thing to make a world of difference
and welcome back some simple common sense,
to open up new space for setting free.
But for that discipline to take effect,
I’ll also have to curb the internet!

XXXI
-------
Every opportunity for worry
is greater opportunity to trust
that God behind the scenes is sanding rust
from parts of me where fear has made faith blurry.
Without unknowing-gusts to stir the pit
of nervousness inside my helplessness,
I might ne‘er seek my Shepherd‘s faithfulness
nor learn to wait on Him and with Him sit.
These are times of richest growing lessons
when I‘m reminded He is LORD, not me,
and that He works to draw in int‘macy
feeble souls to Him through stretching sessions.
Joy is knowing sure—head, heart and will—
He‘s ever whisp‘ring, “Child, come closer still.“

XXXII
--------
Recapping basic steps to take thus far:
Find sleep (which may mean need for melatonin
to counteract my haywire serotonin),
and overuse of internet I‘ll bar.
Then with restfulness bring mindful thinking—
keen noticing that‘s graced with gratitude
and sets a stronger skyward attitude,
buoys me up against fret‘s downward sinking.
More important still is meditation
upon the word of God‘s indicatives
which lay foundations for imperatives
to follow as prescriptive medication.
Most crucial element preventing fall
is fix my eyes on Jesus through it all!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spiders sprinkling down a crooked spine

Can you hear the whine of a brain stem dying

One hundred and eighty days of pain

have metamorphosed this corpse into something deranged

mangled and tangled in webs of perception

razor-sharp enough to cut straight through the gut's deception

and when the vile heart succeeds in silencing the eyeballs

emptying the sockets of life-long pitfalls

maybe the spine-spiders will finally commence to release

the good soul that remains trapped inside this tree.

Grow tree, grow, for you are all I have ever known,

If it weren't for your protective shade, who knows where I'd have been blown.

You may be covered in cobwebs and leaves long decayed,

but I'll keep my promise to save you someday.

You may not grow to be the big oak of which you dream,

perhaps you will end up as kindling in the fiery gleam

of a thousand spiders cremating in my hearth

as I look on, a corpse consumed by an angry spark.

Lovingly your ashes will be placed

beside the oldest river, the one you once graced.

There will be no more spidery-spinal veins

to screech and rattle and bring about the worst pain.

Changelessness is not a virtue, a concept you most despised,

in the spidery spinal tree's search for life of a better kind.

and i trek'd through the pre-dawn cold
skating along the rail tracks,
to boulder jumping a ravine
                   (where were Japhy's ducks to guide?)
and into a deaden'd grass field.
tapping tip of foot to avoid watery pitfalls
while flanked by rusted railyard
and ****-addled recreational plot;
cat ****'d chemical smell wafts from as
December's north wind fights a toothless perverting force.
the macadame is barren as rainfell desert
and the animals propel by combustion
in effort to scavenge Capitalism's ****
                   predawn
'fore the burliest awaken with hunger.