English Poems

[IamDZJ]

Oft, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
When I remember all
The friends, so link'd together,
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one,
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

The Martyrs Song

Rebel souls dare to bite with sharpened teeth
To rout the arrogant and free their land.
And rebel souls care not their swords to sheathe --
Against the beating drums in lines they stand.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

^ My short ode to my deendaar Pashtuns of all eras that fought and fight occupation whilst we sat and sit on the sidelines. They remain nameless in unmarked graves.

[Zayam]

SOMEONE UNTIED YOUR CAMEL

I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.

I cannot act mute

Hearing the world’s loneliness

Crying near the Beloved’s heart.

Is your caravan lost?

It is,

If you no longer weep from gratitude or happiness,

Or weep

From being cut deep with the awareness

Of the extraordinary beauty

That emanates from the most simple act

And common object.

My dear, is your caravan lost?

It is if you can no longer be kind to yourself

And loving to those who must live

With the sometimes most difficult task of loving you.

At least come to know

That someone untied your camel last night

For I hear its gentle voice

Calling for God in the desert.

At least come to know

That Hafiz will always hold a lantern

With galaxies blooming inside

And that

I will always guide your soul to

The divine warmth and exhilaration

Of our Beloved’s

Tent

--Hafiz 1320-1389 Persian Sufi

[Zayam]

MY EYES SO SOFT

Don't
surrender
Your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more
Deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice so tender.

My need of Allah
Absolutely
Clear.

--Hafiz

[IamDZJ]

Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter,
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
From Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit,
This bleak world alone?

[Alchemist]

Lets face it
English is a stupid language.
There is no egg in the eggplant;
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
And while no one knows what is in a hot dog,
you can be pretty sure it isn't canine.
English muffins were not invented in England;
French fries were not invented in France. We sometimes take English for granted.
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that
Quicksand takes you down slowly.
Boxing rings are square.
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads,
which aren't sweet, are meat.
If writers write, how come fingers don't fing.
If the plural of tooth is teeth,
One goose, two geese.
So one moose, two meese?
Is cheese the plural of choose?
One mouse, two mice; one louse, two lice,
One house, two hice?
Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth
If the teacher taught, why didn't the preacher praught,
Or the grocer groce, or hammers ham?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables,
What the heck does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play,
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
Ship by truck, and send cargo by ship...?
Have feet that smell and noses than run?
How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day
And as cold as hell on another
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down,
And in which you fill in a form
By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
English was invented by people, not computers
And it reflects the creativity of the human race
(Which of course isn't a race at all)
That is why
You get in and out of a car, and on and off a bus.
When the stars are out they are visible
But when the lights are out they are invisible.
And why it is that when I wind up my watch
It starts,
But when I wind up this poem,
It ends.

[IamDZJ]

my love reveals objects
silken butterflies
concealed in his fingers
his words
splash me with stars
night shines like lightning
under the fingers of my love
my love invents worlds where
jeweled glittering serpents live
worlds where music is the world
worlds where houses with open eyes
contemplate the dawn
my love is a mad sunflower that forgets
fragments of sun in the silence

Isabel Fraire

[Digital Malang]

It was her eyes
so alive as they blossomed
like fire crackers,
but her lips curved
sensually
with all the sweetness
of the waiting Venus
with its eternal patience
to lure the unsuspecting,
lost among her honey
dew until the moment
she strikes, prepared to devour.

Flushed among the
vibrancy of her flora,
the foliage she proudly
wears for her crown, she
evokes Persephone's
evocative innocence
among the aromas of her
fertility, elusive the illusion
of her fragility.

She lives within eternities
where time seems held
in suspension, and tenderly
she unfurls within the purity
of raw sensuality which only
reveals when the world
comes to a stand still.

Her secrets kept
behind the velveteen veil
which intrigues without question,
and her thorns stand upon end
in the silent plea for a
taste of the vitality of life
the cherished holy grail
which brings the flush
to her pigments.

[Talal]

This poem is about a real battle fought in 1854, before marching into the battle the six hundred soldiers knew their commanders had made a mistake but still they followed knowing that they were marching to their deaths

Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred...

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made..
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred..

[aftab.yusufzai]

MY EYES SO SOFT

Don't
surrender
Your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more
Deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice so tender.

My need of Allah
Absolutely
Clear.

--Hafiz

excellent one.
thanks ya for sharing.

[IamDZJ]

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

[Alchemist]

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

[IamDZJ]

One day I wrote her name upon the strand
~ Edmund Spenser
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

[IamDZJ]

He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace

I HEAR the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.