He set the world aflame
Maulana Rumi
He set the world aflame,
And laid me on the same;
A hundred tongues of fire
Lapped round my pyre.
And when the blazing tide
Engulfed me, and I sighed,
Upon my mouth in haste
His hand He placed.
-Translated by A.J. Arberry
Unwarned
By Zahra Akbar
Love is a feast
of the unwarned
at a table of thirteen.
Tangent of the
witching hour
by Suhd Nazeer
Just like a rambling mind
you’re that much dear
to oblivion; pale and frail
is all you are, and yet
thy scent knows nothing
of such frailty. The roses
in thy cheek have zest lost
yet your eye has imbued hearts.
Thou art a stranger to perpetuity
mead unknown to the mutinous mind.
You’ll perish like chimney smoke
As rambling thoughts do.
Million steps away
By M. Hamza Rashid
I stare at the sky, so clear and blue.
Birds hither thither fly, without a clue.
And at one corner is a double rainbow.
One is brighter other with a faint glow.
Even in this stature I am still not contented.
What quivers my heart, what feeling’s vented?
What is it that hampers me?
It is you and your memory.
Even after all these days,
We are still a million steps away.
An empty desert, filled with yellow sand.
Would have been enough, for alone I stand.
The sky, the earth, and everything in between;
Seems so wrong, none of this should have been.
It is the wild distance, the difference I perceive.
On that path the farther I go, the lesser I achieve.
What is it that hampers me?
It is you and your memory.
Even after all these days,
We are still a million steps away.
At every sunrise I pray for your arrival.
At every sunset I pray for my survival.
Yet every night you fill my dream.
I don’t know whether to smile or scream.
Wounded
By Mishal Farid
Caged behind the unseen bars ...
Lost in despair,
My skin pigmented , my eyes stoned
My Soul lodged heavily
I wish, oh I wish to wander
Stretch my wings, fly over, fly high
Grasp the wind and reach the sky
But my heart shuttered,
My body imprisoned...
Let me not seek the joy
My feelings terribly getting Punic
And my mind says let it be...
My languid feathers insanely scream
Oh! Let us fall free!
Flaws and woes
By Asma Zainab
People make it all seem so easy.
To make, break and heal again.
And life.
Gracefully countering each one it shoves,
Entering and leaving its various phases ever so smoothly.
Emerging victorious, unharmed and whole.
Here I am, stumbling my way through
And losing a part of myself with each climb.
On my knees, as I barely hold on to my past.
My future, blinking at the end of the tunnel.
Breath ragged, clothes torn.
Changed and weaker each time.
Integral pain
By Shafi Rehman
The integral pain of existence of myself
I need an ailment and someone’s help
I’ve desire to make myself free from this
but where will I find the eternal bliss
The running streams of life and love
and the spiral journey of ifs and buts
The games we play here on earth
What shall we do here after rebirth?
The fragrance of roses and petals
and glorious tales of love and battles
The sound of music and a drop of paint
Who will be the sinner and the saint?
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