Always.

Undying.

When the world come crashing upon you
you expect it to be loud in a morbidly epic sort of way
but to the contrary, when it really does crush you
it is silent.

I confess, I've spent many a flight
of fancy imagining what my personal apocalypse would be like.
I pictured time to warp into slow-motion
but above all I hoped I would be standing on top of the debris.

None of that played out.
When the last knot that ties your life together is undone
you can only watch and relish the numbness that paralyzes even horror.
You rationalize in your mind and when it doesn't compute, more silence.

I made my way through the hallways and down the stairs quickly
I could hear my heartbeat exploding in my ears
but most of all I wanted to stare at the sky in private
and hope rain would fall.

I looked for a tree in the park, one with enough girth to hide me
and sat under it where dead twigs, bark and leaves littered.
I stared at the green grass and the great clouds sailing above me
and wished that this beauty I'm looking at is all that mattered.

I wanted, needed time to stop. Instead
time went by faster than ever.
I knew I wouldn't be able to pick myself up
fast enough to catch up.

Because life's not like that.

The wind blew harshly, ceaselessly, coldly.
It helped to freeze my fears and dry my tears.
When you finally lose it all, you're only inconsolable for a while
then, a shroud of stillness comes to match the silence.

I cried for an hour under the tree,
until I'm sure the weather's trying to kill me.
Crows flew across the sky. I wondered if they were carrion birds
looking for something dead, like me.

I didn't want to go back home and I had but a few dollars in my wallet
not enough for a motel or even a bar of chocolate.
So I went back to my apartment, where waiting are my friends.
I stood a long while in the landing, making up stories for lying.

Underneath the tree, I was more alone than I've ever been,
more unhinged than I ever imagined.
God is wise. He made us so we would never die
of heartbreak but for me, it might be too late.

Pathways.

Knowing your place in the world is half the battle
the other half is to embrace it.
The eternal question of one's raison d'etre
preoccupy the minds of the restless.

A man in searching, travels
A contended one occasionally ponders it
A happy man stays at home
but a lost one, he is a prisoner.

Disdain

I used to think you and I share an understanding
of what it means to be dazzled by light
as seen from the depths of an abyss.
Reaching out to the world above.

When the dark seeps into my marrows
I reassure myself that you feel it too.
When my nights seem endless
I believed that you too were sleepless.

Time unraveled the cocoon I've spun
over my eyes and now I see they're all lies.
Don't fret I do not blame you
I realize now you were never my consort.

For awhile, the confusion caused me turmoil
and I was spiteful and inconsolable.
Now I see clearly, truly,
you're not understanding, merely condescending.

Blackhole

I now know how poisonous heartbreak is
it cripples your mind and weakens you.
Your thoughts swirl with the elusive pain
giving the illusion that nothing is wrong
when everything is.

Taking the edge off by drowning yourself
in whatever that numbs your senses or otherwise
set fire to it entirely. As long as you don't feel
that acute awareness of hurting. You're so withdrawn,
each heartbeat explodes in your ears.

I have never known you to be cruel but you actually are,
just not intentionally, which makes you infinitely more so.
I don't think you realize that  each time I come to you
I give it all up. Each time, in complete surrender
I let you caress my crystal heart.

In fear that one of its many cracks growing
of it completely shattering, I bare you my flawed existence.
I tremble when you sigh. Your dissapointment
suffocates me. I silence my cries when you turn away
and pretend to leave me. It kills me.

I stand before you today to ask for one last favour,
that you never say my name again. Don't even whisper it.
Not in your dreams, not even in the muted privacy
of your solitary thoughts because each time that you do,
it echoes through the universe and finds me.

My silence.

Time and again I regret words I've spoken
they hung in the air, alone and bare.
In my head I play constant revisions
of things I wish I've said differently
but more importantly, more honestly.

Most of the time, meanings are left behind
for my half-utterances are half-truths.
I do not mean to side-step when questioned,
just an impulse born of this fragility I'm sanctioned.
My world is small, what intrudes stays for good.

If I do not say much and it hurts you
do realize that my silence is my strength.
What little I have shared with you
if it's not enough or worse, offends you
I apologize but realize my silence is just a disguise.

In my dreams I show you a great painting
that bare to you all that I want to say.
You run your hands over them where lay
all my truths, all my feelings.
Before it we stood and embrace in silence.

Rimbaud

I stumbled upon Rimbaud
and his lunacy entranced me.
But then I discovered blasphemy
and it disgusts me.

But Rimbaud, upon your last hour
you  repeatedly whisper 'Allahu karim'!
'God is generous'.
Did you finally see?

Your renouncing poetry and your
wayward-life.
was the travelling in search of Truth?
Of you, too much is mystery.

But you taught the children the Qur'an
and studied your father's translation.
Am I naive?
For wanting to believe that you too, believe?

Regardless, the elaborate affairs we live
rests in the blessings of The One.
What flowers we pluck in this life
its pollen, this poem everything comes from Him.

The Poet II

What woes a poet bear is his and his alone.
No other in his world ever breaches his trust
that he may put words from his soul to the air
where they sublimate.

Trysts with muses may occur but the poet will withdraw
when the inevitable solitariness descends.
If it is by accident that this universe is lonely
then it is by nature that the poet sees beauty.

He calls Beauty by names in secret languages
and feeds her his lifeblood.
What is borne then into their private atmosphere
is lost to all spare them.

A wordsmith spits fire. A true poet burns, illuminates his generation
guiding them with voices guiding him, sung throughout his being.
Half-utterances dies on his lips and thwarts him
yet on paper he is a paragon.