My mourning is never ending… For tears my eyes always waiting
Whenever one Ashura ends… Another is just beginning
* * *
I’ve lost count of how many tears… Have changed the colour of my eyes
But it’s more than the seven seas… And the stars in the seven skies
Each story that tortures my ears… Reflects such familiar cries
I see Hussain in each story… As if Ashura’s in disguise
To me they’re all the same Imam… The same blood trickles down each palm
Fourteen tragedies in a year… Can I ever keep myself calm?
* * *
Soon after Safar has ended… Stars are shaking from a wail
She looks almost just like Zainab… But in her chest there’s a nail
She doesn’t stand chained-up in Shaam… Zainab doesn’t have her title
But like Zainab from the fire… The ash has turned her skin pale
From this darkness, roses wither… As two fires clash together
It’s as if they wanted Zainab… In Zahra they found another
* * *
Not long after weeks of mourning… The rib of the Queen of Women
We find her forgetting her rib… Striking her head in a prison
In a prison darker than space… Where even air is forbidden
Imam Kadhim is wrapped in chains… Yearning the peace of his coffin
Helpless yearning for a helper… Strangers do not know one stranger
Chained to the ground beneath the ground… Even the air is heavier
* * *
Nights where destinies are written… the month of no food and water
We watch the weight of Islam tilt… as demolished are its pillars
I watch the killer of Marhab… and the conquerer of Khaybar
Struck on the head and watching this… reminds me of Ali Akbar
A strike from which the Heavens shook… descends a book, ascends a book
He looks like Ali Akbar and… Ali Akbar like him would look
* * *
The year is spread throughout the Earth… but bends towards the East, the West
Trying to comfort broken graves… bodies of those tyrants detest
Gazing at Baqi’s shattered graves… I recall Hussain’s shattered chest
Like Abbas lying with no arms… they lie without comfort or rest
I see within their tragedies… seventy-two scattered bodies
The air brushes their martyred skin… and their souls sway by them like leaves
* * *
Fourteen tragedies in a year… but there is one greater than all
It sits on Hussain’s lonely chest… long after for help he would call
The years may circle without end… but upon Ashura they stall
And when our tears witness his blood… prostrate upon his neck they fall
Every day I ask if its near… I have waited long for this tear
Hussain’s ten days are a Ka’ba… and around them circles the year
* * *
(London – 21/02/15)