I – An Introduction
Let me speak to you of the pen that I use to write
And of the ink that I use to build houses of might
Houses that shall still stand with my burial and plight
So that ‘poet of Mohammed’ my gravestone shall cite
II – A Beginning
Trying to measure my writing with my contemplation
I’d use silence a metaphor for own my reflection
A poem’s soul and its beginning is inspiration
So I’d make a river of what in my mind was an ocean
Then I’d gaze back when my pen had completed its function
And admire as a creator admires its creation
It began with love embedded in the beat of the heart
Yet extracting words from that love was the difficult part
Thinking, I recalled a man who from his house would depart
And the morning of his tragedy was ready to start
I struggled with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
I sleep on my tears and wake on my sorrow
O’ Ali how can I live in this life without you?
Knowing you will bleed from your head tomorrow
Knowing you cried and you bled and I was not with you
How can I stay patient when my heart knows and my soul knows
That Ali, my love, is crying, and from his head pure blood flows
You are the one who moves the skies, the sun, and the one who God chose
You are a lion, you are hope and meaning, you are a rose
But Ali I see through your wounds and scars, your broken heart shows
Ready to meet the sword, and his Lord, to the mosque Ali goes
Were it not for your bleeding and your crying
I would not know that Ali, the lion, is in pain
Without Ali my life is without meaning
My meaning is lost just like fire is lost in rain
III – A Talent
I look back (at this poem), I think, what love so raw yet not in its place
I’ve played with this pen, but this same pen I’m yet to embrace
With a poem, everything must be in its proper place
Yet distorted, yet beautiful, so that eyes can retrace
Each carefully welded word to my heart, its birthplace
Feelings and ideas that tend to transcend both time and space
I thought, for now the pen controls me, I don’t control it
Something the arrogance inside me wouldn’t admit
I pondered on a talent that for now was only moonlit
And I remembered our world that’s only partly sunlit
I pondered with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
O’ my Lord, O’ the One I worship, know my patience has gone
Salman had Ali, Hurr had Hussain but know I have no-one
I look at my life and I think for Mehdi what have I done
I his absence do I have a soul, a heart, no I have none!
The oppressed people crying…the believers are dying…
They need someone to help them and to set them free
Muslims are testifying…they need holy uprising…
They need their saviour, master and Imam Mehdi
IV – An Escape
With writing a poem, you feel your words are jailed
In your mind and you try to make sense of them before unveiled
Are the feelings of your heart, laid out for the world detailed
And man by his words has either fallen or has prevailed
Because a poet’s words once written, they cannot be veiled
So I dragged my mind across pages of time and exhaled
Trying to vision the cries of a young female orphan
And all her heart wants is toward her father’s arms return
She can’t cry out she’s a female, her voice must stay hidden
From men, so I became her voice within words I’d written
So I cried with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
You take all the children… you take all the women
So why did you leave me… and leave my heart broken
You leave me alone here… you leave me with my tears… and leave my heart broken
I wake up to find you have left O’ father
My tears drip down and they flow like a river
Please come back, I ask you by our Creator
I have never been away from you ever
I miss your scent and kiss O’ son of Haider
And my name is the sweet name of your mother
You’ve given me this name… and you I do not blame
Your mother she loved you… and my love is the same
Your words I want to hear… you leave me with my tears… and leave my heart broken
V – A House
Building a poem is no different to houses men build
It’s a structure, yet instead of brick, syllables you wield
Because the mind loves perfection, and I find my mind filled
With a thousand ideas, but it’s all about how you weld
Words how you want them to be, as if those letters you’ve spelled
As if each, every word to follow your will is compelled
And man with talent, isn’t content with one house building
He wants to mix, match, separate, see different things binding
Because a thousand ideas in his mind they’ve been hiding
In my quest for the balance between love and words finding
I shaped ink with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
In the world of love Zahra is my mother
And for her broken rib my tears flow rivers
So don’t ask me why I cry… for Fatima is my life
And for her broken rib my tears flow rivers
In the world of love and tears I find Zahra is my mother
Her love guided me to truth in this life and the hereafter
Her broken rib exposes the true path and her oppressor
All cries for justice learn from her cry between the wall and door
I saw her tears as a sign… that only love can define
Because the hearts cannot find truth till they fall in love with her
Her cries and her tragedy… it touched the soul within me
Till I knew I shall cling to her till death, till the hereafter
VI – An Idea
A light bulb above the head comes a spore from the Lord’s throne
As narrated, words of a poet, before time are known
In fact the poet’s words are not his, they are but a loan
They do not belong to the poet and him alone
An idea’s a blessing, but a true blessing’s to enthrone
That idea upon a perspective previously unknown
And with that in my mind, I wanted to portray the symbol
Hussain in a way that he wouldn’t, because he’s humble
I wanted to craft his name in gold, message in marble
I wanted tyrants to at his revolution tremble
I raised flags with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
Revolutions by this name… this is called love of Hussein
Hussain is a heart not understood by the greatest of minds
This undying flame can never be explained nor be defined
The lives of his lovers toward dust under his feet they’ve signed
Yet still he deserves more the prince of Heaven and of mankind
In death it returns again… this is called love of Hussein
VII – A story
In how many ways can you narrate a well-known story
Yet without taking away its honour and its glory?
A picture says a thousand words, but look to poetry
It paints pictures in the mind where housed is thought and theory
Where emotions are conflicted by grief and by worry
Where told is man to smile, cry or be engulfed by fury
And what better story to tell than the fall of desire
Where haunts a water-less tongue, children’s tents set on fire
Of a valiant heart glaring at those souls who conspire
The murder the son of Mohammed and his women tire
I told this to my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
What heart in his chest? And a strengthened breast
In his hand all moral… learns from him every tale
The night’s shroud beckons as he sits watching their cries
Upon them grips the pangs of thirst and their demise
What does he feel when this is painted in his eyes?
He draws his sword and from one knee begins to rise
If death wants its grace… Abbas it must face
As death must break his shield… learns from him every tale
VIII – A Painting
What difference does a poem have to a canvas painted?
For the painter’s own soul to his canvas he has trusted
He cries when this canvas with his emotions has tainted
Yet when he does he uses these tears as ink and granted
Is the window to a masterpiece his hands have crafted
His canvas wanted his soul, his soul his canvas wanted
And with that a fragile stage of my life I then recalled
When by a man named Ali my own being was enthralled
And when my life needed something, for my name Ali called
And as I gazed upon him a rose, my own heart it stalled
I remembered this with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
I was once left to wander throughout a garden… with red roses it was ridden
I wandered like an orphan… when no heart cared to raise me
Yet with my heart, I felt the roses and wondered… as through this garden I wandered
What if I had surrendered… were this rose to speak to me?
And with that one thought, one rose lying there caught my eye
I gazed at it and I just cried… for its beauty, does not know me
Yet it’s in the palm of my hand… and with its tears it spoke to me
Saying child, I am Ali… I’m here to guide you from your tide, to the safe shores of my mercy
And my heart choked… to me you spoke… what a miracle you chose me… O’ my Haider Ali
IX – An Original
When writing hastens you must teach your pen to be patient
For to write what no-one has written is the true talent
A masterpiece cannot come to be in any moment
When your pen writes gold it becomes immortal, transient
So I spoke to my pen, and we came to an agreement
“O’ pen I’ll use you in both happiness and bereavement”
Then I picked up this pen, when I’d left a beautiful dream
A land where I’d walk on it and like Heaven it’d seem
My soul upset with me for leaving a place it would deem
As its true medicine to its weighty sins redeem
I called Abbas with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
Every time I think of you,
I remember those two draped curtains,
That slightly concealed your tomb,
And that I left it,
With tears in my eyes
I remember that long walk,
Where I stood in neither life nor death,
But in-between, between fate and life,
When words would not to justice to the state of my heart,
Neither would the tears that dripped down my cheeks,
Neither would the poetry I write beyond it.
I remember he who shaped my moral
Albeit with severed hands
But still, no-one had a touch like you
Casting me in a spell of spirituality
Threading through me courage, anger, fortitude,
But a heart pure enough to still cry at your name
I remember your dome,
Encompassing both your honour and beauty,
Glistening against the unimportant beyond that sat above it,
Your minarets,
Not a kings crown, but a soldier’s shield and bow and arrow.
I remember your presence,
That I would gaze at and cry.
X – An Answer
In this world, judged by jealous men is even the good deed
They’d wave away my words before they even chose to read
Some said ‘all he wants is fame, and what he writes for is greed’
Some looked down on me, because I was once a different creed
Some even said ‘he misguides, his words ignorance they feed’
But I never threw my pen, proved that my words can succeed
Some even said ‘his poetry, it holds no real value
All his words do is cry; therefore they hold no real virtue’
These words made my pen stronger, perfection it would pursue
Through the gift that the Lord gave me, through my words I’d argue
I revised with my pen, before I opened it and wrote:
To Mehdi… lives to this hand we present
To Mehdi… how else is the soul content?
In division… in oppression… Mehdi’s nation… wants Mehdi
What is an academic mind… when it thinks without context?
Till his hand is placed on our heads… longs for his hand, intellect
As a theory stays a theory… till his tongue speaks its defects
Until he dictates precision… the mind is left to reflect
And the mind… knows but trial and error
And the mind… this ignorance’s terror
All intellect… every defect… every context… wants Mehdi
XI – An Identity
I look back at what I’ve wrote, not finding myself satisfied
Is it enough to look back and say, “don’t worry, you’ve tried?”
I felt that too much upon history I had relied
The lessons learnt from it, I have never really applied
And my pen had never really, all those tyrants defied
As I sat in Karbala, I picked up my pen and tried
To write a poem, encompassing everything I felt
The fact that my allegiance to my religion had knelt
The fact that my soul the syllables ‘Shi-a’ it has spelt
The fact that with our enemies, my pen has never dealt
I entranced my own pen, before I opened it and wrote:
I’m Muslim and no-one can deny for me that title
Nor can it all the worship I carry out belittle
This, to those who tell me what I believe, my rebuttal
And of an oath toward my beliefs, but a renewal
I’m Shi3i, and no-one can tell me what I should have believed
Because they don’t know about the names that in my heart are weaved
How can it be that by love of this house one is deceived?
When my heart beats their obedience with every breathe I’ve breathed
XII – A Poet
I have arguments with my pen, regarding death’s reality
It tells me, ‘stay with me, we’ll write volumes, poems plenty
With your mind and my ink, we’ll create worlds and visions mighty
Stay beside me, don’t leave, don’t travel to a grave empty
Don’t leave my ink to fade away, when for words I’m thirsty
Don’t leave to a darkened grave and veil away my beauty
I say, because of you, in my grave in comfort I’ll sleep
And smile when upon my gravestone both the young and old weep
I’ll be embraced by my Masters, under that dust so deep
Written on that gravestone words that till my grave I shall keep
O’ who asks define this household… I reply with words silent
Let my tears show them this household… as my tears are defiant
Tears I cry because your beauty… leaves all my heart impatient
As no poet can do justice… to describe a golden chain
* * *
(London – 16/09/11)