My life is two names / Abbas & Hussain
My eyes carry / one destiny
Abbas & Hussain
* * *
I learnt to give my life one rule, watching its years pass
Beyond the fence where two names reside, let none trespass
Hussain’s name sleeps in my right eye, a name none surpass
Look in my left eye, you’ll see guarding it is Abbas
Two names in my heart / never torn apart
Two names of which none need ask me:
Abbas & Hussain
* * *
Beside two names, my place in the world I understood
If I could reshape the world to shape their names, I would
From one I learnt to fear nothing, if alone I stood
From one I learnt to raise my head high against falsehood
One, to me, priceless / the other, selfless
From neither would I ever sway
Abbas & Hussain
* * *
Two names that glowed in my eyes before any I met
I can forget the world, but two names I can’t forget
Perfect yet different like the sunrise and the sunset
If ever one sets, it awaits the rise of the next
A sun and a moon / a night and a noon
No night or day, my eyes just see
Abbas and Hussain
* * *
I saw one like a sun against tyrants had risen
Whilst the other raised the flag of his revolution
They were like one, back against back, against oppression
And when one fell it meant the other’s back was broken
Never torn apart / Two sides of my heart
And the two beats of my heart say
Abbas and Hussain
* * *
Hussain bends one side of my mind, Abbas the other
On one side lies the tents, the other lies the river
I hear one cry forgive me, I couldn’t bring water
The other cries, I’ll forgive you, just call me brother
Safa and Marwa / torn in Karbala
Two names that torment me daily
Abbas and Hussain
* * *
(London – 13/11/13)