Slate

Stop it, dear heart, it’s been too tough already

Stop clinging to fluffy clouds, take one route steady

Stop dreaming the impossible, stop being a fool

Stop ignoring your conscience, stop breaking The Divine Rules

Stop hurting your soul, for intentions non-sincere

Stop accepting games, start reading the signs clear

Stop believing every promise, it’s time to see

Stop following every fake shine, every momentary glee

Hold it dear heart, you don’t deserve to be used

You deserve no pain, how many times have you been abused

Pray for the peace you seek, and refrain dear heart

End your deep ignorance, and a clean page start

A silhouette of a stranger creeping on my wall

Is it you .. death angel ? is it you .. my death call ?

Hiding under layers, I cover my face

I’m still young, I thought .. I had many more days ?!


What about the mistakes ? what about every bad deed ?

The people I hurt .. The Quraan I want to read ?

The charity I forgot to give .. The prayers un-sincere ?

I peek through the blankets, but the vision unclear


Am I leaving now ? Allah, please ?

I’m sorry I was awful .. This moment I seize

Allah, it’s me .. that slave again

I crossed Your borders .. I did indeed sin

It’s me with the red, it’s me with the black

It’s the same old me, the energy I lack

To stand at Your door ..

To apologize once more ..

My tears for You .. of fear, they pour

My forehead for You .. on the rug, on the floor


You saw the worst there is of me

You saw every scene .. even the one by the sea

You were there during the dark .. You witnessed during the light

How did I miss out on Your Power .. Your Might ?

Unveil Allah the blur in my sight

Purify my soul .. my heart turn white

Guide me Allah .. to The Only Path .. right


Leave me not alone .. in this savage race

I don’t want to be left out when they see Your exalted Face

When they drink of the rivers, the milk and wine

When they meet you every Friday and their faces shine

The ‘Mu’mins’ Allah – I renew a vow Divine

the dried leaves
that lay ahead
on the ground
so dead
went rolling
like a silvery stone
down on an icey river
which froze to heal the lone
and to shiver on its own..

From Kaheesha

From Rumi, translated by A..J. Arberry

I made a far journey
Earth's fair cities to view,
but like to love's city
City none I knew

At the first I knew not
That city's worth,
And turned in my folly
A wanderer on earth.

From so sweet a country
I must need pass,
And like the cattle
Grazed on every grass.

As Moses' people
I would eat
Garlic, than manna
And celestial meat.

What voice in this world
to my ear has come
Save the voice of love
Was a tapped drum.

Yet for that drum-tap
From the world of All
Into this perishing
Land I did fall.

That world a lone spirit
Inhabiting.
Like a snake I crept
Without foot or wing.

The wine that was laughter
And grace to sip
Like a rose I tasted
Without throat or lip.

'Spirit, go a journey,'
Love's voice said:
'Lo, a home of travail
I have made.'

Much, much I cried:
'I will not go';
Yea, and rent my raiment
And made great woe.

Even as now I shrink
To be gone from here,
Even so thence
To part I did fear.

'Spirit, go thy way,'
Love called again,
'And I shall be ever nigh thee
As thy neck's vein.'

Much did love enchant me
And made much guile;
Love's guile and enchantment
Capture me the while.

In ignorance and folly
When my wings I spread,
From palace unto prison
I was swiftly sped.

Now I would tell
How thither thou mayst come;
But ah, my pen is broke
And I am dumb.

Tell me, is sugar sweeter
Or He who makes sugar cane?
Beauty of the moon is better
Or He who makes it wax and wane?

Leave all the moons behind
Put sugar out of your mind
In Him another you’ll find
He makes another kind of grain.

O mind you may be wise
In knowledge and insight may rise
Or is it better to prize
He who makes the mind insane?

Body, soul, mind and heart
With power will make a start
Yet in a drop, with art
A hundred eyes will entertain.

Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.

They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.

She may know cove and cape, But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape, She hopes to cut off mind.

Men left her a ship to sink: They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think, For the one more cast-off shell.