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| Parray Shahid |
I began writing poetry as a teenager and have contributed a number of poems to literary journals published by State Cultural Academy. I also have a published poetry collection "the first few notions (ISBN:978-9381696453)" that was issued in 2015.
1. Change
And among all things, believe!
In change least comfort lies,
Like the first grey hairs that gleam in estrangement,
With so sweet a sadness
It makes our hearts at once both grieve and love.
Long joys yield long love,
And love is love, in beggars as in kings,
Till time too late we make them run
Mad without will, with sad remembrance
For love in itself is but a jest, apt to change.
We wail among the rest, as life works in vain
Where change will master be!
***
2.
it is quite another thing today
today
where is your song
your waiting
for the couched sun
upon that lunging pine tree bough
not a voice is here
not one of all those hymns
soft or shrill
o happy bird
where is everyone
and you
here
I lie in wait
exposed
like a lover
with mild concerns
but resolve
and same faithful routine
and single constant aim.
***
3.
Where else will you find me
If not in the net of my conceit
Masked still among the sort
Of feud that knows not flaw nor break
In its restless hours scoring
I tell you -
In this disease of fantasy, As I
Bend my steps and wander, mute –
The lively sap of yesterday’s imps creeps up
Into the blooming thorns of today and tomorrow
Who could help it?
To not think of the several thousand ways time did pass
The state of things
To my mind most contrary
Never slides all day long ---
It is fire!
It is a grave!
Ever since, when, little knowing
Where it was you went ---
O disturber of my soul!
Believe me, I have endured too long
This bitter state of mine.
Were it not
That I am driven to extremity -- a place
Where none can my pain appease
I’d not complain about what gain I did
At such a price!
If only I could disarm me
And of such a woe waste a little
If but I could rise from my grave
***
4. To Mother
A thought rests upon your brow
And in silence –
Through your dark silken eyelids rolling,
Melts in strange mad glow of your flaming eyes –
Which, partly uplifted to the regardless heavens, slowly move
– almost grandly round in their orbits.
Mother,
You have started from sleep, all new sleep, again?
Or is it not sleep, and just the sable dark night hovering above,
That has left marred the calm of your countenance?
And yet – To the Heaven’s pleasure,
That it may sweep this scourge from your face,
Must you assume the face of an aged dame –
Of hope, what height of madness is this?
Since all alone, Heaven has willed, you die.
O Mother!
Your age is outworn –
And effete to conceive the truth:
“Forlorn you stand -
For one and all, the gods are now departed.”
***
5.
Tonight,
As I lay, pretending
A deep pleasant sleep
The pang seems to abandon me not
I grieve your loss once more;
Again the wasting pain
Clings to my breast
And hangs from my vying countenance;
Tonight –
Come – wake me up – Will you?
And grieve with me again - pretending!
My Rafiiq!
– My Confidante!
***
