IF

With tearful eyes,

He saw her going

A shadow moving away

Taking with it, all life

And in soliloquy he said,

"Had I loved her true,

she would have been mine."
(Published in US on December 19, 2008)

Letter to THE NEWS on the Marriot Attack

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=137388

FROM HIM TO HER

How solemn she seemed
And how grave
Till I stripped her off
Her toughness
And revealed
A delicate her...
As tender as an infant
As light as a frolicsome breeze
Long we sailed
In the silent sea of oblivion
But when tired and consumed
We slept and dreamt
Of each other...
Of our journey...
Of the nothingness residing within us
Of our long futile struggles
The shadows we ran after
Our unfulfilled desires
Our hollow selves
And then the eyes
That one last gaze
That completed us.

A LETTER

As you are now
I wish you had always been
Absent from my life...
For life without you would have been
Much more easier
Far less painful
For though we share the same blood
Our spirits are estranged
Our eyes never meet
Nor cry for each other
Our afflictions are solely ours
And never bother the other
My happiness is mine alone
And has never made you smile
I often think....
When you die, will I cry for you?
Will I mourn your death?
Will I feel a loss?
For even in the world
Our hearts have been foes
Our minds poisoned for each other
You have hated me throughout
And I being a child
Born out of the fluid of hatred
Developed in an unhappy womb
Nourished by a timid amniotic fluid
And fearful blood
With tears shed before my arrival
After my arrival
And throughout my life
I have been a child of misfortune
And could therefore, not love you
But reflect hatred instead
With hatred above me
Hatred below me
Hatred beside me
And hatred inside me
What else could I give you?
How do you feel
Recieving hatred from infant hands
Created for love and cuddles?
A fear on chubby cheeks
Created for smiles and radiance?
How do you feel
Getting denial rather than acceptance?
Stab your heart in some lonely hour
Cut it open and examine it
Is there not a single soft chamber
In this fist-sized stone?
Is it all black?
Blackness comes out of blackness
And nothing out of nothing
So live as you please
A life of blackness and nothingness...

WRITER'S BLOCK

It's jumping in my mind
Vibrating in my spine
Flowing in my blood
Creating a massive flood
Here and there...
It's ringing in my ears
Knocking at my heart
It lingers....
On the borders
Of consciousness and subconsciousness
It reaches my fingertips
I listen to its yearning
And hold a pen
To metamorphose
Thought into verse
But not so soon...
My mind has been locked
It's the writer's block

CANCER

yellow eyes
Overwork
Worry
Pale melancholy
Watery grief
Painful smiles
A tree with roots in the breast
Branches in the liver
Some leaves in the brain
And a heavy black fruit
Called death