THROB THROB THROB

Throb…throb…throb….
Hell’s the enchanted museum of logic
Displaying ugly spoils of pride
Cavorting purgatorial bliss of wit
That conspires with the fire inside.
Wickedness of truth trembles
Before the beauty of wickedness.
Flames of glowing fire
Pamper and inspire that spiral tide.
What is it that rolls in silence
Along its silent guide?
We have kissed the shadow of the buried time
We love the wisdom of the sweating rhyme
Throb…throb…throb

Religion is the first cousin of nature
Torn by the wicked hounds of thought.
Truth murders goodness
Evil kills in the name of God
Ding Dong tolls the holy bell
Logic feeds the flames of hell.
Reason is the slave of rationality
Ignorance is the brave muscle of eternity
That beguiles reason
Truth’s the cult of the squirming fire
Faith’s the pride of the yearning liar
Holiness of wisdom that can’t transpire
Throb…throb…throb.

The drama of life is acted
In the salt mines of flesh
Under the bold wilderness
Of the starlit sky
Blue stays the empyrean
Even in the light of the day
Dark despite the glaring galaxies at night
Whirling with the blue of the stubborn dawn
The orange-hued stillness of the dusk moves on.
Why can’t the moon thaw that wrinkled darkness
That unlit stubby fat of the universe?
The stars converse with the soft glow of time
Awake in the desert and its sandy lime
Sand’s the proud posterity of stalwart cliffs
That shines beneath the solemn arch.
Observe the silence of the undulant waves
Listen to the bold song of blood
Summoned from the caves.
The stull of time whispers
Hallelujah!
Throb…throb…throb.

Pain of flesh is alloyed by roborants of paradise
Mind drills its dirge in the constricted veins
What can alloy the anguish of the tortured soul
Why this bit of eternity has to roll in pain?
Why does the song of life
With syllables of abiding truth
Fade within the unlit hole?
Why the fire of hell should mock
The innocence of our unknown goal!
Why should time deprive us
Of our mud born role?
The heart of steel is cool.
Throb…throb…throb.

Humility is the crooked culture of the hypocritic mind
That breeds vultures of goodness
Slays with the sword of truth
Harvests with the fangs of the dragon.
The wriggling genius of the universe
Suckled by the flames of knowledge
Feeds reason the almighty tyrant
The stupid ally of ignorance.
Lies are the burnished heritage
Of the thundering brain
Braided digitally with prudence
Woven by the tail of the serpent
Homeopathic charms of the wrinkled mind
Spawned by the DNA of soul
The zigzag theme of life
Brooded by the history of each cell
That embraces the squirming senators in dark
What legislates the blind constitution of fate
In the blind alleys of the slumbering wave…
Genes the crooked ambassadors of time
Have roots in stillness of the rotting day.
The moment plays dice in the kingdom of flesh
Yet the theme of life stays deep and fresh.
Throb…throb…throb.

Sweat of bones jogs with manna from the blue
The tale of life though old is always new.
Honeyed bliss of eternity in the hallowed moan
Hanoman’s shadowed livery
Is the sweat of the sweet
Transparent in the invisible dawn of history
All twisting paths twist out of Rome
Ungual history of time
Gives toes and fingers to man
Straightens the column
And wipes out the tail
Why do flares stick out
Of the vapory flesh of comets?
What makes the meteorites rail?
Throb…throb…throb.

A terrorist is the rejected
Thesis of the ejected angel
The dolce vita of hatred
Loaded with the shrapnel of bile
Justice is the plea of that wickedness
That tries to avenge
The scorpion will of an unholy claim
The time bomb of ignorance
Roosts with a polished aim
Brotherhood is the slogan of that friendly bane
That wants us to confess our sins
On the mushroom clouds of death that have no rain
Listen to the song of the funeral pyre
Dead music of that lonely choir
The fleece, the chalice, the horn and the moon
Have long been stained by some cursed goon
Down with the plagued fury of that sweat
Down with the claims of that sick desire
Throb…throb…throb.

The pearl diver duns the pearl dug by the fiddler crab
Who will thaw the icicles of guilt
Murmuring in the vestibules of time with an iron tab?
Thermal noise on the jigger mast
Rejoices with the jetsam of the jilted past
Who performs ablution in the pyramids of ash
Hidden in the glory of the silent lash
Thunder growls in the veins of dust
Lightening smiles in the whimpering lust
The hooded hangman hangs hokum in the jaded hash
Watch for the angry eye of Odin
Throb…throb…throb.

Whirlwinds of history
Stump the pirates of time
Feelings converse with the coffined soul
The red blood theme of flesh
Warms the heart for resurrection
White bones nudged by the rays of light
Blue clouds with the din of rain
The moment has hired eternity,
Breath’s the transparent glow of life
Panting in the offsprings of Adam
Deceived by life deprived by death
Eve’s the only hope of mankind
Temptation has the will of fire
Time plays music with the buried lyre
Throb…throb…throb.

Nothing moves better than a
Refined particle of ignorance
Suspended in the orbit of time
Holding the Ark above the baldric
Weaving faith with the parted waves of Nile
Smiling naiveté of chaos
Steering icebergs in the valley of sand
Innocence’s the cult of paradise
Adorned by the early dawn
Beauty is the legend of Eos
Undefiled passion of the soul
Worshipped in the lanes by flesh
Adored by the misty self
Anointing the myth of the bones
Conspiring with icicles on the wrinkled brow
The chant of the time is sweet.
Ulysses’ bow, Rustam’s mace
Achilles’ heel, the sharp-witted Aeneas
Brutus the myth of the British Isles
Hercules the Code of Chivalry
Cyrus the bastion of mankind
Sophocles, Socrates, Plato
Hafiz, Molawi, Tulsi Das, Nanak
Dao and Mao, Gandhi, Roosevelt and Lincoln
All assemble at the feast of fire
Buddha’s summit in the veins of mire.
Throb…throb…throb.

Brooding passion gives birth to sublimity
Humility thrives best in intellectuals fanes
Better die with spark of some bold knowledge
Than waste and rot away in the cold embrace of a humble gain.
Heart is the dour champion of mankind
That refines and defines
The rhythm of the glorious art
It keeps the soothing lore…
It’s the only door
To forests and fire
Water and beast
Stars and time…
Let soul admire and adore
All that has lived and transpired
From the very start.
Long live this eternal ebb and flow
That makes the universe smile and glow
Long live the glory of life
Long live the human heart
Throb…throb…throb.

Mahmood Pervez Alam
2001