Gathering herbs in the fading moonlight
The faded shadow of our muzzled past
The muted vision of our unknown future
Disturbed and awakened
By the mysterious midnight call….
Cloaked in passion the homely lizard
Prowls for insects that hop
On the distempered wall
Dust immortal.
Soft floating vials go humming for blood
There is neither wind nor light
Only the heat that keeps them young.
There is darkness and the rumble
Of agonized clouds but no lightening
Crippled silence…………
The blinking stars stickle in the dark
True imposters courting immortality
Sweating for life in the debris of light.
There is a looming threat
In the yawning sky
Dumb dust with curled plumes
Whispers in the
The echo of the thundering cloud
Echoes with a sound too loud.
Thoughts geared to motion by
The gilded past woe memory
Awakened by a flash of light
Vibrating on cascading emotion
Sweltering in the folds of foam
The bobbing shadow of dead wizards
In mad genuflection courting reason
In the appalling drama of sterile existence
True hatred shines on the stony cheeks
In the frigid lanes
The brown river weeps
Time retarded.
The baboons sing
In the gelded green
The slugs wriggle
Where the flood had been………..
Wild profusion of timeless motion
Sweating in the rusting heath
The gates of hell are narrow
Time precluded.
In the metal veins
The red juice churns
And the blind guide
Prods the young archer
That shoots darts of fire
With its twisted bow……..
The sea and the wind are silent
But the harp of life vaguely plays
And time laughs at bounty
Of our numbered days
Time retorted…………..
God created man
But devil gave him mirth
In the soft shades of Eden
Evil had its birth.
It’s good to be tanned
It’s fun to be warm
Time has no future
It wasn’t ever born…….
It’s one and the same thing
We may think laugh or cry
We never were born
And never shall we die.
Mahmood Pervez Alam
Syllables of Life 