Faithless and Faithful

In the bed, pain and exhaustion, our sweat
drips on the body between us- a love
unyielding and still unconformed to hate.
We stay united in the evening like schooling fish.

We walked at the edge of the rocks.
I watched you approach, turned
back to my life away from you-
A purer way through this time spurned.

My heart connects to yours through time and space,
so close I feel the pulse of your jugular vein
If I slip and grab at you again and face
another failure to prevent you pain

then hold yourself in your hands and weep
only for the rapture and hurt of a love so deep.

If sharing you sweetens my love, I should

My love for you chastens me, bitter now,
Acid at my heart, an eroding flood, like bile.
You have shut me away, like Jane Eyre's wife. How
did she burn? Was the heat a trial?

The hands that caress you are not just mine.
Tears drop to your skin from another's eyes.
In soft dreams of your body next to her- I find
my tepid wish for happiness denied.

Jealousy strips the leaves from a green branch
that lacerates like a whip leaves pain.
In my heart I cherish you with faith so staunch.
Still I wish you the pleasures of life. Still. Remain.

Will I share you with other wives in heaven?
Will you leave me, then, rejected and forsaken?

The heavens will be folded up.

The heavens will be rolled up and we will receive our deeds,
and nothing will be there to witness for me save my deeds.
The mountains will float in the air level like the seas.
That day I will receive in hand my deeds.
Heaven and earth will fold up like a scroll.
No pilgrim's word for aid, no friend, just deeds.
To what angels will I give my account?
Who will I pay? Who will demand my deeds?
Will I be in front, blest with Your mercy?
Was that ordained when You, Dear, planned my deeds?
Will I rise to see Your Face in heaven,
On the right, to the heights, and end my deeds?
Will I be cast down, from the left, to hell?
Would You throw me in the fire, damn my deeds?
Bless me, my only Friend! that I strive for You alone.
Bless me, and all with which I stand, my deeds.

Loneliness

Quiet late hours have arrived. Peaceful days leave me dead asleep.
Silence settles in the house. My son lies in bed, asleep.
The days have started to change, yet not solstice or equinox.
Water satisfies. Walking runs out heat. I feel defended, asleep.
Medication gives a conversation about politics a placid look.
Being alone reassures. In the stern lies Jesus, exhausted, asleep.
Poetry has made a fragile cord between us that I can pull.
Fear has become less strange. Will I leave my life unfinished and sleep?
If demons want to lurk in the shadows of every corner, they can.
Just the grave returns me to God's side, to float in the oceans of God's sleep.

Dreams of a cigar band

I dreamt my wedding ring was made of pap'r
and as it warped and shifted in my mind
My dreams of you on broomsticks and in water
appeared within my thoughts in broken time.

A child limits my world to the playground
where you stand apart and stare at me with hate.
In my nights I run away from dogs who try to pull me down
and try to escape from the amusement park too late.

Locked in a world of nightmares and illusion
where imaginations of my heart become a torment
I do not want you adding to my confusion
as my work to be a decent mother stops my movement

toward being a better Muslim. You steal from my peace
and laugh behind another life while my heart breaks.

Deuteronomy 29

The heart's disease succumbs to pride, devastation of my sick heart.
I long for You amidst the distractions of my sick heart.
My secret thoughts turn inward to tear through a veil of light.
Sleep's heat fills me from the fascinations of my sick heart.
Burn and kill whatever worms have eaten away the truth.
Heaven beckons amidst the creations of my sick heart.
My days are laid waste with dissipation and blank despair.
Ceaseless pain drives the imaginations of my sick heart.
If you curse me bless me with mercy. Now I have lost you.
I abhor the sins of my life and the abominations of my sick heart.
Forgive me though not a tax collector, not a prostitute, not a leper.
My faults overwhelm the indignation of my sick heart.

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The curses of Moses haunt me. The thought of heaven taunts me.
Condemn me tonight with the Gideonites condemnation. Heal my heart!
When you give light to me it is like water, like warmth, like breath.
Peace begins after discord, harmony after dissension. Heal my heart!
Help me to abandon all unrighteousness, all sin, and every corrupt way.
Let me work for you threshing the grain like Gideon. Heal my heart!
Give me strength. Guide my feet. Console me at the rivers of your care.
Let me vanquish my enemies with peace, and leave them in devastation. Heal my heart!
Though my enemies surrounding me are more numerous than waves, or blades of grass, let me be peaceful.
Let me vanquish them. Spare me from damnation. Heal my heart!

Not knowing you

Like mountains and dun shores that watch the waves,
and sunrise now evading sunsets rays,
not much more lunatic in life than knaves
I work to bring a monarch a bright day.

You spend your time in strange places unseen,
and fill your bank accounts from outer space.
I do not know what you hide thoroughly-
an unfamiliar but friendly face.

Cars, jewelry, clothes, the gaudy bits of pomp
that I now hold in my large hand so tight
diminish not the joy of this sweet romp.
I can dream of you beside me each night

for as long as the glass holds its glitt'ring glow,
and the small blade breaks the ground from below.

A separate life

This wandering mind looks for You, my Dear One, alone.
Where have You hidden Yourself from me? Here I am alone.
All my thoughts are filled with the futile chase of life's treasure.
Yet no solace proceeds from Your Love in this mirrored hall where I stand, alone.
I can weld my heart to You no more than me in Time's span.
I waste and chase the days without You near, lost and alone.
The places where I once knew and embraced You are forsaken.
I seek for You and search my unclear thoughts lost and alone.
I place my feet at angles carefully so I conform.
My friends look on filled with scorn. My Darling, I lie alone!
A limit reached, I plant my hands to the floor, void and cold.
Is my love waste? My listless heart not clean with tears, alone.
Prayer stays an empty form. Words of scripture offer no help.
I wait as my hair fills with oil, laid on a bier alone.
No coverings of glory are found without Your mercy.
Veils are useless. They tear. I find meaning in You alone.
I could sit under a street light, hidden and quite ashamed.
I could rest unwashed, be watched while I rage, impure, alone.
My heart, my hand, my tongue still all proclaim my love for You.
I spend silent days waiting for You to return alone.
The cycle of months and years begins to fill like empty space
Knicknacks, broken lamps, trash lie amidst a fallow field, alone.
Speak to me, talk with me in friendship, walk near me Dearest.
Your company protects me from hatred and fills my life, alone.
Where can I find you? People degrade me to show their faith.
Hope, kindness, grace, peace, all gone, I wander in fear, alone.

A ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali

Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?
Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight? Those “Fabrics of Cashmere--“ ”to make Me beautiful--“
“Trinket”-- to gem– “Me to adorn– How– tell”-- tonight? I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates–
A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight. God’s vintage loneliness has turned to vinegar–
All the archangels– their wings frozen– fell tonight. Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken
Only we can convert the infidel tonight. Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities
multiply me at once under your spell tonight. He’s freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven.
He’s left open– for God– the doors of Hell tonight. In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed
No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight God, limit these punishments, there’s still Judgment Day–
I’m a mere sinner, I’m no infidel tonight. Executioners near the woman at the window.
Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight. The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer
fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight. My rivals for your love– you’ve invited them all?
This is mere insult, this is no farewell tonight. And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee–
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight. (Agha Shahid Ali)