In the Arms of an Angel

Dedicated to: [ 18th March 2013: Tayyaba Khan for lending moments to a 2 year old patient of Thalassaemia ‘Mehak’ & to all the Thalassaemia kids striving to get some moments to live ]

With stethoscope & in white coat,
An angel around my bed I see!
I am the child with Thalassaemia
Who never, with anyone, mischief!

When I see kids play outside
In my smile the pain I hide!
Another day passes & in bed I lay
This unbidden pain forever stays!

I count every drop of blood
That trickles down the drip!
Then pages to my diary I add,
To jot down all the moments sad!

Then comes the same angel
To add happy moments to my diary!
Lending some peaceful moments,
& becoming the source of my glee!

But I know after few days,
In the Arms of the same Angel
The shadow of death would get me!
& towards the stars I’d flee!

~ Entranced! Entranced ~

 Lost in the reverie I try to find a penknife

To take out my heart and show it,

Engrossed in worship of my Creator;

When in this dark night under the tree I sit

 

O! I’m not Mansur or else Qalandar

O! I’m not as pure as the words Bullah uttered

So Ashamed & mortified I’m at this thought

That in my heart; with hatred; the love is stirred

 

So I let myself swivel away in this wind

Entranced! Entranced! Is this ecstatic slave

Whirling with the intonation of the love

Entranced! Entranced! Is this ascetic slave

 

Entranced! Entranced!

Drowning in the ocean of unfathomable love

Falling down and finding no ground to step on

Dancing in tune to the rhythm like Sakhi Laal

My feet bleed but I find no reason to mourn

 

Entranced! Entranced! Like Bulla I’m lost

Entranced! Entranced! Like Sakhi Laal I whirl

Elated and euphoric I gyrate myself in trance

Lost in the cadence of love when myself I hurl

 

Enthralled in the love of my Creator

Spellbound in the love of my Lord

Mesmerized in the love of my Allah

Entranced I’m in love of my Initiator

 

Entranced! Entranced! Entranced!

I whirl I whirl Like Qalandar whirling

Entranced! Entranced! Entranced!

I am lost I am lost like Bullah I’m lost

~ Predator and Prey ~

Written By: Bahjat Najeeb

Completed on 30^th June 2011

(8:45 Pm) PST

Predator and Prey

There was a time when they killed people for something.

Greed, power, love, or at least lust. Now they just kill.

(Anonymous)

Predator and Prey

 

Freezing gusts, variegated grief, gloomy joy;

Vicious and insane with thirst as I walk away

To weigh my dead heart for sale on troy

And the deep cut wounds bleed when I hear a bay

 

Ahh! I feel so happy; following that yell

Crossing the jungle where every tree I’d fell

My bare feet start to bleed on this road

When I step ahead to keep up my trod

 

Oh let them bleed, just let them bleed

For I know my heart is dead

Let me listen to a wolf’s cry or heart beat of steed

So I’d know to my prey the path that leads

 

Feeling pain when on my wounds the sun starts to shine

I know after fulfilling my thirst I’d still remain repine

Ahh! This thirst has forbade me to practice abasement

Covering miles so in jungle’s abattoir flesh would be all mine

 

Covering miles and miles of long distance; chasing my prey

The smell of blood to quench my thirst has made me stray

And the moment I caught my prey, I attacked without hesitation

His blood filled my vessels, reached my heart; gave me sedation

 

Ahh! The fulfilling of thirst, cracking of bones; a feel of sprain;

& after this blood bath I could now feel blood, loss & pain

Escalating murders is something I call my insanity’s gain

I feel thirsty again as blood got adsorbed in my veins

 

Now it feels like I have to chase another prey

Because at the end of this very long …long day

Again this killing thirst of mine has made me stray

Now I feel like running behind the shadow that is vanishing away

 

But what if I find in the end; that I was the predator

Running far away from the vanishing shadow

Was I; as a Prey; For my Life

The life that was never mine but Yours!