Day of Judgement
I sat with the Mosque Chairman
Who teaches driving
And he searched me
I watched his unsure voice
Advancing certainly
Hoping to convince me
I looked from his coffee feet
Up to my pallid hands
Which pigeonholed me
I caught a mistake far too big
About the Ahl al-Kitāb
Which bothered me
I heard no cold presumption
About a final hot abode
So this relieved me
I corrected with audacity
As he smiled patiently
And endured me
I quoted from Book and Prophet
Aware from an eyebrow
Of surprise at me
I shook his hand with fastened eyes
And finger-touched my heart
Hoping he will use me
A Wind Blew
You spoke to me
As a murmur
Somewhere
You struck me
With my name
As a feather
I heard echoes
Lost my way
In circles
New whispers
Stopped me
Walking
Once more
I implored
Through years
A storm arose
Swept a name
Aloft
I reached up
Wanting it
Back
You lifted me
Up to You
Light
I held the name
So different
Yours
I speak with you
As a murmur
Everywhere
Libya
Firing from corners
Without aim
No soldier, you
Excited
Vengeful
Or
Wanting drama
Without death
No martyr, you
Careful
Frightened
Or
Aiming to live long
For children
No fool, you
Responsible
Altruistic
Or
Seeking the overdue
Risking darkness
No coward, you
Motivated
Inspired
Free
Battle of Misrata
No sleeping weeping dreaming
Homes cells living hells
Distress and yearning cars burning
Manic panic hatred volcanic
Guns clap slap clatter shatter
Shot hot screaming red streaming
Wards crowded bodies shrouded
Lost brothers mothers others
Shaken forsaken torn worn taken
Confusions doubts shouts transfusions
Sutures hurried, futures buried
Dying dead fear dread world worried
Civil war gore more vile not worthwhile
For ruins rubble endless trouble
City smashed trashed hopes dashed
But for ideas new frontiers end of tears
Tenacity audacity courage groping hoping
Must seek meet defeat fate hate and fears
Halal at our Local
They passed almost everyone
Menus
Almost everyone discussed
And chose
Our meals appeared with theirs
“Oh you’ve got lamb!
I didn’t see it on the menu.”
It wasn’t. It came from a call
A week before
We watched you wonder
Life as Childhood, 1
As I beckoned to the horizon and plucked the rising sun
Swallowed it and gulped the Atlantic to cool my burning throat
You spoke to my pride from inside a breadcrumb and said be smaller
Like Alice I shrank as I spun and became nothing … almost
I felt my heart swell and lift me as a balloon
To float through a vista of Your wonderland
Man Named Razi
Lost
Anywhere
In Pakistan
Called me Sir
On Facebook
Crushed
At 21
No Future
Typed tears
… At 21!
Seven billion
We two
Together
In single lines
Friends
With a click
Brothers
Forever
Insha’Allah
God is there
On Facebook
Everywhere
– Reads
His words
Mine –
Third
In our chat
His future
You oh Lord
Mine
He asked me
Remember
Duas please
Sir
Creator beloved
I see a photo
Small
In the corner
You see him
Knowing
Hope-bringer
I beseech you
For the boy
Who cries
On my screen
Lord of the Worlds
In Pakistan
Please
Touch
Hope for 22
Friend
And more
The future
Has five letters
Allah
Soon
No shadows fall in Jannah
No whispers ride the breeze
Sleep without nightmares
Doors unlocked
Walls without clocks
Ageless eyes smiling
Milk and sweet gold
No cigarette ash
Drunk on joy
One new race
Chosen people
Agreeing
An Ummah
Again
At last
And Him
You Kept Me
I pointed them
Slightly arched
Fingerprints
Fusing
A steeple
I cup them
Almost touching
As a boy
Waiting
To catch
I lowered my eyes
Crooked my neck
Or whispered
Before sleep
A little
I surrender
On the floor
Mind
Speaking
More
You preserved me
In a pocket
Secure
I lived
And am here
My time
For you
I am ready
Embarrassed
No more
Life in Gulps
I gagged
At the bitterness
Of the apple she gave
In a film to a girl who
Sung with sparrows
And cleaned
Sin stung
But I did not swallow
That polished orb
Red in the hand of
Death as a crone
Who lied
My head spun
For decades
As I wiped my lips and
Tongue on my sleeve
To rub off the taste
Of judgement impending
I spat without manners
Again again
This serpentine venom
That wanted to swim
In veins to my heart
With a wicked desire
I gulped the water
That I found
In a book that overflows
And spat again
Twice I think or thrice
Before swallowing
That shrivelled hand
No longer extends
Evil with a gleam
To my eyes but others
Choke daily after snatching
And ignoring sour warnings
Darling in Misrata *
A Child
Caught a thing
Meant for another
It flew yet wasn’t a bird
It whistled
She never heard
It tore her dress
Of blue cotton
And seven lives
Which must wait
Until Paradise
To be mended
Birds of the Battlefield
Bullets speak differently
when they meet someone new.
They scream “thwack!”
when they strike bone.
They shout “pthumpff!”
when they slap into thick muscle.
They squeal “pffit!”
when they pass through emptier flesh.
Best of all, they hiss “pzinnggg!” to themselves
when they find no-one to talk with.
What do they say
when they introduce
a new friend
to
death?
Nature
Seismic Tectonic
Quaking Plates grinding Shaking
Grating Irritating Great rift Continental drift
Separating Tearing Shearing Splitting Fire-spitting
Unremitting Tough Rough Unproductive Self-destructive
Flashing Crashing Clashing Dashing
Awful Powerful Wonderful
Infertile Fruitful
Soothing Hurtful
Brightening
Frightening
Mystifying
Satisfying
Sustaining
Maintaining
Flawed Ummah Adored Ummah
His Face
Behind glass
wiped
religiously
a fragile
page
in blue
and gold
showed
a face of
flames
In another,
emptiness
white
beneath
a fiery
turban
In a third,
a veil and
black
hair
blazing
In a newspaper,
a bomb
with a
fuse
hissing
Today
You are a Muslim?
Wow!
flashed
a text
On my iPhone
from a
very
dear
friend
He knew
for a year
or more
I thought
Honestly
He didn’t
Until he
read
a
BBC
Website
My thumb
tapped
a
J
Honestly
Life as Childhood, 2
You rolled me as a glass marble from your thumb
onto a yellow road along which I’ve skipped for years
Away from shadows and the ordinary in black and white
Toward something gleaming beyond all else
No-one speaks into a tube and winds a handle
The protective walls in emerald are truth in love as
Whispered words that beat from Your book like
Migrating butterflies – monarchs – in Spring
For What?
17 in Marrakesh
Sipping beauty
And coffee
Children and mums
In pieces
The deaf
The blind
And torn
Closer to the God
Who loves
Innocence
A smell of hate
And heat
Survived
The
Angry blink
That 17
Could not
Bath in the Morning
Sin spirals quickly into the drain
Like an out-of-luck money spider
Pulling my shame to God knows where
Rinsed from my hair thrice
From a plastic jug made to measure
Ingredients in her kitchen
Hands and feet right to left
Again again drowning thieves unseen
That tried to clutch fair hairs on my arms
Everything swabbed like the deck
Of a flagship before a captain's inspection
Far greater comes on folded knees
After that baptism and a rub with a towel
And the donning of modesty chosen
Most days by another and laid on my bed
Oh Allah my Admiral match water and gold soap
With forgiveness and restoration in the depths
Let my sins spiral out from repentant groans inside
Pulling my shame to God knows where
Suicide Bomber
What did it take?
A beautiful boy packed tight
With no hint of a man’s chin
By his dad who
Kissed him goodbye
With a hope of seeing him later
What did he know?
Carrying a sunburst in canvas
To strangers who never noticed
That their end stood five-feet-two
With a running nose
And a mind full of his mum
What did he think?
Avoiding all eyes as he stood
Among them with a small chest
That felt ready to explode
With the pressure of keeping
A secret for moments more
What would he think?
His life now a curling photo on a shelf
In a home where a family once laughed
And dust on a street where people still
Buy drinks, phone covers and fruit
Osama bin Laden
When I was a boy
I loved
The Phantom
In a cave
The Ghost who Walks
Today they killed
Another
Ghost who walks
Not one I loved
Living soft in town
And shown
Unmasked
On CNN
But can a ghost die?
Bin Laden: An End?
An age pierced his brain
and passed with him
A decade in a flicker
He dropped and we snatched him
hoping he would sink
somewhere
Maybe an age is harder
to kill
Today wears a coat
smeared with yesterday
Will sunrise be red?