Court of Lions

Allah Hayy (Fragment)

Khalid — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:12:01 +0000

…

Finally the pot boils over, foaming thin;
The ceiling blurs, falls fast, a paper plane is hurled
From mountaintop, delirious, spinning, and the world
Splits open like a plastic bag, and truth pours in.

Prayer Against Drought

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:28:30 +0000

The arrows of rain are silver-shafted, fletched in grey.
The skyscrapers’ steel frames are sketched in grey.

Each thunderhead drifting across the hem of the day
is whipped water vapor, shining white and edged in grey.

Each drop is a silver nail driven into the clay
pinning down the world, intaglio etched in grey.

The fuzzy-gold goslings are ready to make their way
south on powerful pinions newly fledged in grey.

The rainbow was once a promise, or so they say
but God’s raindrop kisses are life being pledged in grey.

Cutting Off the Branch

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:04:33 +0000

i want Truth

Oh no you don’t–
that’s like cutting off the branch you’re sitting on,
stomping on the inside
of the glass bubble we call Reality. It pops
(the bubble of your skull)

and you are immersed in a boundless sea
immaculate depth, without ripples.
The ocean of the formless
beyond the created world.
The sky untracked by human eyes.

You fall like a meteor, a suicide
trailing fragments of your bubble!
You rise like a diver who’s lost his belt
with radiance exploding
in every vein of your body!

But all this tumult of images
is just the swirl of plastic flakes inside a glass ball.
You can shake it all you want
but if you want Truth

–smash it.

Candles for Ramadan

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:09:55 +0000

I lit a candle under the new moon and was proud
of how bright it burned. The full moon
swallowed my tiny flame without a trace.

Even the hawkmoths
who haunted my window with such passion
in dark nights, abandoned my candle
for sky-borne glory.

The moon at the end of the month grows thin
devouring its own light. Forsaken moths wander the air
searching for the silver dust of midmonth.

Ramadan burns flesh as flame burns wax. Souls
circle the candles of the Nights of Power
on private miraj.

New moon leaves us famished for brilliance
that swallows our souls as the moon
swallows my candle.

Forgetfulness

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:16:39 +0000

At birth you must drink a whole pail of forgetfulness
and spend your living days in the vale of forgetfulness.

Wet wrinkled newborns cling to their mothers
and shed their first tears with a wail of forgetfulness.

That radiance we knew from the time before time
is blown out, swept away by a gale of forgetfulness.

Piracy, romance, adventure and mystery:
all different versions of the tale of forgetfulness.

Pilgrims and pioneers, stay-homes and wanderers:
all travelers together on the trail of forgetfulness.

The soul can be injured by an unwary purchase,
but who seeks a profit from the sale of forgetfulness?

In the close confines of the dergah, the dervish
is seeking escape from the jail of forgetfulness.

In the waste, far removed from the doings of mankind
the hermit hopes to break down the pale of forgetfulness.

The last and the least of the seekers after truth,
God grant me a glimpse through the veil of forgetfulness.

Radiance

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:14:33 +0000

If you wake up, really wake up
the world seems changed.
Radiance is everywhere. The smell
of roses. The fragrance of
a garden overflowing with the
thousand songs of Milarepa.
Suns dance hand in hand. You
were sleeping all this time. Wake
to see the bubbles of time
burst. Kick-start yourself
into eternity, into perpetual motion,
the dream of engineers forever.
Sky is the only limit
that the awoken recognize. Who
would dream on when they could
be awake
like this? Who would choose
the comfort of dreams over the
splendor of reality? Which
of us sleeps and which watches
the clockwork of the universe?
Mighty God, Most High
One of many Names
I lie wide-eyed at your feet. I
am your dog, your slave. I have
become your lover.
Death is only
the gateway to eternal life,
shatterer of chains, opener
of doors. Wake. The radiance of new
worlds awaits.

Jigsaw

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:59:03 +0000

Time was you had all of the right puzzle pieces
and arms around shoulders were snuggled in tight
like pictures with siblings and nephews and nieces
the edges lined up and the world was right
the edges were lined up, the world was all right.

Four right-angled corners connected straight edges
you found all the borders and got them in line
like shrubbery trimmed into labyrinth hedges
and life was a picture made to your design
and life was a picture that you had designed.

Someone shook the box up and the pieces all got mixed
Someone shook the box and now the picture can’t be fixed
The image won’t assemble and the colors don’t connect
And life’s an unsolved puzzle with no prize you can collect
And life’s a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces don’t connect.

You don’t have to be what it shows on the cover
You don’t have to live your life inside the frame
The picture’s too narrow to capture your Lover
The picture’s too shallow to contain the Name.

Someone shook the box up and the picture-frame dissolved
Someone shook the box up and the puzzle can’t be solved
You’re looking for an answer that the jigsaw can’t define
You see beyond the puzzle when you look outside the lines
You see outside the puzzle that the jigsaw can define.

Lahut Salbi

Khalid — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:28:03 +0000

A shadow of theology
Is cast over the lot:
Define the thing that needs must be –
But only by what it’s not.

Sometime the doctrine’s made a quiz,
A kind of riddling game:
There is a Thing which nothing is,
And yet It has a Name!

Daring Heaven

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:07:38 +0000

If I dared to burn I wouldn’t be a candle.
A forest full of living flame,
a sun holding planets in close embrace—
distant races would feel my glow and populate their skies
with monsters and heroes.

If I dared to weep I wouldn’t be a raindrop.
I’d be typhoon-thrashed oceans of salt,
I’d be the Milky Way falling endlessly over dark-matter cliffs
only to be swallowed by hungry black holes
at the heart of the universe.

Dare to be stone. No pebble to be kicked
but a frowning mountain, aerie of eagles. Dare
to be the Perseids, streaking the nights of August
with burning dust. Dare to be Mercury in the arms
of Sol; Pluto in the arms of darkness.

If I dared to be dust I would be the birthplace of stars.
If I dared to love, Beloved
what could we be?

Epithalamium

Tiel Aisha Ansari — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:02:39 +0000

Today each streak of sunshine is a gift
of gold, a wedding band uniting sun
with earth, a lonely bride too long adrift
in veils of gray. She sheds them now, to run
into her bridegroom’s gleaming arms. She’s spangled
with the drying dew and robed in ferns,
her emerald elflocks heavy-leafed and tangled
as the hair of any bride who burns
with sleepless nights.

Oh, flesh of earth and water

wedded to a soul of sky and fire,
son of Eve or ancient Adam’s daughter:
love awaits behind the sun and higher.
Terra greeting Sol cannot shine bright
as human souls embraced by Allah’s light.