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Blast

As destruction was rained down upon Iraq during America’s invasion and occupation the region, I couldn’t help but wonder how many utterly innocent lives were completely destroyed by the carnage.

Blast

Misguided angels struck them on their beauteous heights,
Then rotting frames collapsed in flames from carious heights.

Demons vie for rights to control and destroy the masses,
Commanding herds to slaughter from their devious heights.

Sheets of fire consume in the name of good intention;
A rain of steel tears homes apart from dubious heights.

Huddled against fierce wind and cold on the mountain slopes
Refugees watch their cities burn from various heights.

A wide-eyed child points toward flares and thunderous sounds;
His blood-caked mother cries beneath the furious heights.

Seekers of emptiness fall into abysmal depths;
Seekers of fullness fall flailing from hideous heights.

The simple answer stares the world in the face each day;
Seek neither deep and fetid pits nor glorious heights.

With half the world besieged, Zahhar, by war and famine,
How did you come to live amid such bounteous heights?

This is my 116th ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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Transfigurations

A random write that has an abstract, metaphysical feel and focus. There’s really not much more to say about it, except that I think it turned out pretty well.

Transfigurations

Sprawled across a dusty couch, a fiend shoots dope in silence;
Lone amidst a warring world—one way to cope in silence.

Underneath the shifting heights, in tempest roar or sunshine,
Sitting on a rock, a monk expands his scope in silence.

On a hillside, old madrones unfold their hues to heaven;
Probing roots fan out and weave beneath the slope in silence.

Chanting in cathedral gloom with eyes fixed on the rafters,
Solemn voices rise and fall as thoughts elope in silence.

Tender faces turn in vain on seeking love or counsel;
Countless children walk the streets alone to mope in silence.

Shadows phase in depthless dark like phantoms but imagined;
Lost amid the shifting forms, the spurned ones grope in silence.

Clumsy creatures claw in fear and strike with fangs of venom—
Shield your heart with care, Zahhar, and hold each hope in silence.

This is my 107th ghazal.

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Havoc

A lot of my ghazals have explored the havoc of dukkha, or karmic suffering. In a way my life has been a study of this phenomenon, for I have striven to gain insight into its workings enough to maybe begin to pull free of it. But for most, myself likely included, even this process takes many comings and goings.

Havoc

Why are grown men sighing? Fear is dim by nature.
Why are children crying? War is grim by nature;

Angry hornets swarming—countless stinging voices;
Kingdoms manifest a battle-hymn by nature.

In this swelling madness, hearts are weighed to breaking;
Overwhelming sadness runs abrim by nature.

Rains can never cleanse the earth of all our bloodshed,
Blades and bullets slaying round her rim by nature.

Those who wake from dreaming, like the fading seagull,
Leave no tracks in parting, flying trim by nature.

Most are lost in chaos, like the flood-tossed salmon,
Helpless bound to homing where they swim by nature.

Providence, though gentle, has been known to ravage—
You will learn, Zahhar, to know her whim by nature.

This is my 106th ghazal.

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Shithouse Sonnet

The first and only sonnet I’ve thus far written. After reading all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, three times each out loud, I found myself sitting in a public bathroom seeking personal relief. All around me were homedork taggings, hatefully racial comments, lewd remarks, etc. You know the drill. When I went back to my table in the restaurant I was hanging out at, I wrote this.

Shithouse Sonnet

As here you scan this product of my mind
And seek relief from some anxiety,
There is no such relief for you to find
While reading words from this society;
The troubled minds of half a nation scar
The walls about you in a base display;
Foul scribbles from the crude ones near and far
Encompass you in putrefied array;
And, even tribal markings basely claim
Some ownership of this quaint place of rest
Amid the angry notes that weakly blame
Their fellows for some anguish in their breast;
    The horror of our state is manifest
    In such grim markings by the ill-possessed.

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Reft

This was written as I reflected on the effects of parental alcoholism, and by extension drug addiction in general, on young children, especially infants and toddlers. I was one such infant and toddler, so I have some insight into these effects.

Reft

An amber liquid sapped her attention away,
And from her heart stripped loving intention away.

The lonesome wail of hunger competing in vain
Unleashed her rage and tore her abstention away.

It wasn’t desire denied with an angry glare,
But painful dearth closed up in detention away.

An oscillation between assurance and terror
Caused a distress that rent apprehension away.

Angels swept this fragmenting soul to safety
To lands where shadows shift a dimension away.

Smothered beneath resentment, bitter and fierce,
Any potential was locked from ascension away.

Wound in the Catherine wheel of her deception,
Spirit was ripped in morbid extension away.

Remove from your heart the demon’s claw, Zahhar,
Let pass the touch of its dark invention away.

This is my 69th ghazal.

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Blasphemy

War is itself a form of blasphemy, and yet wars are waged over blasphemies perceived. Strange, isn’t it? Somehow I doubt that any fundamentalist really grasps whatever “truth” there is to be found within their dogma or sees the ridiculous irony in attempting to force those around them into adhering to their convictions.

Blasphemy

Bold, near-sighted fools bray, “Sacrilege!”;
and yet, is not their own way sacrilege?

Fortress prisons seal the heart from love
‘till light itself becomes gray sacrilege.

When men in high position lose their faith,
they then make of their faith a sacrilege.

How can we feathers grow to soar in flight
when we must deem our own clay sacrilege?

The judging stones that crush a hidden face
create within their own fray sacrilege.

If there is One that language can’t define,
then how does but a word say sacrilege?

Around the world brave guns and sabers flash.
But think! How does their rage slay sacrilege?

Both doves and ravens dance upon the winds;
who calls the way that these pray sacrilege?

And you Zahhar are not above the rest;
dare not believe that men stay sacrilege.

This is my 56th ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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anchored

Even as a child it seemed clear to me that the only way for humanity to realize its potential would be to go to the stars. If we don’t, then everything we have or will accomplish is for nothing. Meanwhile we steadily burn and poison the one place we have to live.

anchored

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

This is my 49th ghazal.

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Left Barren

Few things disturb me more than the sight and impact of a clear cut. Not when I wrote this, and not now.

Left Barren

Once tall homes in blossom, now dead fallen;
They lay by the spinning blade’s head fallen.

Men sweep, like mighty scythe, life from the Earth,
Cathedral columns of old spread fallen.

Hewn from dawn through the blazing broad of day—
Always more, as the sun sets red, fallen.

By the grisly hand of a heartless race
Are the living spires of Earth shred fallen.

Strong men make their living mid plunging boughs,
But their souls are, as they break bread, fallen.

Verdant pillars holding the sky at bay
Are by a destructive greed sped fallen.

Wastelands expand where mystic mist once formed,
Lush realms, where life diversely tread, fallen.

“Where went the life that flourished here?” asked One;
Wailing with the wind, a voice said, “Fallen…”

Zahhar’s last hopes with steady pace collapse,
Deep ravaged by a cutting dread, fallen.

This is my 47th ghazal.

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Noise

Inspired no doubt by much of what we hear in politics, the news, and from “experts” in the arts.

Noise

Meaningless words accrete relentlessly,
Growing in their conceit relentlessly.

Bright words with meaning, swallowed in the storm,
Simply cannot compete relentlessly.

Like sands on thrusting winds that pelt and tear,
These empty words entreat relentlessly.

Weeds grow enmasse throughout the spanning fields
And glowing words delete relentlessly.

Are truthless proclamations reified
Because the words repeat relentlessly?

Zahhar’s own words, though lost in rolling din,
Will not stay in defeat relentlessly.

This is my 42nd ghazal.

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Reforming Words

It has always seemed to me that words—language—are the very foundations upon which sentience is based. Without them, barring telepathic communication, there would be no way to communicate, and certainly no way to leave behind a legacy. I later rewrote this poem entirely under the same title, “Reforming Words”, with a slightly different focus.

Reforming Words

Touched by majestic magic founding words,
My thoughts are full of most astounding words.

Scribed in languages long before our own,
Their gifts were wrought in strong redounding words.

Angelic tongues, now half forgotten lore,
Unlocked the secrets with expounding words.

Clear they expressed the space between the poles,
Yet time has changed them to confounding words.

The place where dreams began and dreams will end
Can hardly be explained through bounding words.

With antiquated brush her symbols formed;
With modern key they still are grounding words.

Until that shore lost in the haze is reached,
Our hearts will be pursued by hounding words.

Reformed again from aeons lost diffused,
Zahhar begins anew in sounding words.

This is my 30th ghazal.

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choose

This is an example of my early free verse. Most of my free verse found before this date will fit this category.

choose

make your choice
how will you live
with or without hope

will you shun your heart
will you deny you dream
will you extinguish
like a candle’s low lit flame
what hope you hold
will you allow it
your heart
to fall from you
cold to the ground
frozen from your chest
with all your dreams
to shatter before you
exploding in a fray
of frozen shards
into blood frost—

you will be dead
though you walk
interact
seeking blindly
to find a replacement
for your wasted heart
the heart you denied
and allowed to fall
from your being
a block of ice
the heart you left
in the vacuity
of indifference
anger
hate…
or dread—

you will be but a husk
a container
of emptiness

make your decision
live numb
and without hope
dreamless and lifeless
or accept the pain
that accompanies a living heart
full of hope
an occasional broken dream
but the joy
of dreams fulfilled
hopes realized

make your choice
live or die