God created universe for the love of Muhammad
Created sun and moon for the desire of Muhammad
Said be and was universe, written all from start to end
Recited Quran as a whole, for the glory of Muhammad
All saints had come, to mosque their faces daubed
Said word of testament, for the noor of Muhammad
Companions had conquered, next ones emulate
Eight heavens laid out, for the love of Muhammad
At skies birds flied, montanes and stones watered
Trees gave fruit, for the love of Muhammad
Infidels had come, from him they took faith
Prayed five times a day, for the love of Muhammad
Jonah praised cause him Quran praised
Remember and say Salawat, for the love of Muhammad
Written by Dervish Jonah
Translation Honor Su
The fate of a crayon, it waxes and wanes,
From the engrossing grip of an artist's hand,
To a still life framed in a box of chains,
Where unmade strokes are jailed till scanned.
The sky was never cast so blue of hue.
The grass and trees so blushed with green.
The sun so brightly yellow and true.
Than when crayon pastels daubed the scene.
Each crayon remembers its last lip kiss,
Soft and compliant, in a sheath of dreams.
Kept concealed and wrapped up in bliss,
To enliven dull scenes with vivid schemes.
So unleash the dreams you've put away,
In a boxed-set of crayons for a rainy day.
You won’t see these words
in a shop window
printed across a smiling face,
or scribbled upon a wall -
they will probably never be daubed
on toilet stall doors either.
Deep and meaningless words
are generally reserved
for deep and meaningless poetry.
Works of literary art
that paint pretty word-pictures.
They are often well crafted,
but in the end
the reader is left hollow
wondering
why depth is so often presented
in such a shallow way.
You won’t see these words
in any book worth reading
or carved upon memorial stone.
You probably won’t see them
daubed on toilet stall walls - not yet,
for they belong to the internet
where such deeply shallow idioms
are encountered on the surface
of a running river of eye-eating white.
These deeply meaningless musings
do not offer anything,
not advice or any point worth taking,
nor directions or recourse,
not real help for your spiritual growth
or for any healing purposes
whatsoever.
You may try rubbing your libido
with the sounds they make,
but being only pretty words,
they bring little relief.
If you read them
a certain poetry may tickle your mind
for a little while,
then they will fade into an alphabet soup,
something canned and bland
just like the stuff they gave you
to eat as a child
thinking it was good for you.
whirl …
where waters mingle -
the inky black that pulls down
swallows … enfolds …
the ballet breaks -
sun’s golden coins a-dancing,
birthing pixies to the brine
to draw the gaze with dazzled magic …
the glassy smooth that
dopplegangs a billowy azure and a
quivery, star-daubed vault …
the ruffled swells -
turning masts to pendulum poets,
ticking time as the hulls roll …
and rock … and roll …
and the foaming rage -
surf that breaks reefs to ruin
and howls at Calypso,
the salty sirens screaming at
her for just a taste of
jagged justice …
the seas roar and ebb and
sunder suns to ache
the rills run to the low to find them
and feed the confluences
water weaves and wells and works to
be the All of life -
the precious matter, miraculous
the shaper and sater and savior of
everything that actuates
yet …
the oceans, and washes, wild
and weeping heavens
in all their splendor and abundance
can not hope to accommodate
the love, sorrow, spirit, or
significance
of one single, solitary
child’s …
tear.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, July 27, 2024
Once,
I saw rainbows,
across the tear washed sky.
Their iridescent gleam
illumining the astral realm
and spilling down into the waters below.
Buds burgeoning on every branch,
Flowers opening their delicate folds,
and summer bees spiraling around,
gathering nectar for frosty days.
Saw radiant smiles gleaming past,
angelic babes’ innocent face,
Men toiling from dawn to dusk
going about their lives’ odyssey,
Speeding vehicles moving down
as ants, in an unbroken chain,
Nature, posing from time to time
in silken green, amber gold
and in dazzling white
Everything fleeted past,
as through the window
of a speeding train.
Neither did they linger long
nor were they daubed bright
in paints variegated,
on my mind's impressionable canvas
to call them back to mind at will.
I lived my life in acute haste.
Colors, shades and myriad scenes
passed me by as common sight
But now with a heavy mist blocking out my sight
and an inexorable darkness
covering me like a shroud,
plunging me, all of a sudden, into a perpetual night
where sun beams never again shall fall,
I realize with a jolt, how much I have missed
and how much more I will miss!
eye
wide
shut
feel
remmber
mold
make
manifest
in touch
with
linear
continuty
juxtaposed
wrinkles
smeared
daubed
rubbed down
accidents
to.
engender
the new
I have little to say
as an avalanche of maple
spills over the back fence
and water weighted branches,
heavy with the perfume of rain,
bow and bend
in a slight breeze
and the dry throats of hollyhocks
are quenched and dribble
an excess down
stems that yesterday
stooped and wilted
under a hot sun.
And what can I say
as a profusion of green glistens
in the early morning light
and leaves wear a fresh glaze
in the cool air. How everything
has changed, gorged now
on an infusion of wet
as I walk under the trees,
daubed and dabbed
with rainwater, feeling
the sweet damp of a joy
left here as it was
passing through
late last night and now
whatever I could say
would not be enough.
After the rain,
came the smell
of rain
as the earth
vaporized its
pleasure at
its renewed
fecundity
felt deep within.
The musty scent
of dampness
loaded with aromas
and fragrances,
wafted up from
damp organic stuff.
Wetted by drips
and drops, and
scattered splatter spots
daubed on the
parchment of
dryness, the smell
of rain arose,
in a spiral,
curling upward.
I thereby pledged to leave alone
endeavors bound for ills, my own
to worship at your fleshly throne
and bow before your pleasures
their ends, quite at your leisures
oh all my prayers are met, replete
while fawning honors at your feet
ten hot-pink piggies, soft ‘n’ sweet
lined straight as little misses
kept clean for courtly kisses
I'm just a jester - scoundrel, true
one foolish fool for moonlite, blue
when daubed upon the husk of you
pearled garland for your bedding
to naughty knots, we're heading
yet while I worship yours, all-in
and fan our friction, skin-to-skin
you call another's name (with sin)
and perfect passion molders
so cleaving, as it smoulders ...
this fool's head ... from his shoulders.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, October 11, 2022
( photograph taken by Gregory R Barden )
The stone shoulders of the waterfall
are covered in graffiti,
letters and symbols daubed onto
small cliff faces
Gang tags I guess; covert proclamations.
Apparently Janice loves Bret also.
Yet it is a pretty place, and the water falls
as sound and light
not too loud nor too bright
a fall and flight
that delights the air.
The stream bubbles and swirls for a while
then meanders away
crossing a stretch of bottom land
forgetful of any plunge or spill.
I don’t really notice the graffiti anymore
it has ingrained its presence into the scenery
I watch only the falling water
how it splashes upon itself
creating its own watery language;
how then when it wanders away
seemingly well pleased with what it said.
I can intuit the ubiquity of that aqua-patois,
a fluid eloquence flowing over silence.
Reared in ruins,
& East London brick dust,
lard spread on bread.
My figure daubed
by days of oil and dirt,
a boy by railroad tracks -
wrong side.
Trains clattered past
pumping smutty fumes.
Once, a pretty girl
visited our tenement,
posh clothes,
(I mean, not rough flannel),
clean hands, neatly dressed.
We boys gawped, then
then derided.
we had no way to acknowledge
one so distant from our reality.
I told mother,
she just shrugged not understanding.
She was a lock-in woman
& expressed herself
as a long ignored dog would
when asked about
the meaning of life.
A curve of sky
in a corner cusps a smooth,
thick dusting
of carrot-mauve hues
tonight. Drapes over heather
trees
whose arms
and hands bend with this drowsy sky
as it starts
to fall asleep-
the cyrean "silk" upon
which this
cantaloupe tint
is traced, daubed, by the brushstrokes
of Mother Nature;
is ready
for the deep onyx doves-with halos-
of a cold Spring night.
With the Heavens'
cut diamonds-for the Goddess-
and immaculate
lambency.
This soft lusty Dusk will Father
a shiny glass red
rose,
a radio balefire
that will
capitivate
through the limbs of the esteemed
trees,
wink
through this Springtime's beetling
intimacies
on a windy night.
The man-made magenta
comforts
as it beams
next to the "Sunrise Field",
mowed emerald blades
under
another sky of day-break
pigments-
a dawn
placenta of bright lemon
vanilla,
and little
sugar- coated strawberry
juices-
another corner
of the clay, sea, and cloud-and ash-
colored campus-
bewitching
oil paintings in crystalline
emblems...
Rumbles of boredom lead the mouth to eat
but then there are the unwashed,
the residue of the crumbling
and smeared. Greasy utensils
sneaking like sharks amongst the soaking dishes.
A need now to refresh this domestic pond
with chemical bubbles
yet hands are too dilatory
to be daubed by yesterday’s food.
One has to judge with perfect timing
whether to wash the plates or
leave them to poison the sink
for another hour or two.
The essential factors are smell
and guilt.
When the sludge of the once edible
blossoms rudely in an untidy kitchen
or the shredded rinds of a latent rigor mortis
coat themselves with the pimpled oils
of former slicks
only then is it time to reassess
just how peckish we are for leftovers.
I was reared in ruins,
East London brick dust
on lard spread on bread.
Nobody had a ticket out.
My grubby figure
daubed by days of oil and dirt,
a boy by a railroad track.
Trains slid passed
screeching on pumping brakes.
People not from here
going somewhere else.
Once a little girl dressed
in posh clothes,
(I mean, not rough flannel),
jiggles of fancy ringlets
a clean hand waving.
My senses shaking
and shaken,
marveling at the beauty
of those that passed on by.
I told mother,
she shrugged not understanding,
maybe she had yet to learn
my train-yard language
She was a lock-in woman
& spoke only
as a long ignored dog would
if asked about
the meaning of life.
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