INTELLECTUAL CONTEXTS
encoded
anticipated
affinity
emphasised
with
tradition
neutral
collaborative
genres
articular
ambivalent
in isolation
then
deepened
with
representational
certainities
of
avaliable
choice
oscillating
intensely
collaborative
reclusive
concepts
circulating
sessions
to
celebrate
.significant
issues
temporarily
transcending
the confrontational
discussed
yet
introverted
amorphous
expatiations
anticipate
aspirations
in performance
You snub your nose at me 'cause I refuse to use big words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
intellect
not the same as intellectual
I avoid one as if it was tuberculosis
the other I run toward, happy to greet it
Not all minds burn with equal flame,
Some flicker gently, some boldly claim
The heights of thought, few dare climb
Where intellect dances beyond time.
IQ may measure, but cannot define
The soul’s deep hunger for the sign,
For far-sighted eyes that pierce the veil,
And trace the truth where others fail.
Some walk the path with books in hand,
Researching stars, or grains of sand.
While others rest in borrowed light,
Afraid to ask if wrong is right.
To accept the truth, what sacred art!
It asks not brilliance, but the heart.
Yet still, the minds diverge and part,
Some seek the whole, some just a part.
So let's dare honor each unique flame,
Though not all burn with equal name.
For wisdom’s fire, both fierce and mild,
May yet awaken the sleeping child.
********
Jiri, Dolakha
10 Aug 2025
An intellectual dresses a simple idea in the cloak of heavy and elaborate words,
Building castles from long, intricate sentences that rise toward the sky,
While the poet, with eyes deepened in the mystery of the world, opens doors to truth,
He takes the complexity of life and transforms it into a song of wind and light,
Love becomes the flight of a butterfly, and pain a late autumn rain,
In an uninterrupted flow of thoughts, where words dance freely,
Poetry does not fear simplicity, for within it lies the depth of the world,
Touching hearts through a metaphor that shines brighter than a speech.
In the silence of the night, the verses find their echo in the souls of those who listen,
The poet embraces mystery, turning it into a palpable truth,
While the intellectual sometimes gets lost in the maze of complicated reasoning,
Yet in both flows the same desire to understand the universe around,
To find hidden beauty in details, meaning in every flicker of time.
Words, be they heavy or light, always seek their place in open hearts,
Where truth can be whispered or shouted in mountain echoes,
And thus, in the simplicity of verse, we find ourselves, without limits.
Clever in my literacy
Impaired in my itinerary
Noted for variety
Daunting in my propriety
A jaunting of notoriety
For wanting serenity
exempted from purity
Quaint in obscurity
A spark ignited when our paths first crossed,
Your knowledge kindled, my ignorance tossed.
From a timid flicker to a steady glow,
Our bond, like embers, began to grow.
Your wisdom blazed, a guiding light so bright,
Illuminating truths are once hidden from sight.
In learning's heart, our spirits intertwined,
A sacred fire of mentor and mind.
But time, relentless, feeds on mortal flame,
And even the wisest cannot remain.
Your light now fades, yet lingers in the air,
A warmth remembered, beyond compare.
The pyre of knowledge you so proudly built,
Now, it smoulders low, leaving me with guilt.
For lessons missed and questions left unasked,
As twilight falls on your final task.
In ashen whispers, your teachings persist,
Through smoky memories, too precious to resist.
Though you are gone, your spark lives on in me,
A flame of wisdom, burning ceaselessly.
Your absence chills, yet warms me all the same,
For in my heart, you're an eternal flame.
I tend this ember, with reverence and care,
Honouring the light we used to share
A fleeting Fata Morgana that transmutes the deadly shiver of existence into the chrysopoeic alchemy of the infinite, where the boundaries of time and space are but a mere illusion.
Lemmings run in tunnels deep,
The obsessed won't let the phantoms sleep,
But I can't stampede with brainwashed sheep,
I plunged into the soul river.
Leaving the crowd was hard to do
My heart, deceived, believed it knew,
But I left the comfort zone, joined the few.
And plunged into the soul river.
I entered the heart of the silent night,
Where the moon whispered soft and bright,
A path of dreams, it just felt right,
Between the cliffs of the soul river.
Beneath the sky of endless stars,
I put on hold the wounds and scars,
The current took me, ventured far,
I drifted with the soul river.
[chorus]
Soul river, carry me,
To the place where I am free,
Free to think and disagree.
Free to pursue life's mystery.
Then morning came with golden hue,
Each dream left its subconscious clue,
My heart learned from the journey true,
Guided by the soul river.
Mountains reflect in serene clear lakes
Though my friends don't learn from their mistakes,
I will not be with them, for time rushes by
I'd rather feel bad with truth, then good with a lie.
nose pressed in a book
too studious for my own good
better go outside
I'm a kid from Oklahoma
Only wanted a diploma
I completed registration
For my four year education
Then off I went to college
Was seeking higher knowledge
I was taught by all these scholars
Who were making all these dollars
Didn't make a lot of buddies
Was too busy with my studies
Never racked up any tardies
And avoided all the parties
When graduating I was glad
But there were no jobs to be had
Now I'm living back at home
Can't pay off my student loan
My parents are so disgusted
Say the system can't be trusted
Became an ineffectual
Out of work intellectual
Hafez and I grew up together
in Shiraz, centuries apart with
similar poetic ether.
Wandering the world together
as if from the same mother.
We were never actually together
the word reincarnated is better.
He lives in me and we suffer together
humanity's woes and ethnic the other.
We're global intellectuals chanting together
not the salute of flags and land of the mother
we preach the ethos of unity and together
in trenches of peace and harmony with the other.
We renounce war as our destiny together
and throw nationalism to dustbin as we gather,
tall we stand, and humble, together
on shoulders of giants like Tolstoy, Schweitzer, Camus and reverent other
But, wait, Hafez has asked to write a new stanza together
song of world peace and none other.
In you, full of yourself, we enter together
Go fill your heart with love of the other.
Dedication: To Noam Chomsky
What’s that in the air? Covid operations?
Does that virus never think or sleep?
And what about a vaccination?
Things will do what they will do
To grasp the situation moving forward
Too bad simpler minds can’t prevail
What’s that in the air? A needle point?
Can it penetrate the skin of the recipient?
Things in life that never sleep will never wake
Will do as they will do so stop it! You can’t stop it.
Before we inoculate the day, let us pray
An Immaculate Conception is in the air
Take a deep breathe. See! That didn’t hurt
There is nothing worse than air that hurts
Facts now have alternatives to fortify an elite’s status
Truth has lost its authority
Principles abandoned as minds become amorous to like-minds
Intellectual treachery
Corporations have frozen the status quo
Arrested ideology
Anti-capitalism is pretentious and treasonous
Distrust the politics, kill the new entry
Religion is a sanctuary of poverty walled by tyrants
Machiavellian weaponry
A cloaked politician claims anointment from God
Blind flock in an amen chantry
Jesus misunderstood for good for life is good
Yield to Caesar with slavery
Every system wants a piece of your livelihood
Patriotic puppetry
They invade privacy with dosages of conformism
Online artillery
I am an armoured guerilla in a humanism suicide vest
Blowing up the system
Academic Immune Deficiency,
the intellect under attack
Those powered to know, ivory towers enthroned,
dialectic—its meaning hijacked
(Bryn Mawr College: January, 2020)
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