Long Ingots Poems

THE KINTA VALLEY
OR : Dreams of the Sleeping Man
        (Anthropomorphic name of a mountain profile viewed from The Valley)

The sleeping man dreams on in calm detachment
While in valley...

Read More

These are English translations of Urdu poems by Faiz Ahmad Faiz. 



Speak!
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, while your lips are still free.
Speak, while your tongue remains yours.
Speak, while you’re still standing...

Read More

Speak!
by Faiz Ahmad Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, while your lips are still free.
Speak, while your tongue remains yours.
Speak, while you're still standing upright.
Speak, while your spirit has force.

See how, in the bright-sparking forge,...

Read More

Written: June 09, 2024 For Ink Empress Contest

“a mute tongue is a slave to silence” - Silent One

                 ...

Read More

SENSITIVITY

They’re all ignored by us, but they have feelings too :
A black  gravestone  in  New York, down in the world, 
Recalling its halcyon days as a part of 
The impressive strata ...

Read More

I took a long drive down to Harbinger Row
Where the grass is all dead and the flowers won't grow 
Where the people and their pets are now long gone
And an icy cold wind whispers till...

Read More

ROSE GOLD (Part 2)

Gold

So much for power, the value of an empire, the value of a nation.
Squeezing from the people this metal of limitless extravagance,
Melting it down and poring it into lifeless ingots and marring...

Read More

Petrified pottery ponders plots. Ploys play putting purring. And a frantically fraternising pickle arch can glow on many a skyline at dusk. In many hues. Many dusks many arches many hues and many hues mean...

Read More

Hamilton, Ontario,
Is a steel making town.
You can hardly tell it, 
When the sun goes down.

The slagpiles glow as the big furnace throws,
Another batch of ore.
Big ingots sit on the railway cars,
Behind the big steel doors.

They...

Read More

It was just a "Front", that most were supposed to see
Not a stud on the place, just "mystery donkeys"
Some days they were there, then just up and disappear
Maybe this is the reason this happened to...

Read More

Dixie Cup Memorial
                  by Odin Roark

How small it is
this bottom of the Dixie cup
looking skyward
holding high the torch
the...

Read More

spring melts into summer’s light
proving wrong that still despair,
chilled in winter’s heart,
has corroded to the marrow

for even poppies bloom
in broken fields and shell holes
bones blanketed in shrouds of moss
trill of larks cross no man’s land

as...

Read More

A quest for solace took me to a well-kept garden 
Where the only trouble is the breeze that blows 
Touching the hearts of the trees 
Then the rustling sounds of the leaves
The dancing inch grasses...

Read More

When all else lays on eve’s mantle,
this heartbeat stirs,   awakening unto a flicker
of midnight-- and I observe if the early jay 
had returned from its chilled dwellings … Not
at this moment, not yet...

Read More

One  more drink and just my essence 
remains. My speech is owned by another
and my body moves beyond my control.
I can smell my ego and taste my vileness.

I walk the road of champions and...

Read More

What things does one possess
at journey's end?
What bits and bobs? What trivial tripe?
Please, do tell, what is the hype?
For should I recall anything at all
of trinkets obtained in memory's shawl,
it would be the warmth of...

Read More

I recall writing checks in my spidery crawl.
The TV then was a humming spaceship
with glowing innards that deep-scanned 
all who glued their flickering, bug-eyed minds to it;
it abducted whole families at a time.
That same television
materialized...

Read More

pulchritudinous ingots chisel and shades
dazzle and illuminate umpteen reasons

poetry is like a swirling, susurrus-sibilant chimera
of innuendo arty souls, albeit vapid syntax
around serene scenery, orbs, and idealism

Is unction vital to adorn naked words with plumose wings?
whose...

Read More

When bright stars fade into day
And the flowers of May are fruiting trees
When rocks into sands decay
And rivers make mountains in the seas
Love shall be a brighter sun
Than all the galaxies galore of gas aglow
Than...

Read More

when the diver
with his deluded desire on fire
juxtaposed the diving suit
and found false gold ingots at the bottom of the sea,
he had the vision of Eden obliterated by fire,
because if immersed or submerged as a...

Read More

She sent me a lol on wattsapp
Please pass the ketchup

Mothership gliding in silent space
Umbilically us padded in shiny foil
Her face deflected in a fish bowl
Leaves only guessing about her thoughts
Lets dock Lets talk

Little ingots and...

Read More

Images surge through April bold, a magical thrill I do behold;
Across the earth a glorious rite, surpassing human delight.
Clouds descend with minty air, their luster beyond compare ;
This tableu...a prelude call, as peaks of my...

Read More

At close distance sounds the bugle, 
melancholia conceived and born, 
notes eschewing warmth in 
the dewy shades of dawn. 
Of this sadness, numb and heavy, 
laden with ingots of lead, 
symbols of speechlessness 
for words...

Read More

Shall we retourne now to China
Celebrate this coming new year 
To watch fire crackers and dragons
Spring festival season to cheer




Celebrate this coming new year
In fantastic Chinese style
Dance with farmers at temple fairs
Year of the monkey...

Read More

In the corner of the field the hay is stacked ,
looking like gold ingots for the winter king.
The geese are gleaning among the stubble,
so intent on feeding they scarcely notice
the raucous crows that argue over...

Read More