Long Pakistani Poems

Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine....

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2012 Celtic 2013 Shamrock 2014 choir music ministry 2015 helping my son care for his wife during chemo finally 2016 welcoming my granddaughter six weeks old whose mother was battling cancer watching their brave battle...

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Only bold , italics , 

The stench of power

  There’s a common smell of bull*****been spreading through this land 
Blair and Brown once had the power to spend spend spend out of hand
The banks...

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(Updated in such form that Cole Porter would sue)
 
[Intro]

Times have changed
And we've often rewound the clock
Since Nixon got the shock 
When he crashed on Daley’s bloc
If today
Any shock they should try to stem
'Stead of...

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I like Muslims,
Particularly Yemenis
And Pakistanis (in Yemen)—
With whom, as a university don,
I happened to live for six years. 

Arabic vowels render 
A Yemeni voice gruff.
So even a greeting would   probably
Sound rude to you.

The...

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I was always looking over my shoulder at her baggage

little did i know at the time 
but her baggage 
was within my sight
on our first few dates
what ever the circumstance 
she wasn't at liberty 
to...

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Sitting in the living room on a rather
chilly winters evening, reading the life
journal of a daughter whose parents, 
Pakistani and Kashmiri both dead when
she was really young. 

In an alternate narrative, the clock moves
as fast...

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The Cowardice of the Taliban and The Silence of The Good Muslims.


When hot lead tears the flesh of a 14 year old girl,

ripping through her skull,
leaving her to bleed out and die,

does Allah not recoil...

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I asked Eddy on this and he asked me who told me. I said one of the lads but I don’t want you hurting him. He was fine. I said I knew a bank robber...

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No Explanation! (I)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Please don't ask me how deeply it hurt!
Her sun shone so bright, even the shadows were burning!



No Explanation! (II)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Please...

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A dream for many a watch for some  
The Olympic journey, Here it comes!!  
It was in Paris, few days ago  
It rushed a shiver from the head to the toe. ...

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It was  nineteen ninety nine
a battle was about to begin
between the Indian Army
with the soldiers from Pakistan

My name is Yogendra Singh Yadav
a grenadier awarded the Param Vr Chakra
the highest honour for gallantry
this is how...

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A Town I knew

He was born in a narrow-minded town where a Christian
the party was in power, and there were rules for acceptable 
behavior by stern people who liked to tell others what
is right, of...

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(Bal-e-Jibril-151) Javed Iqbal Ke Naam:
(On receiving  first letter of Javed Iqbal(Late Son of Dr Allama Iqbal) in London)
https://youtu.be/jGv1lCDjHEk
Senior Justice Javed Iqbal (5 October 1924 – 3 October 2015) was a Pakistani philosopher and senior...

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The Salt of the Earth

Who is the Salt of the Earth?
Is it Pakistani musicians making music with pyramids and suffering?
Is it Pakistani musicians finding suffering in heart problems and untimely 
hospital stays?
Is it Jordanian warriors...

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for Malala Yousafzai

A mere demigod won't do
to feel the fear that
a young woman, a little girl
can put into a righteous man

Horrific are the thinly educated
some holy book might have related
if thought of by the deity...

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Solider of fortune are responsible to provide the real stability to pakistan among all nations of the world.
your unity,faith and discipline are real means of your glory in war.
your Prostration to Allah AlMighty five times...

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Yes modernization is here
Islamic rules have made it clear
Pick up a small stick
And beat her to the wick

Make her understand
Obey your command
Pakistan is the modern land
Live like a man and beat at command

Only though because...

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perhaps i should have looked away 
my mind takes me back to the general store 
of black liquorish sticks red cobble stone walk ways 
the reading of immortal poems as william mason
 
sounds off hot...

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Kids dying for diamonds in Sierra Leone,
Innocent civilians killed in Iraq’s warzone.
Indigenous tribes removed from their lands,
Children in the Congo losing legs and hands.
Arms companies still supplying while civilians are dying,
Kids begging on the street...

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A is for Adams, second and sixth presidents.
B is for two Bushes who were Whitehouse residents.

C is for Clinton, forty-second president of nation.
D is for Davis, President of Southern Federation.

E is for Eisenhower, a president...

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A special poem for my friend Hannah

I don t really have friends
but you re one of them I have
you ve given me confidence, instead of my own dad
there s colour, happiness everywhere
when you re near
this...

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I remember as a child at school drinking those small bottles of milk.
I remember feeling posh wearing a tie made out of silk.
I remember running wild under the sun of long summer days.
I remember meal...

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Snow is white
He was born in a rather narrow-minded town that had
strict rules for acceptable behaviour, no bars, no restaurant
serving alcohol and no public display of affection.
A Muslim scholar who came to this town by...

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I
If your national and ethnic loyalties cannot understand other views of YOU, how are u better than Putin & his supporters?

Study ethnoi, ethnicity, nationalism ... And European wars (numerous) even under the Church - plus...

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