Long Turban Poems

A boy named Joseph lives in an old city,
But his family lives so far from his living place.
He came here for study purposes.
Next year he will complete his graduation from the local university.
Now he is...

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Dad Revisited- Once More


Last night I sat up in bed and prayed a little longer,
I asked god to send dad back for just one more  day with great fervour.

Dad was waiting for me in...

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Sight
Your eyes are riptides, they've pulled me in,
To the torrent beneath your grin.
I'm slowly drowning, within your depths,
Sinking into what from me you've kept:
A heart whose echo in me resides
While mine in you shall only...

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Taming a tropical topical tree? Taking a trunk? Telling a tailor? Traversing a tale? Many ideas. Much like the ideological dramas of a beach front. Wavelength of winds. Movements if the tides. Coconuts can jump...

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You were primarily a spiritualist, 
But circumstances made you a noble warrior:
Your father, Guru Teg Bahadur,  
was treacherously beheaded.
You had to contend invaders from the Western frontier
And ward off repeated imperialist incursions from the...

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Ooh a scented grape graphic. Now that's wisdom. Contained a logical pattern in a juice cup. Heron haven heaping. Wisdomstic of a Judas flaw. Consealed in Sanskrit. Heavenly heaping cream on a very large bun....

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The springs wind used to cry in the vacant field.
The passers by used to shed their tears, in the mean time the leaves of the trees started to mourn themselves.
The two bulls were used to...

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It was another beautiful morning in the city , Workers  looking radiant as always
People  strolling , Cars horning as pedestrians throttled along the Zebra crossing
The subway was crowded with the smell of early...

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I just made it in time for Mary's funeral, it had been raining
heavily all day but the sun came out through the clouds.
And as I watched her coffin being lowered into the ground,
I was filled...

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Dad Revisited

RIP 1924-2015


Last night I sat up in bed and prayed a little longer,
I asked god to send dad back for just one more  day with great fervour.

Dad was waiting for me in the...

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Strip me bare like the land
Sacred and unprotected
That you come to claw and tear
To hold its sparkle 
In the ostentation of your hand
For man is more than spectacle
And I am more than
Just a sum of...

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(Jodhpur is a beautiful, cultural, historical city in Rajasthan, India. This poem is all
about Jodhpur from her mouth as she told).


Left behind her beamish days of time of life, her days of girlhood…
Left behind her...

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Heading to a cauldron in the dry sea of sands
Far afield the Sahara shores devoid of life
With an array of dexterous army riding further North
Our horses neighs as honed swords beholds Amir al-Mu'mini's hands
Death on...

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Picnic
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My friends laugh elsewhere on the beach
while I sit here, alone, counting the waves,
writing and rewriting your name in the sand ...

Confession
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation by Michael R....

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Those who savour do know well the taste, 
The rest may form but the images abstract; 
Unsubstantial eyes penetrate deep into realities, 
But the carnal look with superficial glance. 
Spent I time pondering over the...

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The canny hitman wears many faces
His smiling face he calls democracy
Were you to hear him chanting..
You would be forgiven to believe
Freedoms.. rights, democracy..
He utters and funds yet.. SEE
Do you SEE your fallen statesman
Your struggling economy..
Your...

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Quilts and woollies of winter all folded,
From February’s fold chill when escaped, 
In March, when all ready to welcome spring,
Sun seems in hurry to wear red turban,
Few morning walkers wear woollen mufflers,
Sugarcane seems to have...

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Here we have the confrontation of good and evil
the angel of the Lord confronts Satan set to accuse
this is the battle of spiritual reality way up high
God the powerful determined never to lose

Here in Joshua...

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Timely simultaneous occurrences? really? or a big beef casserole delivering a speech?

A leaning vibrating hand of a plant is getting out of the pot today. It prefers a nice vase you see. Varnish no onion...

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I wish you had ears, so I could whisper to you how you’ve been on my mind
Ever since i was brought into your world, 
I had only a single wish, for 
The stories my mother...

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THE AL-ANDALUS QUARTET

THE AL-ANDALUS QUARTET: PART ONE
GIBRALTAR / DJEBEL-TARIQ   711 AD / 92 AH

In the eyes of the hawk
Djebel Musa to Djebel Tariq
is the tactical distance across the
turbulent waters where the blue
Mediterranean meets...

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now the sun made love to the moon
in a transgender afternoon 
will be like you, will be like me 
blame fimininty, blame under Y trinity 
for the crescent got pregnant by a star 
how Islamic...

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Hey there! Noah, my dear old friend.
     I just wanted you to know, the guys down at the lodge
are cracking quite a few jokes at your expense.
    ...

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sliver of vertical night
  visible slit along the curtain centre-line
  too lazy to pull them tight
  surely nobody outside lurking, peering in
  winds rise, branches creak and fight
  rattling thud,...

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I do not know if this is true what I see:
I see in some dim, distant, desolate rock-hold
gathering peoples, driven as though by common fear.
A low mournful humming drifts with the breeze
of manhood tread, and...

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