The Pious Wolf of the Parish
The candles in the parish hall sputtered, casting long, monstrous shadows against the stone walls. There sat Abid, cloaked in the sudden, sickening reverence of the townsfolk. He wore his piety like a freshly laundered shroud, his voice a low, honeyed venom as he pointed his finger at her.
"Wickedness," he whispered, and the word hung in the damp air like rot.
It was an old trap, a familiar nightmare. He had spun this web before, burying his own black deeds beneath a mountain of fabricated sins, all laid at her feet. Now, he sat enshrined among the elders, a wolf sheltered by the sheep, his past safely buried in the dark soil of their collective ignorance. He was the architect of her ruin, yet he sat immaculate in the glow of their unearned grace.
She opened her mouth to scream the truth, but the sound died in her throat. She looked at the blank, hollow eyes of the community. They were blind. They were deaf. The heavy silence of the room told her everything: her voice was dead to them, a ghost story they had already chosen to forget.
A PIOUS PACHYDERMIC POSE
(A Haiku Duo)
Big head, knees, and legs;
A huge body, kneeling, as if
In genuflection:-
Long ivory-bound trunk,
Graciously bent down, as if
In pious prayer:-
A major street along the country
A place minds are calmed,
Listening to Holy word
And words of wisdom into heart
A Holy place
created by Heavenly Father
To turn us into good
And away from evil
Oh, love, why do we argue when your pious words are fleeting clouds,
I am tired of all your prayers floating unanswered,
and of the dead who refuse to listen, buried in deep forgetfulness,
leave them be, take your step out of the cemetery of shadows,
they are busy with their silent eternity, sculpted in time.
It was always someone’s fault: the thin-lipped preacher,
who never came, leaving only the echo of days gone by,
I hid in the kitchen, under the rag bag like under a veil of forgetfulness,
I refuse to remember the dead, and the dead are bored with our memories.
But you—go ahead, descend back into the cemetery of extinguished dreams,
lie down where you imagine their faces are sculpted in darkness,
speak to your old bad dreams, dance with the ghosts of the past,
while I remain here, a prisoner of the silence that separates and binds us.
Are they sad, do they hate?
What about greed?
Free from these flaws
They live a pious and chaste life
Always happy and joyfully
Embracing sky, sunshine and breeze
Live closer to nature
Away from the human traits
The Creator is same
He/She seems fond of variety
Producing marvelous diversity
With intrinsic oneness
From trees to human
Creating wonders of life
From the same seed
Filling the universe with bounty
Unseen, but present everywhere
In the abstract and the concrete
Speaking through shades and notes
The nature's miracle overwhelms me
Nothing remains but the ultimate
Birds and bees know the truth
Far better than us.
And I become one
Religion
is the death of God
conscripting Him away
Cloaked in false
propriety
enlightenment at bay
Religion
is the death of God
scriptures to mislead
All piety
a false disguise
worshipping the creed
Religion
is the death of God
whose armies rage and burn
Killing
in the name of One
—whose love they claim to yearn
(The New Room: December, 2023)
It’s perhaps accident, chaos
Happens to rhyme well with Davos—
A talk shop of the world
Where bales of wisdom’s heard,
A shop known for big talk
Nonstop and round the clock,
Where every voice is virtuous!
____________________________________
Happenings |22.01.2023| limerick, humour
Poet’s note: There might be paucity of snow in this ski resort, but not of sound bites in this talk shop called World Economic Forum. And after A to Z deliberations they all go back to their old ways. Perhaps this is why this year’s WEF at Davos seems to have lost some of its old shine, which sundry god-men tried to make good with some pious talks.
Myth of the peculiar pelican
Whose bill bloodies its feathery breast
Feeding blood to the chicks in its nest
Ancient acts ever evangelic
Sole sacrifice for the pelican
Whose beak speaks more than a relic can
36 Words 6 Lines Light Verse
Pelicans appear in Christian iconography
as symbols to verify Christ's self-sacrifice.
Attributions to Dixon Lanier Merritt
(often mistakenly credited to Ogden Nash)
for authorship of the popular Pelican Limerick.
Bite Size Poem No. 16
Sponsor: Line Gauthier
At once comes the holy feel
When visit a sacred place
Pious ambiance fills the heart
Tells this body once can part
Keeps you forever only the art
Feel not thee the only heart
Running after the earthly pleasures
Leaves you nothing just measures
What have you brought to here?
Trying for everything to gather
You are here through your mother
To make something for other
The one thing that we can love
Think that for before we move
R-egarded as one
M-inister of the Gospel,
A-s he shows the truth.
Topic: Birthday of Bro. Romualdo M. Alcantara (March 12)
Form: Acrostic Haiku
The pious is a coward
fears to live in hell-fire
I know when you abase me at kunan, was sniffy day for me.
My people at that time were surrounded by threat and poverty.
Know it they are dearest for me.
I warn you sacrilegious nation,
Hacklers are arriving to hack your appearence.
Get lost before with helish creations from me.
You hang my pious sons like,
Maqbool and guru.
Your aim lost itz fame.
Thousands guru hold firmly my flag on me.
I swear as a Nation of paradise.
My whomb is full of heroes like Burhan.
They lustrate your illegal occupation on me.
I remember the bright faces of my martyrs.
You have to slouch your sloppy face.
Libertrians are alive to rip u away from me.
Your thinking is what? I don't care.
Remember my Nationalists and their nationhood.
You have flee, flee away from me.
You seek pardon, Alas you are not pardonable.
What you poach? I don't have dearth of sacrificers
They love dearly, i love them and they love me.
Your art makes jhelum red by blood of innocents,
Remember, i am paradise .
I am with pious and they are with me.
........ Saim.....
How does one know good from bad?
When bad events tend to have good results.
We have always come up short, we have somehow always failed.
We talk about each individual issue as if that will somehow prevail.
Once - a very, very pious catholic priest,
Comes out of a brothel on lovely morning,
Fiddling with his prayer beads, he whispers:-
"Reception is divine, but price is diabolic".
devout dutiful
blissfully spiritual
men who are godly
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