A Deeper Vision Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

He, -the master goes by a deeper vision
A chick pea, in boiling water and the cook
Pushes it down again and again
To make the essence dissolve in the elemental forces
Of fire and water. And in the air, vapors-
The baker’s small shop, next on the street
Brings only that much, needed by the inhabitants
He finishes by the evening, brings again by the morning.
It goes on. A shoe cobbler is making shoes
On a wooden bench, his back straightened to the wall
To remain in shadow and avoid the sun.

The gentle city of Peshawar is awake, yawning
Amidst blood stained walls, and hearing the news of killings.
Eighteen of a family, out to buy for a wedding
In Qissa Khwani –the story teller’s street. Who will tell
And hear this story. There were four rebecks placed in a row.
There was a man, who bowed to this gun, and others in shadows
Hanging on the walls, standing, offering to a deity- a war god.

A little girl, named Simron, died of burn injuries
From the Church, blitzed from below;
A Paul Celan would say, it is explicit.
A symbolic representation is not on the muse’s sleeve,
The while, a spent age, dying in what cause
The gentleness of manners, of the great Pashtuns
‘Who hath of all the things, given them guns,
For roses’- Who hath but drawn artificial lines on earth.

The chick pea, in the master’s kitchen
Is boiling, in fire, fanning flames, from the whirls of winds.


Sadiqullah Khan
Peshawar
October 6,2013.

Wood work in Qissa Khwani Bazaar –the story teller’s street, Peshawar @ VisitPak.com