To Begin Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

To begin, your task is to see again,
Cluttered half written, half done works
Sung by some pretty girl, why she would
Care, had it not been a worth, in somber tone.
The closet is a fill to the brim, hanging skeletons,
Of some forlorn desires, drenched in rains,
Flagged in the distant sky-line of the city
Where sit the glamour girls, dine and sup.
Who would recount the waste, except that hours
Have been dragged into the lonesome writer's
Little table, with frothing mug of coffee, if you permit,
Imagination forth onto the stage, the life- drama
Asks, verdantly. Get them cock-tailed. O narcissus,
Had you not seen yourself in the mirror,
Your years of lament may not be so injurious.
O stretch your hands, to the hills sitting,
On the bed of air, and sheath of cloud
On a covered face, the dark night will rain dreams,
Upon a face, that every night sleeps, wakes up in the morning,
Sans the glare of the rising sun, on a worn-out smile.
Do not remember, the isolation, yours was a territory,
‘Foreigners prohibited', the prohibitions were,
By the hillock's walls a prison indeed, do not recall.
You can either float with ideas, and escape
Like an eagle in high nest away from the eyes of beholders,
Or bent heads, regimented without raising questions,
Without raising heads, and eyes, for the solemnity
Of parade. Your return is not as easy, nor is your going afar
The extension is that with a funeral perhaps -
The wretched soil, is infested, with some viral disease
On us is pulled, half of the existence, there are awaited
One hundred years of warfare, the battle-fields have been
In succession chosen, houses numbered, to evacuate
Or live within. They are doing politics; there is no end-game.

Sadiqullah Khan
Gilgit
November 5,2014.