@ I Sat And Wrote Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

Of a thousand wandering nights, scorching sun
Starving, no speech, nothing to hear but hum
A forest would sing, a bird would talk
A crawling insect or colors of butterfly
Such bliss as dawn would bring
Or a dusk’s sad note diminishing on horizons
Behind the bodhi tree, Buddha sat and once
For all, to find out the key, to the mystery
Escape, the nibhana is like a cold empty room
“And the girl smelt like clove”, with closed eyes
As the mind would expand to the outer stretch
I sat and wrote the poem which was like
A dagger moving in guts, for its eloquence.
A comment worth all the reviews written ever
A shepherd’s dog from memory, and a flock
These sheep graze why? And why they live
Do animals and plants and trees pass through
The pain of living and get extinct too, as we do.

My Yoga teacher, would yell the most inspired
Chants to the air, would rub his hands many times
Before anointing his face and eyes. His student
Nun by appearance, devoid of blood and color
In her skin. Her figure was like the wood sculpture
Around in the ambience of a marble floor.
The Yoga teacher announced his marriage
Having done and both the groom
And the bridegroom were sitting in front of us.
I had once seen an acrobat’s love in a circus
What a haunting melody and pity it evoked.
The bridegroom was sitting in asana,
As taught by the great Buddha playing
With her cell phone, as if to avoid questions
From herself and everyone there
After having done the “acrobats” and breathing
We celebrated the most austere marriage
Since I had written that “dagger poem” that day
I had a terrible desire to weep in the toilet as I had seen
John Travolta, in a “A Love Song for Bobby Long”
And I had read that John had to repeat the act
For thirteen times in succession, weeping and breaking.

I sat and wrote about a stolen revolution
Has any one seen “a coup underway? ”
Is it some thing to be seen in the Now
We had coups, but we only knew when
They were undertaken. A coup underway
All supported it and the General who appeared
To announce looked sanguine, and democracy
Came out to be such a sham. We may one day see
“Love underway”, such is the beauty of “here and now”.

I had forgotten some words, sullen and tired words
I locked the closet for fear of them flying to me
Such an evocative thought like breeze fro a sea
I thought I found a thread to my much avowed
Work of fiction, starting from the girl from legend
Who was buried alive in the city’s walls
By the great King, for his son who may go wayward
And who proved as worthless as his father
In later history. From the crumbling walls
Bearing the ghost of the killed girl
Or the son King, killing another man
To marry his wife. Loots, plunder and pillage.

I sat and wrote though, and every word
Was like the bleeding, the apothecary advises to the sick.