Oaken Door Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

Thirst for aesthetic beauty remains unquenched;
Though with abundance I tied a shore to the river:
Ghalib

Oaken door get back to the hinges
My potent art is white of the pages
- Is eating me up, is holding me prisoner.
Oaken door, like a book’s cover severed,
From roots, from masts let lose, be on air
On a sea, on a boat whose oars sail through
The winds. Oaken door who did this to you?

I am negotiating your way, I am in a dialogue
The outer landscape and the inside
The crimson red, a green leaf with a palette
Autumnal colors, like a Persian carpet of Isfahan.
In sun, in shade, before a candle at night
By the window. It speaks. ‘A Forgotten Song’
Was love at first sight, protected from evil eye
‘The Songs of Other Times’ –negotiating
It’s arduous path. Oaken door, tell me
Who did this to you. Did not that the cocoon
Of myself is exposed, a thread I held over the years
Ah! The other end was already broken.
Holy Jesus Christ, I have no clue, on my little heads
On my titles, are these thorns, my poems
Their heads bent, nailed un-measured?
Or art they, Caesar’s olive leaves branching
On an Ovid’s portrait of high renaissance.

Oaken door, you carry wings instead
Love in your heart, a poor man’s soul, a tear
Unshed. Drunk by the saddest eye ever:
On your sultry, faded and worn out face, there is
A beauty that engages for ages yet remains obscure.

Sadiqullah Khan
Islamabad
August 22,2013.