Saleh Badrah

My soul stood up today and said:
Your heart is full of sorrow.

I know, I said,
...

Nan-in, the sage, one day received
A guest who'd come in search of wisdom.
...

It's fruitless in this bleakness to seek zest
Or cheerfulness to brighten up your gloom:
For what bird here will ever build its nest?
What fragrant rose in here will ever bloom?
...

Each wrinkle in his ancient face
Bespeaks a monumental deed.
Serenely there with pride he sits,
No longer longing to succeed:
...

For things of beauty
constantly am I searching,
despite the bleakness.
...

Little bird lilting,
To a tuneful world of peace
Your tunes transport me.
...

Should you, my soul, who sailed to distant shores
And traced the founts of sweet serenity,
Be vexed and irked by those insidious frauds
Whose souls are fraught with spite and enmity?
...

Culture is the cultivation of the self,
The weeding out of inner rotten weeds,
The getting rid of inner 'stony rubbish',
The steady noiseless maturation of the intellect,
...

(A Haiku)

The Lilliputians
are being themselves again,
...

Fast-running Time is running fast,
Transforming present into past.

Discard your schemes; no longer gleams
...

Who knows not the thief of time?
He's that fiend who slyly steals
And thrives upon suspended dreams,
Upon the things we could have done
...

They say that they have come to set us free
And that they're bringing us Democracy.
Democracy? That dainty entity
We read about in Greek philosophy,
...

Two slimy rats
Crept into my room
And started nibbling
Sniffingly at my stuff.
...

Little bulbul at my window,
To what purpose are you singing?
Can't you hear the noise and clamour?
Can't you sense the disaccord?
...

The mind is like a running brook
With mud and precious gems replete:

To spot the gems, stir not the mud;
...

When envy grips a fellow's heart,
It makes him like a viper act.

It sprinkles venom in his brain,
...

I dream a gentle nightingale
Is sweetly singing on a tree
And that a crafty slimy fox
Is slyly watching from afar.
...

Upon a lonely hill, beneath a tree,
Within the boundless realm of reverie,
Abstracted from the sphere of endless strife,
One misty evening all alone I sat
...

A simple, cozy hut,
In a calm, secluded, misty glen,
With winding brooks and waterfalls,
With shady trees and bushes green,
...

Keep digging, O my soul, and pay no heed
To what the minds of shallow men may breed.
Within the self, and nowhere else indeed,
The secret mines of golden wisdom lie.
...