Tags
conscience, logic, love, philosophy, poem, soul, spirituality
Hola, peace, hello, Shalom, and Salaam, beautiful people/person – delete as appropriate. You know, if the shoes fits an’ all. You decide. Just be honest. This post will commence with a short poem which was personally written over the course of last week. Don’t worry its nothing ‘romantic’. Being a practicing unmarried Muslim means my expression of romanticism, within the confinements of the halal, is limited to, ”Sister, where is your Wali?”. Yeah, I know, Romeo got nothin’ on me. Anyway, here it goes;
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A hollow land of decay, stumbling in strain,
Every step he lays forth – sinking in vain,
Worst are the whispers; echo and collide,
Voices diluting the pure which remains,
Scattering his thoughts- a conquerable divide,
Screams searing through his skin,
Exposing the void inside,
Chimeric perceptions flow therein,
Flawed fallacies ardently belied,
Soon he submits to withhold,
The voices afflict ruin, beyond that foretold,
Wounds transcend the vagaries, of place and time,
As the clocks of his faculty, began to whirr and chime,
How he misses the silence;
yet he dismisses in haste,
The voices expel a rhythm, his lips seem to grace,
Perhaps the inconceivable be true…
To his own the voices accrue.
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As the adage goes, the only way to rid a work of art, expression or creativity from its intended impact and beauty, is by conducting a thorough ‘academic’ dissection. Obviously, this is what I will be doing to the above poem. Although not to suggest I regard it as a ‘work of art’, or anything close. Just merely drawing a rather simplistic, and maybe inept, comparison. I am positive most of my readers have the ability to communicate better in writing than myself; judging by your tweets, status updates and blog posts. Anyway, here goes.
We often misapprehend, or simply ignore, that the faculty of our perception lies in our being. We tend to have dichotomous forces pulling us towards varying directions. The above poem seeks to accentuate that the source of separation may rest within us. The extent to which we see ‘lighter’ and ‘darker’ forces (or ‘voices’) externally, might be dictated by an internal light-switch. Images of the external help us visualise the material world, whilst ‘judgment’ categorizes and defines them, often into a chimeric perception. The peak of the challenges we face, might be more of an internally contained phenomena than we would propagate. The control over these voices, and the source from which they originate, lies awake in our conscience. The cognitive harm they can inflict should not be underestimated, especially given the damage may be permanent, whereas our ability to react, remains temporary.
Indeed, ‘the dichotomy of night and day, might reside within us’. It’s definitely thought for food. I will refrain from over-elaborating this point, as it requires personal reflection more than anything else. Mostly dependent on whether you have ‘time’ or the desire for such assessment. I will close this post with my favourite quote of all time. Bear in mind, I don’t regard religious texts as ‘quotes’ – before we jump to conclusions. The following excerpt left me absolutely confused at the first time of reading. I had no clue what it meant. Nil. Was a mix of gibberish. It is only at a later date, when coming across it again, I made an attempt to comprehend its message. And once I did, I was blown away. The best quotes, books or articles of expression are those that one must analyse, in order to understand. The most rewarding treasure is one which requires exploration. I probably have hundreds of quotes, self-written and borrowed, hidden away in virtual documents. Although, this trumps all by considerable measure;
”Yesterday’s ordinary drop of lukewarm aqua, transforming in the light, into a model of haughtiness and vanity, just to find out how dependent and repentant he is in the dark, without realizing that the dichotomy of day and night reside within him.”
I sincerely hope you appreciate it as much as I do. I think it tells us more about ourselves than we might be aware of. If you don’t ‘get it’ (as I didn’t initially), re-read it, even resort to the dictionary if it includes unfamiliar terms, you will find its definitely worth it in the end.
Peace, love, and for another week, thanks for reading. Salaam, and with the Will of God – take care.
Thought for food 
Salaam, profound concepts expressed beautifully through your explanation – don’t worry, I didn’t get a sense of you dissecting the poem, just adding a few brainwaves of thought into the mix :)
The poem is interesting. I hope you don’t mind me offering a few thoughts to perhaps help you from my own experiences in writing poetry…
I get a sense of your rhyme holding you back from expressing more freely – rhyme is a difficult thing to get to grips with and can often put your thoughts into shackles (it’s something even long-time poets can mess up). The flow of the poem should be your main focus. While writing try reading the words back to yourself – the flow is in the fact that you can easily read it out loud, you’ll start to correct things to keep a natural rhythm going. For example, in your first two lines, the second line doesn’t flow with the first because it’s slightly too short even with the break. Also your use of ‘alee’ stands out to me, it needs to be contextualised into the rest of the piece. I like the line ‘Screams searing through his skin’. Sometimes taking words out is better as lines like ‘Voices diluting the remnants of pure which remain,’ is quite a mouthful in that flow, or ‘Chimeric perceptions flow therein,’ could be ‘Chimeric perceptions therein’. Do you know what I mean?
I like the message you’re trying to express; the inner disturbance of the mind and soul. I think one of the ways you could progress your poetry is perhaps to move away from a generic format and bring in a more personal touch. Express the context of your thoughts, be true to yourself and don’t be afraid of the words even if it doesn’t rhyme – be more concerned with rhythm and flow and you’ll find rhyme will come in naturally sometimes. Once you get more comfortable with your written voice you’ll find it easier to write in traditional rhyme without it sounding mechanical.
Beautiful ideas though. I get the image of us being like living pendulums trying to find our balance :)
Thanks a lot for such great feedback. Massively appreciated. You pretty much pinpointed my exact (personal) issue with poetry. As much as I like the beautification of text or ideas through rhyme, I find, due to my lack of ability in this regard, that the pressure to do so is often limiting.
My intention with any such writing in the future is to strip out the rhyming element, and focus more on the ideas, content, and the words used to portray them. Nonetheless, thanks for driving this realisation, and even more so for your time. Pretty empowering feedback. Hopefully there is some benefit in all this. Keep reading!
P.S looking forward to your next post. (Tick tock).
Salaam.
I forgot to mention, check out my poem ‘Dignitas’, the rhymes are irregular, let me know what you think.
Look forward to seeing more poetry from you.