The Prayer Mat

A symbol

Of the mobility 

Of Faith

"All the world is

A place of prostration"

All spaces 

A place of 

Meditation

This simple piece

Of rectangular 

Cloth makes 

The world 

A home and a 

Remembrance

That night 

She had forgotten

In her haste 

To not lose

Time, Or receding 

Daylight 

This valuable 

Piece of cloth

And as her 

Head touched the

Wooden parquet floor

And the sun slowly subsided,

She hoped the Faith

In her heart 

Would spread

Like a carpet of 

Protection and comfort

This act, so reassuring,

Heartwarming,

Paradoxically,

Uplifting.

Attached to Me

Do you not yearn for your bright-eyed stare

Which made the world seem like dazzling light and wonder

And let you forget as soon as your gaze was distracted,

Or your fumbling grasp that tightly clasped onto a finger

But not onto anger or hurt,

Chubby growing muscles that found challenges stimulating

And not a gateway to anxiety or self-pity,

Strong angry voices could evoke temporary discomfort

But no memory of the sharp words your parents exchanged remained

The maturation of neurons leads to the inevitable

Attachment, memories, emotions, ambitions, disappointments

The more of which we have, the more we are compelled to strive

Not just for self actualization, but for the attachments we

Believe lead us to love and identity. Such fluid yet enchanting ideas

In a temporary world based on arbitrary values we

Hold onto our fantasied ideals and what is more

We fight our own wars in their name

Intelligence gives us more to care about,

More to lose, more to believe we own

More to say is Me

And ego preservation is one of the most powerful

Forces, for good and otherwise,

That increasingly binds us to survival as we Live 

What a Man sees in a Woman’s face

What a Man sees in a Woman’s face

Is so much more than she could imagine, or realise

In that moment.

One glance reveals a soft endearing sweet tenderness,

Too easily crushed

An involuntary blush in her cheeks,

Is the beginning of many a daydream

A squint in deep dark eyes,

Reveals an intelligence that could fill galaxies

And could be the secret to unlocking her desirous laugh

A downward glance is surely both sides of a precious coin,

Shy idiosyncrasies and a wit that is bright as the noon sun

The turn of a head belies some of her underlying steel

At this the man becomes aware of the danger

What can enchant can hurt, what hurts feels hurt

And yet this thought is quickly displaced by the promise

Of hearing her voice. Words  are the sixth dimension that

Could confirm, or forever abolish the Above.

What a Woman sees in a Man’s face,

Is not to be revealed, as yet…

The Unrightness of written rites

There's something ridiculously ironic

About pens zigzagging across color coded pages

Symbolising all we've had, them and I

As if these reams of scattered phrases

Are meant to be their rite of passage. I would rather

Some perception of mine follow them through the examination door

Where they're not behind a desk but rather in front of a wheel

Steering a life, a career, livelihoods, families, organisations,

And their own development

And even if in one moment out of a hundred thousand some concept, 

Remark, realisation is brought to life

My next decade of teaching will be indebted

Definitively in my mind, 

One's mark is not quantitative. For either of us...

ETA: ........

Worship, in its serene awareness, is a journey

The journey that we were all waiting for

And perhaps overlooked in the singular obsession

With a destination. Our everyday illusions of destinations,

Of “arriving”, conflicts with our natural purpose

This anxiety about the destination obscures the journey

So that the Arrivals Lounge is filled with senseless ghosts

And in the striving, dungeoned crevices of the earth

Live those aware and mindful and free

Surviving the shadow within the shadow

It is only when you stare into the eyes of a monster

Can you see its reflection in yourself.

You twist sideways and turn yourself upside down,

Trying to transform this image into one of Beauty

Of something you could love forever and never let go

To alter the outside because you won’t accept; it is part of you.

Murder. It is the only answer. Murder what you hate

And it will die inside of you. If  you let it live out there,

It will haunt your every step, echo your every move

Until you slowly lose contact with a reality too terrifying

To see. 

Kill it... before it kills you.

On Loving Ramadan

Children of Adam,  Rejoice, as the Moon calls,

It says, Become aware of the gentleness of my light.

Make your nights mindful and aware

Empty your days of their harsh chasing.

Restrain your daily desires, feel the pangs of withdrawal

Followed by the liberation of victory

Bathe in my soft light and stand in praise of your Sustainer

Let go of delusions of sustenance, only through restraint

Will you see through this mirage of fulfilment

You’ll return in anticipation, to your soul’s rhythm

Love and praise, praise and love, without covetousness or flattery

You would have burnt a path to your core, your spine of existence

This is the Joy you feel when you hear the Moon’s call

Children of Adam, make merry while the ethereal contentment lasts,

Tomorrow may be Eid, when the Sun’s dominance returns,

With its blazing rays of production and consumption

That overwhelm your Soul’s flickering moonbeams.

So now, dance with the Moon and

Sing the Message in evening vigils , and rejoice.

In between the signs

If this soul yearns, 

For a delicious reunion of purpose and passion

It is when, I kiss my mother's feet

And yet my soul yearns for God

Or I clasp my father's hand, 

My soul still yearns for God

Fall asleep in my husband's arms,

Caress my newborn's forehead,

Drive the newest model of my German car,

Stare in awe at the Niagara Falls, 

Summit the tremendous Uhuru;

Even if, my words are published in the world-famous publications.

My face on every prestigious magazine, and my laugh on every television screen

All legitimate Halaal desires, if and only if 

My soul still yearns and is impressed only by reunion with God, then

I have realised what the purpose of being human is 

And will only strive for the rare type of wealth, tranquility (Sakeenah)

Because true love can only exist between a soul and God

Trust...

Is like a spiderweb,

Of course because the delicate 

Patterned spindles lull 

Me into a false sense of security

All the while knowing any second

Forces beyond my control

Can rip it all, leaving 

Me homeless, destitute, in despair

What makes us trust then?

To accept, my exit from the womb 

Began such, and all life shall end such

So should I not anticipate these 

Rabbitholes and like Alice,

Skip and hop to enjoy the adventure?

So pretty

How beautiful are flowers 

Pressed between two sheets of glass 

Preserved in eternity in an odourless, 

Colour-draining existence 

Like when she thought she was 

Moving, touching, building

The background music was grandiosely baroque 

And the images she saw were real and vivid,

Years she spent in this ideal, fascinated, saturated

Until one day she tried to move and realised 

She would have to just sit and wait.

Yes, no, yes, there was no mobility here, no 

Fluid, grainy, joint-creaking, none of that 

So she screamed and screamed in a tone 

That had no sound, kicking with phantom limbs 

Until she died, as perfectly still, as the moment of her birth

Skin2Skin

Eve's leaves, Adam's eyes, this is more than squabblings over forbidden fruit

For thirteen years we've touched with my every movement,

So much so, that to seperate would be like to wake up one day

And discover you've lost all visible traces to your parental ethnicity;

Can you imagine the loss, the confusion, the instinct to hide away?

Like any connection, it has its implicit understandings, to uphold this

I need to accept like any ethnic minority, majority, Americanphobiority

How others and Others associate a myriad of identities,

Bigot, frigid, judging, scared, ignorant, conformist, whateverist

That tell me they've found something to latch on, to comfort them

Just like the be-longing we have, my Hijab and I

In my heart

...I imagine you bursting with the love, contentment and Sakeenah of tulips blooming in a Turkish April

One day I cut a piece of time, and hid it in my shoe

Bury the memories carefully,
One day you may need to find them

Barren contentment

The imperfection is what’s most fascinating

The absolute, complete, finity

How one day, we’ll all let go

The world won’t spin

Your heart won’t beat

Heaven being simply an end of neediness

Of wanton wants

Pure white blossoms into whiteness

A non-existent background of invisible blackness

Can you see what I see?

Hello, old friend

When you've died a thousand deaths,
A certain resurrection emerges from this lifeless soul,
An uncertain friendship develops with death Herself.
You realise the pockmarks that had once been signs of dire infection
Are now worthy wrinkles of wise wanderings
That inspire you to invite Her on every adventure...

My final say on Love

I need to rescue this pitiful word from
Being a downtrodden rotten ragged rat of
A word , to evolving to the fresh warm taste
Of honey sprinkled on a green apple, sour sweetness
In a complete and fulfilled sort of pleasure

And nowhere do we know love better than
When it is ripped by loss, by the slow regurgitation of every
Morsel of apple in a pool of hydrochloric acid and rejection,
Every convulsion a confirmation, every gob of spit a reclamation
And that wonderful aching emptiness that is left, can anticipate
Being filled by the same sour sweetness, in some parallel future

Matryoshka

A doll within a doll within a doll within a doll,

Crackless exterior, walls within walls within an emptiness

What lies deep within, no man knows.

Secrets passed from matron to virgin, generation to generation?

A deep red rosy heart full of repressed love and affection?

An identity reaching from grandfather's grandfather to an ancient heritage?

No. Just a tear within a tear within a tear.

And beware, the cracks are beginning to show...

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Replace your cowering shivering fear,
With weary, dignified submission.
Your love inspired you to risk the world's treasures,
Stretched your every ligament beyond its capacity;
Just so your prostration could lift you to the Heavens

She said He looked at her like she was the answer to Life Itself or Children of the Shadows

We live and laugh as if we will not live for long

Although we live forever in the nightmares of

Our innocent mothers, as mistakes, as abominations

And regrets. They love us wholeheartedly even without another half

They hide us and shush the gossip, and we wish we could

Talk from the cradle like Jesus and plead our mother’s cases.

But we know that we are voiceless in our shame, we live with

The guilt of a man who brags of his love yet supports not

The product of such. Men who love too much, men who

Cannot control their love, men who sing on stars and expensive suits

With expensive flowers and gold trinkets until.

Until we wreck it all.

Abortion would have been more beautiful than a life without a Name

Where we are condemned to cower to society’s comfort, in Shadows.

Heroes never parting...

Whispered words, uttered with ferocity

Incantations of hope and despair, remorsefully

Searching, beckoning that universal Force:

Help him, save him, simply with the certainty

That its Wisdom may do either, may do neither

Memories rush by like colliding trains

Of when we worked in the tuckshop and he gave me candy

Of how I raced gleefully, when I learnt three times three

Memories are one of our greatest blessings; be careful who

You choose to share them with. He chose to share them

With those who would cherish them the most, even a decade

And a half later, at an age where heroes reign and live forever.