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Tag: Arabic verse forms

The Echo Cages: rubai

You can twist and turn them round
and then pretend they are profound,
but words are just like prison bars
constructing cages out of sound

we carry with us, though we are
fine specks of dust from the small stars
flung out and free in space and time.
We dare not travel quite that far.

We seek the edges, so we climb
until no longer in our prime,
and then, collapse back into sleep,
almost like death, but more sublime.

We use our words to laugh and weep,
and waste them, thinking they are cheap.
By this illusion we are bound,
just echoes in a boundless deep.

27 Jun 2025

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No Substitute for Progress: qasida

Salutations and our greeting.
Welcome to this special meeting.
As you know, our time is fleeting,
so please take your assigned seating.

We control a heart that’s beating.
Ever forward, no retreating.
Never mind the lambs, their bleating
will grow softer. They’re just tweeting.

Taste the fatted calf we’re eating,
as this project nears completing,
raised free-range, on grain, no cheating,
farm-to-table, heart still beating.

All the numbers say we’re beating
anyone who tried competing.
We’re as sound as central heating.
Our position is concreting.

Still, this message bears repeating:
going soft is self-defeating.
Never mind the weak entreating
you for mercy in defeating.

This concludes our special meeting.
Please return your hood and sheeting.
The exit survey you’re completing
keeps our cause from obsoleting.

22 Jun 2025

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The Vocabulary Lesson: qasida

If the words we choose are merely tools
that separate the wise men from the fools,
what sort of workshop is the kind of school
where any passion in our hearts is cooled
and what we learn is just a set of rules
and reasons why our lives are base and cruel,
an endless search to find some precious jewel
that uses our own hearts and minds for fuel?

18 Jun 2025

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Sailing to the Islands: rubai / rubaiyat

Across the western sea the islands gleam
like jeweled notes that play, or so it seems,
a wild and rugged song, steeped in romance
and stories that delight the night with dreams.

The winds, when they are willing, swirl in dance
in steps not of America, or France,
but in a strange and sensual caprice;
they tempt the stranger to but take a chance.

The clouds above lay soft as down, or fleece,
and slowly billow as their grays increase,
’til full of rain and summer’s violent storms,
they empty out their content in release.

The long horizon stretches far ahead
across the line of sight like a pale thread,
and seems almost a never-ending band
that ties the rolling waves to the sky-bed.

At dawn and dusk, the edges of the land
seem to forget which part is foam or sand,
and blur into a gray and purple stream
that mixes light and dark along the strand.

15 MAY 2017

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Heart of Mine: Qasida

Love, how sweet and how sublime
your song fills this heart of mine
with nourishment that seems divine,
suited for this heart of mine.

So I start a troubled climb
that may strain this heart of mine,
up the mountainside to find
who sings to this heart of mine.

‘Cross the crags and sharp incline,
echoes fill this heart of mine.
Love stays hidden, with no sign,
taunting this poor heart of mine.

Love, I seek you, though half blind,
trusting in this heart of mine –
for your song warms me like wine,
gives life to this heart of mine.

13 APR 2017

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