Poem: The Only Real Life
May 5, 2008 by danielabdalhayymoore
The only real life is the soul life
say what you will
The only real world is the next world
we’ll soon know
The bicycles of the sky disperse into
cloudy drifts
their spokes farther and farther apart
The famous hills and dales of
the earth fall and rise rise and
fall
throwing up snowmen and fire demons
in their congenial upheavals
Once one footing’s established
the rug is pulled the bridge
cranked to the side into shadow
The only true sun is not this sun
blazing contentedly though it
warm vegetation to feed and clothe us
season after season
Past the blues and greens
other blues and greens more
vividly ablaze await us
And the cool drink that allays our
thirst complete and is passed around
God’s pin drops to earth through the sky
and lands point first
exactly where we are
moving or still
and the pinprick and the ache
are His glory in its purest form
_____________________________
4/22/08 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak)
[...] Abdal-Hayy Moore - The Only Real Life (also available in [...]
Salam Abdal-Hayy,
Thanks for your e-mail message. My e-mails to you keep bouncing — is there a problem with that address? Anyway, I am glad to find this alternative way to reach you!
jawid
Dear Jawid: Salaama
I’m a bit stunned you can’t email me… I’ll email your address with mine to see if it gets through… I pray you and your wife are well… and you’re well into new volumes of Masnawi! Your reading of the selection is really wonderful…
ma-salaama
Abdal-Hayy
Truth and beauty in every line
Inshallah, that true sun will shine for us all in the end of this and the beginning of that.
Ya Haqq!
Asalam alaikum and thank you for your words. Continue to inspire and be inspired. Our poetic legacy is a great door through which the West can enter into the abode of Islam. Keep it alive and well. and they will keep knocking.
I offer a poem in graditude
Liquid Collage…
An ear to the street another to the tracks-
I could hear the train comin’ now theres no turning back. Laying flat.
rope tied tightly
the tide has risen slightly
past my shoulders-
slowly-
simply to spite me.
Despite me and my situation
the stars have given a standing ovation to the moon, Nightly.
i could hear their vibration.
Each in or exhalation could be my last-
each breath is a 40 day fast-
this is meditation.
Embracing NOW- I have no choice but patience.
The sand I’m sinking into.
it drinks me to its belly
I tempt to quench its thirst
the hunger stings like jelly fish tentacles.
Barnacles grip my toes tips.
like Barnabas gospel they don’t even know i exist.
I insist on living my last in bliss
and since
I have no choice-
I choose this.
I drift as the anchor hits
the rock bottom
the rock tied to my ankle falls like autumn
cement socks is soggy
eels shock my body
after we rock the party its the ho-tel -lobby.
Corks pop.
The stork drops me .
I stop. My ears ringing
I hear sobbing.
I’m here bobbing for apples a mirror dodging the tackles reflecting or flashing
catching a fish eye till He hooked with a passion
these bubbles are laughing.
Either at me or with me or at me.
Who created who?
we both evaporate through invisible skin of the universe to the clouds.
we tell ‘em our saddest stories until they just burst out loud.
Perched on an untouched tree,
that grew from un-stepped sand,
in an unknown land floating on an uncharted sea.
Inside an hour glass drawn on papyrus reeds
shoved into a bottle corked with ivory.
We’ll all be speechless soon how bout an eye for an E.
This irony
inside of a man who works with his hands
and falls to his knees
The big bang was a thing that was sneezed
from the largest to the smallest
all spinning in perfect harmony
This army moves as one body when the Sargent breathes. Inhales and he parts the sea.
Exhales and we’re marchin free.
This Counterinsurgency that surges in me churns the sea of my soul till it turns water to boil and burns in me.
This soil is exceedingly fertile.
Between The Nile and Euphrates.
Unseen hands rock this cradle
the babies
the snake
its rattle
the tail
the cattle
the saddle
the sand of the camel
the sea of ship as it sails.
The slip of the tongue,
the clip of the nails.
The questions on the lip of the frail
as he slipped and he fell.
The tip of the iceberg .
The sip of the ale.
The grip of the hell fire worldly desire
sell souls sireing seeds of Zaaqqumm trees that seem to reach higher and higher and strangle the suns rays and yield fruits inspired by rotten deeds pays interest to the few
waterfront view of the sickness
Oh the Fitnas!
I bear witness.
To the distance of man from his purpose-
yes this hurt is self inflicted.
No one is unaffected.
predicted electing the quickening of suffering-
dollar bills one eyed-
never been how your God is depicted.
In this we trust.
We feign existence
like a weather vain pointing to the pain in the distance. Every fawn is born in the Fitrah.
A field full of citrus.
Ripe- ready to peel and delicious.
sitting in lotus position
reading the book of assistance.
on a flower
that bloomed out of the ruins of the tower of babel. whether you shoveling gravel on a path that is narrow
or acting a pharoah in Moses’s robes and apparel.
if the oceans were barrels of ink
and the trees in the forest were pens–
never would the speech of our Lord ever end.
until we blend like a collage with Allahs Will
Isra and Mirage to the stars we ascend.