Archive for category Poems
Sensual – Poem by Asad Jaleel
Posted by asad123 in Poems, relationships, Uncategorized on February 18, 2012
Sensual
I want to write a poem
For people who don’t like poetry
People like you
Grounded, diligent people
Brilliant, generous people
Start at the senses
Don’t read this with your eyes
Taste it with your mouth
Swish the syllables under your tongue
Feel each word like a soft kiss
I would just speak
In whispered s’s
And rolling l’s
Erase the hard letters
Your k’s and t’s and p’s
Lustfully lick your lips
Sip sentences like cider
Letters leave from my hands
Settle softly behind your teeth
Vibrate against the drums of your ears
This is a love letter
Not a pedantic lesson
Step out of the school
Don’t study this like a chapter
Feel it like a pounding rain
Scripture Analysis – 1 Corinthians 13
Posted by asad123 in Christianity, Islam, Poems on February 11, 2012
Text of 1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b]but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:1 Or languages
- 1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts body to the flames
- [References: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20corinthians%2013&version=NIV
- http://www.crivoice.org/biblestudy/bb1cor10.html]
[People call this passage, "The Hymn to Love." It is about a set of ideals of what love should be. Many readers find this to be one of the most elegant, beautiful, powerful portions of the New Testament.
The author is likely Paul, writing a letter to the people of the city of Corinth. Corinth was home to pagans who worshiped Aphrodite, a love deity. Paul acted as a missionary, trying to inspire these pagans to embrace Christianity.
Paul speaks often here of love. He wrote this in Greek, a language that has a number of specialized terms for love. He used only one Greek word for love in this passage - the word "agape." This kind of love is unselfish love, love that is neither greedy nor lustful.
Part of what makes this passage beautiful is its three-part structure. Verses 1-3 argue that love is the essence of religion, without which all religious acts lose their meaning. Verses 4-7 give attributes and non-attributes of unselfish love. Verses 8-13 are about the superiority of love over other things.
Verses 1-3 pose three scenarios where religious acts are devoid of love. One scenario is speaking in tongues. Another scenario is foretelling the future. The third is giving away all of one's wealth in charity. Paul wants the Corinthians to see that the value of an action depends on the intention behind it. I recognize an echo of this teaching in Islam where Prophet Muhammad (S) said that Allah judges all actions by intention.
Verses 4-7 describe unselfish love. Paul describes love as being humble, never boasting or being envious. Paul knows that people will hear this and think of times they felt pride in the context of a relationship. He's not just saying that love is not proud but he's also saying the converse, that what is prideful is not love. The kind of love that inspires sins like pride, envy, rage, and jealousy is not the highest love. For Paul and his followers, the highest love is love that wants the best for the other person without expecting anything in return. Incidentally, Christians frequently read Verses 4-7 at weddings.
Verses 8-13 talk about how love endures and supersedes other virtues. Paul has a profound insight here when he says that as a child, he reasoned in a childlike way. Modern constructivist education theory embraces this idea that children reason in a way that differs from the way adults reason. Paul says he became an adult and put aside childish things. Many people can relate to this, recognizing beliefs they had in childhood which they discarded after growing.
Then Paul ends quite powerfully with the line, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." He is saying that after discarding all the childish notions that he knew to be false, faith, hope and love remained. He is rejecting the cynical attitude that faith is delusion, that hope is wishful thinking, and that love is just pain. He affirms that these three are real, and love is the best of the three.
We can get lost in the dark places of the soul where it seems nothing is real. We can doubt the things that we used to hold as certain. But I believe, agreeing here with Paul, that faith can be real, hope can be real, and finally, that the love that deserves to be called love is real.]
Poem Analysis “Funeral Blues” W.H. Auden
Posted by asad123 in Films, Poems, relationships on January 22, 2012
(Poem #256) Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
[If this poem sounds familiar to you, perhaps it is
because an actor reads it dramatically at a funeral
for the man he loves. W. H. Auden also
likely wrote it for a man he deeply loved.
I enjoy the following lines, "He was my North, my South,
my East and West,/ My working week and my Sunday rest."
These are the four cardinal directions.The beloved dominates
his sense of both space and time. This suggests he went
everywhere with him and spent every moment with him.
I hear echoes of a very ancient poem in this Auden piece.
The Roman poet Catullus wrote a love poem in Latin that
resembles this one.
(http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/Latin1000/Readings/1020B/25catullus2.pdf/ ) It almost seems
comical that he goes to such lengths to mourn a little bird,
but this was a pet that his beloved adored.
Not everyone can write a poem like this when someone dies.
Yet there is something about the feeling of the poem that
anyone who has lost a loved one will recognize.]
Poem Analysis “Like This” Rumi
Poem Analysis “Like This” Rumi
Like This by Jalaluddin Rumi, trans. by Coleman Barks
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this?
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this?
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like this.
[Rumi calls us to action with the refrain, “Like this.” It’s easy to get caught up in long conversations, arguments, and debates. Rumi wants none of that. For him, a simple action is better than a thousand words. Look at this couplet again,
“When someone asks what there is to do,
Light the candle in his hand.
Like this.”
A candle is not a hypothesis and it is not a theory. It is an actual source of light. A small action that you do is so much more valuable than any promise you can make. Taking out the trash is a candle, controlling your temper in traffic is a candle, listening to your parents is a candle - any act of generosity, patience, or kindness is a candle.
Rumi speaks of Jesus (A). Muslims believe that Jesus (A) was miraculously born from Mary (A) while she was a virgin, that he came with the message of God, and that he will return to life before the world’s end. However, Muslims reject the ideas that Jesus (A) is God or the son of God. Rumi recognizes the futility of trying to explain the miracle whereby Jesus (A) resurrected a dead man. It is interesting that he says rather than attempt to explain the miracle, you should kiss me on the lips. This might be an allusion to Judas, who indicated the identity of Jesus (A) to the Romans by kissing him on the lips.
Rumi alludes to the story of Joseph (A), told in the Quran, Chapter 12. Joseph’s father, Jacob (A), was also a prophet. For years, he did not know where his beloved son was. Jacob (A) became blind. When they were about to be reunited, Joseph (A) sent his father his shirt. As a caravan set off for the house of Jacob (A), the scent of Joseph (A) reached Jacob (A). When the shirt arrived, Jacob (A) placed it on his face and his sight returned. Rumi uses this story to evoke the sense of longing lovers have when they part.
Rumi’s message is that the currency of love is not words but actions. If you love someone, act with that love. If someone you love is far away from you, express that love with the faith that it will reach him or her and it will find a way. If you love Allah (SWT), you don’t need to debate His divine nature, instead you need to glorify Him with your actions.]
Wine in the Poetry of Rumi
Everyone has an alcohol problem. Because of the nature of humans and the nature of alcohol, it is bound to be a problem. People love to indulge to excess and alcohol is destructive in excess. Societies that have developed cultures that reject alcohol likely have the smallest alcohol problem. Societies that drink in moderation have moderate alcohol problems. Societies with rampant binge drinking have the most significant alcohol problem.
You might argue that the failure of prohibition refutes my argument. In reality, it serves as an illustration of the argument. It is only when a society’s “culture” rejects alcohol that the society can progress beyond it. In prohibition, a minority political movement inspired the government to legislatively ban alcohol. Yet mainstream culture at the time still embraced alcohol as a necessary part of life so a binge society binged even more in the face of a statutory prohibition.
The Sufi poet Rumi used wine as a metaphor in his work. The intoxication of wine can represent the ecstasy of uniting with God. The fermentation of the grape reflects the development of the soul. Grape juice is cheap; good wine tends to be expensive. The unrefined soul has much less value than the soul refined by discipline and contemplation.
Rumi wrote:
“You only need smell the wine
For vision to flame from each void–
Such flames from wine’s aroma!
Imagine if you were the wine.”
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/R/RumiMevlanaJ/Youonlyneeds.htm
This makes me think of a “contact high.” A contact high occurs when a non-user of drugs feels light-headed or even intoxicated because of the smell or smoke of a drug. I believe Rumi is talking about the ecstasy of union with the Divine. Just being near the people who have immersed themselves in God makes a person feel some of the intensity of that experience.
One of the Noble Companions of Prophet Muhammad (S), Hanzala (R), said that when he was in the company of the Prophet, he felt his faith soar. He disliked being away from him because he felt his faith plummet.
Read: http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/R/RumiMevlanaJ/Nowcomesfina.htm.
Rumi waxes eloquently about the glory of God. He says the prince and the wise man are veils. Furthermore, the “wine of love” removes these veils. He invites people to drink with both eyes and “both heads.” These two heads may be the physical head of the body and the metaphysical head of the soul.
Does Rumi’s work glorify wine? It depends on whether you interpret him literally or figuratively. He certainly describes wine, intoxication, and fermentation in glowing words and phrases. But if the wine is always a metaphor, he is not telling people to drink, but rather encouraging them to get closer to God.
Song Analysis “Rolling in the Deep” – Adele
There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch, it’s bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go ahead and sell me out and I’ll lay your sh- bare
[Adele is PISSED. She compares her rising emotion to a fever. she is looking at the man she used to love, seeing his for once, under the light of reality. When she says she will lay his sh- bare, she means she will expose him for the jerk he is.]
See how I leave with every piece of you
Don’t underestimate the things that I will do
There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch
And its bring me out the dark
[She says that she will take away parts of him. Many people, on breaking up with a significant other, feel as if they are losing pieces of themselves. She talks about a fire in her heart, which naturally makes me think of heartburn. Heartburn feels awful. It feels like spilling acid on your chest. She hates the way she feels. She is angry and vengeful.]
The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love they leave me breathless
I can’t help feeling
We could have had it all
[“The scars of your love they leave me breathless” is like an entire love story carefully folded into a single verse. She feels so much pain now because she feels they had something special. She feels this man has damaged her forever. Think of a scar. Most scars are pretty small. But the scars of truly vicious abuse are different. They are so big and deep that even a seasoned doctor looking at them cannot help but gasp. That is the kind of scar the speaker has. Her scars might be emotional or they might be physical scars from domestic violence. She says they could have had it all, that is, everything they wanted. Isn’t it so amazing how the people who can make us sublimely happy can also bring us to our knees with pain?]
Rolling in the deep
You had my heart
Inside of your hand
And you played it
To the beat
[I really don’t know what to make of the phrase “rolling in the deep.” Still, it does create an image in my mind. I picture a scuba diver plunging into the ocean with waves swirling all around her. I think she wants to convey the depth of her emotion and the feelings in which she’s figuratively drowning. She describes her vulnerability, saying that he held her heart in his hands. The song abounds with metaphors and that makes it particularly fun to analyze.]
Baby I have no story to be told
But I’ve heard one of you
And I’m gonna make your head burn
Think of me in the depths of your despair
Making a home down there
It reminds you of the home we shared
The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love they leave me breathless
I can’t help feeling
We could have had it all
[The imagery here reminds me of classical depictions of Hell. His head is burning, he’s deep down in a miserable place, and he’s stuck there forever. The irony here is that this terrible home is like a Bizarro version of the home they had together. Perhaps the “depths of despair” is connected to “rolling in the deep.” Maybe it’s not her in the deep, but him, in her imagination. His rolling is like the twisted motions of a man writhing in pain.]
Rolling in the deep
You had my heart
Inside of your hand
And you played it
To the beat
Throw your soul through every open door
Count your blessings to find what you look for
Turned my sorrow into treasured gold
You pay me back in kind and reap just what you sow
Refrain
[She advises him on how to survive his miserable fate. She’s telling him to look for ways out. She’s reminding him to be thankful for what he still has. Finally, she says that he should expect all the bad he does to come back to him. She doesn’t really say this out of a wish to see him happy. It’s like she’s telling him the way the moral universe works just to remind him of how much he betrayed her.]
Poem Analysis – “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” William Shakespeare
Posted by asad123 in Education, Poems, Uncategorized on January 8, 2011
Sonnet 18
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
[Shakespeare praises his beloved as more beautiful than a summer’s day. He says she is more “temperate” than a summer day. While a summer day might be excessively hot or humid, he claims his beloved (and I’m going to assume that’s a she because it’s less creepy for me) is mild and easygoing.]
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
[Hey Shakespeare – get a calendar! May is in the spring not the summer. Yet seeing as he is the Father of English Literature, I am willing to cut him some slack. It is true that some summer days are too windy, especially in Tornado Alley. He also shows a clever turn of phrase when he says summer has a short lease. I love the idea of comparing a season to a cheap apartment.]
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
[The “eye of heaven” is the sun. He is basically whining about how some days are too hot and some are overcast.]
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
[Everything beautiful tends to lose its beauty over time. “Fair” here means “beautiful” not just or proper.]
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
[He expresses a naïve hope that his beloved will never lose her beauty. A few lines earlier, he was saying “every fair . . .sometime declines.” Note that “sometime” here is different from “sometimes.” He does not mean that beauty sometimes declines. He means that for every beautiful person or thing, there is a certain time at which it loses its beauty.]
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
[The poet expresses hope that this poem will have great longevity. He hopes that his verses will last until the end of humanity – “so long as men can breathe.” When Shakespeare penned these lines, it might have seemed quite arrogant to presume such endurance for a poem. Yet now, as we read this poem about four hundred years since its origin, it seems unthinkable that this poem would be lost.]
Swimming in Your Stream – Lyric Poem
My heart aches for affection
Shopping the self-help section
I try so hard to please
Waiting for the one who never leaves
What I have is not enough
I don’t have the stuff
Tan hands that craft verse
Jobless or something worse
I lack that polished sheen
Not living the dream
But you could change my scene
And you would be my queen.
I live too much in my head
Scholar in the School of Ed
Absent-minded professor
Sinful nonconfessor
I’m here laughing at your jokes
I’m getting your Diet Cokes
The one that lets you be free
Somehow you don’t see me
Swimming in your stream
Not living the dream
But you could change the scene
And you would be my queen.
The Deep Ocean
The Deep Ocean
Not with my hands, but with my soul
Not to her grave, but to her soul.
The fragility of her tiny hands
The deep ocean of her soul
The wrinkles on her face
Told the story of her soul
She did not worry about our careers
But was concerned about our souls
The problems the world faced
She saw answers in our souls
Allah put an end to her pain
Returning her to the form of a pure soul
6/12/2010
Patience Means More Than Just To Wait
“There is no faith without going to the edge of disbelief.” – Anonymous
Take me up to the heights
And I will look down
I’m done with responsibilities and rights
I only want oblivion
Steeped in what you call sin
Failure on every front
I will dare to question
My turn before yours
I understand the cause of pain
The burden of choice
But what really racks my brain
Is the eons of silence
Not that I need to see your face
I long for a message
In this time and place
I need you more than ever
You were too wise to set a date
But no one said it would be so long
A world of violence and hate
Cries out for a hero
Patience means more than just to wait
It requires struggle too
Challenges of the world do not abate
When one simply does nothing
You give too much away
And our story is over
Until we’re ready for that day
Preserve the mystery
I’ll never be completely sure
The battle is in the debate
This faith and love will endure
So long as you don’t let me go
(C) Asad Jaleel Enterprises 2009