tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88575095277767197032024-03-13T06:39:11.417-04:00Confessions of a nocturnal nomadA sprig or mint by the wayward brook;
A nibble of birch in the wood;
A summer day and love and a book,
And I wouldn't be king if I could.
John Vance CheneyAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.comBlogger215125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-14355136568956029742018-02-05T00:33:00.001-05:002018-02-05T00:33:45.855-05:00Confessions p 36The hand moves, the heart breathes, the whole world sleeps<br />
What dreams await us? the forgetful and forgotten<br />
What company waits for us gathered around a fire<br />
burning the darkness away, peeling back layer after layer<br />
Do I have the heart to look at what's behind the curtain?<br />
Why are melancholy and grief anchors?<br />
What do I seek on these roads?<br />
My heart, be still, peek beneath the hood<br />
Being, please grant me the strength to be steadfast<br />
Being, let me take root not in the garden of my self<br />
but in the endless beginnings and renewals of being<br />
Why does the hand stray? Or the feet wander?<br />
What do the eyes seek, over and over?<br />
The garden of Being is right here, it is not without<br />
I will not stumble onto it, lest I find it within<br />
I will not make an altar of myself, to myself<br />
what is this self and this Self?<br />
The difference is a razor blade's edge<br />
Why does the tongue shrink? or the back hunch?<br />
What notice do I seek to escape?<br />
What if I lay right now, on the final resting place of these bones?<br />
What if the light were to slowly extinguish right now?<br />
Death, please accept this student<br />
Open the doors of your library to me<br />
Let me sit inside your temple<br />
I can be forgetful, self-deceiving<br />
I put things off for tomorrow<br />
as though tomorrow were owed to me<br />
I can be selfish, petty, spiteful and proud<br />
willfully ignorant of truths I do not love<br />
My faults are numerous<br />
But I am earnest<br />
I am sincere in my desire to learn<br />
Death, set aside a last chance for me today<br />
I beg you, please keep your doors open for me<br />
though I may be late, or announce myself rudely<br />
though I am ignorant of your customs<br />
though a storm may follow in my wake<br />
though I may take your name in vain<br />
it is because I fear taking Life in vain that I seek your tutelage<br />
So guide me from the flashing lights to the darkness<br />
If knowledge and wisdom seek immortality<br />
then guide me from knowledge to ignorance<br />
guide me from all of tomorrow's broken promises to right now<br />
Brace my knees and grip, give me something to look up to<br />
as you guide me from comfort to learning<br />
And guide me from dying<br />
to dying gratefullyAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-35203963437824165952017-10-19T03:01:00.000-04:002017-10-19T03:06:35.719-04:00Confessions p. 35What view do your eyes afford?<br />
What strength does your grip lend?<br />
Whose voice says keep going<br />
when you can no longer hold on?<br />
With whose eyes do you look<br />
when your own linger on shadows?<br />
Who speaks inside<br />
when you are speechless?<br />
Who looks out with your eyes<br />
-Who speaks with your tongue-<br />
-Which door unlocks-<br />
-Which window opens-<br />
What flutters and moves inside you<br />
-when your breath becomes frozen-<br />
when your heart becomes breathless?<br />
With whose feet do you step<br />
when you can no longer travel by foot?<br />
With which thoughts and words<br />
do you build a home<br />
for the nomad in your soul?Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-62965360403905979602017-10-19T02:47:00.003-04:002017-10-19T03:09:16.740-04:00Confessions - freewrites IIII sit here with a microscope, a magnifying lens and a camera, swapping pictures, maintaining a little catalogue, curating a magazine of my reveries and fantasies and little fears, I poke and I prod, and I zoom in and rewind and replay, watching and waiting for an ending that isn't there. These little worlds of my imagination, like wheels that keep on turning, and streets that refuse to follow straight lines, meandering as though on some never-ending quest leading to a million and one alleys going nowhere, like a sea of unfinished endings and sentences that run off into sweet nothings, back lanes that lead to back lanes, a labyrinth of whispered words and sidelong glances and empty musings of other peoples' thoughts, as though I care, what do I care, to whom do I cater when I walk in the shoes of memories, wearing the soles thin dragging my feet because I know in my heart there is nothing for me here, there is nothing for me there or then, but I keep looking as though the horizon before or behind me is hiding the key to an imagined salvation, oh the imagination can be the greatest prison ever conceived, oh to be free from musing and reverie and the potent latency of idle thought, oh to be free from the shackles of thought and the shadows of the dark side of the moon where my imagination runs not wild but chained and caged to a pen, why does the soul shrink from its own light, and its own size? What cracks and crevices does it seek out to slip under? What shadows or darkness does it seek to hide from itself? Oh to be free in my own insignificance and greatness, to be unhindered by ideas of what should be, to be unhindered by thought itself, oh to be free, completely free, in my own darkness and light, to stand as short and tall as I am without hunching or jumping or tiptoeing or lowering my gaze or stomping my feet or slamming the door and having to whisper lest someone hear me, really hear me, oh to be free, free to be heard and seen and touched and loved exactly as I am right now, not how I could be, or who or when I will be, and oh to be free to love this moment, exactly as it is right now, not how it could be, or who or when it will be.Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-48197724718123269222017-09-02T16:59:00.001-04:002017-09-02T16:59:19.259-04:00stories need room to breatheWhat stories are living inside you?<br />
What tales lies resting, waiting to be awoken<br />
in the arrangement of your bones<br />
or the curve of your brow<br />
and through your fingers that speak in tongues?<br />
Which poems are writ on the manuscript of your skin?<br />
What are the names of those who have etched their memory<br />
on the chamber walls of your heart?<br />
What image has your wildest hope carved<br />
on the insides of your eyelids?<br />
What makes you soar?<br />
What wings have found their way<br />
to the deepest recesses of your imagination?<br />
And to which destination are they leading you?Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-31320942134045676482017-03-16T05:19:00.000-04:002017-03-19T04:36:12.291-04:00Confessions - dreamsTo stand on the lip of a volcano<br />
To watch a hundred sunrises<br />
through the beads of morning dew<br />
To have faith and see it bear fruit<br />
To see, and feel with the heart<br />
To let go of the wildfire of desire<br />
or learn to live with it in peace<br />
To break the catharsis of comfort<br />
To tear down the walls of idle thought<br />
To see with new eyes<br />
as though newly born or<br />
recently cured of blindness<br />
To care, as though never hurt or scarred<br />
To break the spell of the ego<br />
To develop a heart with the sensitivity of an eardrum<br />
To cast off the shackles of doubt<br />
and shadows of delusion<br />
To be free of hesitation when faced<br />
with that which the heart confirms<br />
To love, as though unrequited<br />
yet not become bitter or distant<br />
To let love guide your course<br />
yet remain your own person<br />
To love with more depth and less attachment<br />
How can I love you better?<br />
Without making my loving you contingent<br />
on how and when and in which ways<br />
you love me back?<br />
To hear sounds that make you glad to be alive<br />
To sip and savor gratitude<br />
To become utterly consumed<br />
and enthralled by the Copernicus of beauty<br />
yet still keep one eye sober<br />
To be able to see anyone, no matter how invisible<br />
and hear any story, no matter how quiet<br />
To feel another's pain<br />
To live with your own<br />
To greet it at the door<br />
like an undesirable relative<br />
yet still welcome it as a guest<br />
No guest stays forever<br />
and everything eventually returns<br />
<br />Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-47041148963687225762017-02-14T03:51:00.000-05:002017-03-19T04:53:02.327-04:00That Which Lies InsideThere are seasons inside us<br />
Whole continents, deep seas<br />
Sun soaked stone, damp undergrowth<br />
Vast stretches of undiscovered rainforest<br />
There is a Himalayan mountain range<br />
inside you, an unconquered Everest<br />
There are five oceans inside me<br />
Yet I am bound to the mouth of one stream<br />
There are two poles at the center of my heart<br />
There are places within me perpetually frozen<br />
Where winter waits most of the year<br />
before releasing Persephone<br />
There is a Sun in the nucleus of your heart<br />
Between its beats, there are days and nights<br />
There are seas, valleys and lakes in your eyes<br />
There are forests in your interiors blanketed by moonlight<br />
Beneath the sea level of the surface of your gaze<br />
There are worlds deep within us<br />
unfamiliar with the stars<br />
And strangers to the dawn though we may be<br />
We have not forgotten the language of light<br />
For within the perpetual darkness of the deep sea<br />
It is in bioluminescence that we speakAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-32799097652727377002017-02-14T03:45:00.000-05:002017-02-16T02:39:41.719-05:00untitled p IIITime is not always linear<br />
It is still 1984<br />
The great war is ongoing<br />
My parents have yet to fall in love<br />
I still believe the world is flat<br />
and the sun and stars revolve around earth<br />
I am still a pagan<br />
The last ice age has not yet ended<br />
I am still an ape<br />
I am that ape waiting for the evolutionary leap<br />
that caught some of my predecessors but somehow missed me<br />
I am a pagan ape<br />
still waiting to evolve<br />
still waiting to existAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-55553339237635069212017-02-14T03:38:00.000-05:002017-02-14T03:56:27.564-05:00Confessions - freewrites p IICan a thought be unwinded, or unthought?<br />
Does matter return to thought at some point?<br />
A thought, a dream, perhaps the entire universe<br />
is a conception of the sleeping God's mind<br />
Maybe God, wanting to be known<br />
dreamed all of this into being<br />
and we are all figments and silken filaments<br />
of the Divine's imagination<br />
which is more Real than our waking realities<br />
Perhaps God sleeps an eternity as we do an evening<br />
and when God wakes from that life-giving slumber<br />
It knows itself that much more through Its creations<br />
the gateway to life and existence as we know it<br />
the dreamscape that we call the Universe<br />
Eternity is one evening<br />
The Universe--God's dreaming<br />
Beauty is apparent everywhere<br />
but perpetually submerged in shadows<br />
maybe that's why our world can appear so dark<br />
and why we can't draw perfect circles<br />
and why we are so forgetful<br />
and why we need to be reminded of the light<br />
because we exist on the dark side of God's imagination<br />
we are in Plato's cave, enthralled by the shadows<br />
of Beauty and Truth, but having never known them<br />
in the full light of day, and maybe death is only that<br />
a stepping out into color from a cave of shadows<br />
maybe death is simply a dream-riddled night<br />
turning into a full day, maybe death is an instrument<br />
of Divine alchemy, as the figments of Divine imagination<br />
metamorphose into reality, because it is the gateway<br />
through which we pass from night to day<br />
imagination to realization, slumber to wakefulness<br />
Death is simply the end of a dream<br />
but nothing in a dream really dies<br />
it is the shadow of life that imagines and fears death<br />
it is the shadow of life that imagines and fears<br />
the end of the dreaming, for in the wake of death<br />
dream filaments and sleeping potential<br />
turn into the realization of existenceAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-59241309239080790362017-02-14T03:24:00.001-05:002017-02-14T03:24:06.227-05:00confessions - regressionAnd where was Awe?<br />
There was only I<br />
So much of it there was no room for anything else<br />
let alone Awe, which requires high ceilings<br />
or no ceilings at all, and where was I?<br />
The truth is I don't know<br />
I would like to say on the cusp of something<br />
or the verge or threshold<br />
but there is nothing, I slept through my dreams<br />
and they really became dreams; forgotten.<br />
I was in myself, on my self<br />
there was no room for anything else<br />
when you become so consumed<br />
in something so small as oneself.<br />
Where was I going? Where am I going?<br />
with this body, worse for wear with each year<br />
Where am I going?!<br />
Bewildering to realize that is the question<br />
you ask yourself<br />
Not where Awe is, that is established.Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-13493696175407329382016-09-01T00:32:00.000-04:002016-09-01T01:22:55.396-04:00Morning Pages part IMorning pages, afternoon pages, pages of my woe, of obstacles designed specifically for me, for a perfectionist like me, who likes to ponder about commas and where to indent the line and fickle or sickle to my wrists, oh ye control freaks, and perfectionists, who like to ponder moments before they arrive and long after they are gone, what little worlds are you and I constructing in the neat gardens of our imagination? What worlds are we conjuring all of us as we sit on the subway in silence, avoiding one another's eyes, looking at everything, posters, bits of rubbish on the floor, old vandals' signatures, and rereading advertisements, all to avoid holding a stranger's gaze? What is it that we are avoiding? What do we have to lose but the little worlds and big thoughts that consume us in transit?<br />
There are 10,000 ways to greet a stranger, and not all of them involve words or speech. And I near my stop, time flies when the pages flow from me, I need this like my body needs exercise and stretching, I am not quite sure what I am stretching when the pages consume me, but it is somewhere inside, maybe my head, maybe even faintly in my hand, but most certainly somewhere inside my gut or chest, is my throat involved at all? Or is that only when I am conversating freely? Is this a form of conversation? Who am I having a dialogue with when I write freely in the pages? Is it me and myself? One part to another? Which parts are involved? If this is truly conversation, does it reflect the same dynamism as the dialogue between two persons? Certainly not, right? I mean, it is much slower to write a word than it is to speak it, for another, you have no idea what could be said next in a conversation, could the same be said of this inner dialogue? Could I really surprise myself? Could I checkmate myself without knowing it if inner dialogue were a game of chess?<br />
I don't think so, but what do I really know without swimming the length and depth of the morning pages? So I will swim, and doggy paddle and pull myself through the sluggish waters of my soul, and commit to the pages every chance I get until I have an answer, or until I start writing poems again.<br />
There are 10,000 ways I could write this; I am lost and I am looking to be found, no I am lost and I am looking for myself, a part of me is in the lost and found, but I can't remember where I lost it so I don't know where to look, or I am blind to parts of me, so I believe parts of me are lost, but really I don't know what I am looking for, I don't know what's lost or found, I am looking for something I cannot name, I am looking for something I am not even sure I can recognize.Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-24172241352746285162016-08-11T03:40:00.002-04:002016-08-11T03:40:29.220-04:00Gros MorneI don't want to leave<br />
<br />
This place<br />
<br />
Is too beautiful<br />
To put into words<br />
<br />
And I am afraid<br />
I will forget this beauty<br />
And how it makes me feel<br />
<br />
I am in love and terrified<br />
<br />
If I drop, there is nothing to catch me<br />
And yet, a part of me wants to<br />
Cascade down like the falls<br />
There is a lake beneath<br />
I would be at home<br />
Just another ring on a tree trunk<br />
<br />
Mountains are the measure of the Earth's age<br />
And these ones are ancient<br />
They are the roots of the previous epoch's Himalayas<br />
<br />
I am at one of the world's oldest graveyards<br />
And all around me is a wedding of life<br />
<br />Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-59237003566765242132016-08-04T05:43:00.001-04:002016-08-04T05:43:45.752-04:00Daily Bread p IEverywhere, I seek daily bread<br />
In any moment, at any time<br />
I look about for a taste of daily bread<br />
In the conversations of others<br />
In speech, and a stranger's smile<br />
Through a woman's voice<br />
And another's gaze<br />
In the songs of the birds<br />
Over the bridge on the subway<br />
In the middle of empty streets<br />
Along the contours of a foreign tongue<br />
Through all the races and variations<br />
Of the human form<br />
Among tree tops<br />
And the bed of stars<br />
Through the quiet hours of the night<br />
I seek the daily bread<br />
In any shape or form it takes<br />
On giant television screens<br />
On stages<br />
And a multitude of screens<br />
I keep close to me<br />
In the park, at work<br />
In my lover's embrace<br />
My mother's voice<br />
Through particular arrangements of words<br />
Amid tragedies of Greek proportions<br />
And all the triumphs of the human soul<br />
I seek the daily bread apportioned meAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-37932651524835115392016-08-04T05:41:00.000-04:002016-08-04T05:41:10.025-04:00Daily Bread p III seek the daily bread inherent in memory<br />
Or a recording of your voice<br />
Or a picture of your smile<br />
<br />
I seek the daily bread in sharing a cup of tea<br />
Over personal stories that shrink distances<br />
Like a phone call<br />
<br />
I seek the daily bread<br />
In the smile of passerby<br />
I seek it in books, in headlines<br />
On screens, and search bars<br />
I seek it on the bus<br />
In the metro<br />
On my way home<br />
And in your arms<br />
<br />
I seek it in your eyes<br />
And in your step<br />
I seek it inside you<br />
I seek it outside you<br />
I seek the daily bread in fire<br />
And surrender<br />
I seek it beneath the moon<br />
And over the horizon<br />
I seek it in the stars<br />
And bodies of water<br />
I seek it in the arch of your calves<br />
And in the twitch and tremble of your lips<br />
I seek it in the skip of your pulse<br />
And in the sudden absences of your breathAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-25413508191945578482016-08-04T05:19:00.001-04:002016-08-04T05:26:53.681-04:00A Love Story p ILove is the fire where bread bakes<br />
Fire is the bread of lovers<br />
<br />
These words cling to shadows<br />
The fountain is dry<br />
And the eyes don't see<br />
What of bread? What of lovers?<br />
Who am I to speak of faith, of fire?<br />
What do I know of lover's bread?<br />
I am full of wine and smoke and sweets<br />
What does a full belly know of hunger?<br />
Of bread burning under white phosphorus<br />
And depleted uranium?<br />
Of ovens that will never bake another loaf?<br />
Of hearts that will never race again?<br />
And eyes that will never again dance<br />
At the sight of a loved one?<br />
<br />
Do not ask me of love<br />
To it, I am a stranger<br />
I have approached the edge of its flames<br />
And imagined the experience of burning<br />
At its center<br />
This imagining, I speak into words<br />
But only fire, and burning can speak love's nameAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-47842195233733164162016-07-22T00:38:00.002-04:002016-07-22T00:38:57.935-04:00Harbourfront Nap Oblivious to the movements and happenings of the harbour, they slept side by side, both shirtless, beneath a full and generous summer sky, his shoes turned over, as though kicked off as a last thought before sleep took hold.<br />When they awoke, she removed his right sock, grasped his foot and picked at it gently as if cleaning a wound, bent with intent, utterly consumed in the task. Afterward, they kissed, for a long time, like it was the first time, or the last, and nothing else existed but the kiss.<br />
They garnered few looks, and spared even less for the people strolling and sitting about. After another kiss, another crossing of the water taxis to the island, he knelt before her, bared his head, and she sat over him, bent with intent again, this time a dry Bic razor in her hand, as she carefully shaved the back of his neck, in a manner approaching ceremony, with the same unwavering focus, as though each stroke of the blade were a brush of the lips. Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-1880068492495740352016-06-29T04:03:00.000-04:002016-06-29T04:03:10.902-04:00A seeker's confession p. 1I am but a poor traveler<br />
In the back alleys<br />
behind dark taverns<br />
after the end of festivities<br />
I kept finding myself asking<br />
What else is there?<br />
And I didn't even know<br />
what I was looking for<br />
No matter how many taverns<br />
I visited<br />
No matter how many nights<br />
of merriment I enjoyed.<br />
I met other travelers<br />
everyone of them a seeker<br />
I watched them awhile<br />
enthralled by the seeking<br />
so I joined awhile<br />
For years<br />
I thought I was inadequate<br />
because I could not name what I sought<br />
When my lover slept<br />
I would scrawl on her back<br />
Are you what I seek?<br />
I asked the same question<br />
of every love I ever had<br />
I asked the sunrise<br />
and the desert moon<br />
I asked the ocean<br />
and the shore<br />
I asked the stars<br />
but they only spoke of the past<br />
I asked the clouds<br />
You who have seen everything<br />
on the face of the Earth<br />
Tell me, have you seen what I seek?<br />
But they kept their lips sealed<br />
When they parted<br />
I asked the rain<br />
You who recede to the lowest points<br />
to quench the thirsty,<br />
have you ever quenched the thirst<br />
of the one I seek?Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-57051312828639965282015-12-16T05:57:00.002-05:002016-08-04T05:05:51.239-04:00Letters IVIf i could sit at the seat of my soul<br />
And look eye to eye with my heart<br />
What words, what ideas, what feeling<br />
Would pass i wonder<br />
<br />
I could spend my life wondering<br />
I could pass my days in wonder<br />
Wandering from fire to fire<br />
Knowing many homes and none<br />
<br />
No words satisfy this heart's hunger<br />
No water quenches its thirst<br />
No names define its language<br />
Where, where are my words<br />
I could not speak them before the seat of my soul<br />
I am forgetting how to speak in the tongue of tears<br />
That river which leads so many hearts to the sea<br />
<br />Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-43629948417647516492015-12-16T05:56:00.000-05:002016-08-04T05:05:17.620-04:00confessions p. 34<div>
I have been weeping</div>
<div>
I am haunted, broken</div>
<div>
I am losing</div>
<div>
what is not mine for the keeping</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I am touching a moment</div>
<div>
that will never be again</div>
<div>
I am hoarding these photographs</div>
<div>
but they are not mine to keep</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A broken tooth, a bloodied arm, potential lost</div>
<div>
Another's wife, parents ignored through the divorce</div>
<div>
Two sullied lungs, a father's shame </div>
<div>
A headline reading one million slain</div>
<div>
And so many nights spent weeping over the beauty of it all</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There is as much light in this world as darkness</div>
<div>
And more perhaps, I think</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And none of it </div>
<div>
Neither darkness nor light</div>
<div>
Is mine for the keeping</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This moment </div>
<div>
This home</div>
<div>
This music</div>
<div>
This body, in all its grace</div>
<div>
These lips, and this speech</div>
<div>
This light in our eyes when we speak</div>
<div>
None of it is ours to keep</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-54903471520080320652015-11-12T05:56:00.000-05:002016-08-11T03:50:19.172-04:00Letters p IIII wrote every name I have been called on a list<br />
And could not find myself there<br />
<div>
I imagined all the places that I have laid my roots </div>
<div>
I examined every fingerprint on the surface of my heart </div>
<div>
And every excess of scar tissue within its folds</div>
<div>
I placed on the table, every possession<br />
Souvenir and gift I have been given</div>
<div>
I organized a calendar of every important date in my life</div>
<div>
I catalogued each disappointment and triumph</div>
<div>
I reread every poem I ever wrote</div>
<div>
And still, I could not point and say</div>
<div>
That<br />
Right there<br />
Is me. </div>
<div>
So exactly where am I? </div>
<div>
If not in these relics and nostalgic anchors</div>
<div>
Exactly, who am I?</div>
<div>
If not all these memories and emotions</div>
<div>
And why am I?</div>
<div>
If not to feel this way and ask such questions</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-55357731275470497902015-10-31T05:52:00.000-04:002015-12-16T05:52:25.796-05:00confession p. 33What am i doing?<br />
I string sentences and dead words and call it life<br />
A creation<br />
What of madness and folly<br />
of shelving the present to usher in the past<br />
<br />
Do not show an artist beauty<br />
unless you seek to attend beauty's funeral<br />
Do not unveil the truth before an artist<br />
the pen and the brush are a hangman's noose<br />
<br />
What use do the blind have for mirrors?<br />
<br />
This is an age of necromancy<br />
For we are dismantling the world and replacing it<br />
with an upgraded version<br />
Earth 2.0<br />
And it is alive and well in the imagination<br />
<br />
I am not an artist<br />
I am a necromancer<br />
<br />
And this is a ritual<br />
in which you and I are ritualistically<br />
ceremoniously<br />
playing God<br />
and trying to breathe life into the dead and dying<br />
<br />Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-68448659570866509512015-01-22T13:40:00.001-05:002016-07-23T11:25:31.972-04:00confessions p 31A heart is a word is a drum is a question.<br />
A heart is a machete is a muscle is a classroom<br />
is a lightbulb is an open door is a tide.<br />
A heart is a glance is a secret<br />
is a grimace is a kiss is a scar is a resignation of defiance.<br />
A heart is a plug is a powerchord<br />
is a battery is bio-luminescence<br />
is a judge is a window is a mirror<br />
is a curse is a prayer is a baby in the fetal position<br />
is a wave is an eddy is an ocean is an eye.<br />
A heart is a leaf is a valley is a breeze<br />
is a sun is an oasis is a smile is a dawn<br />
is a dam is a bridge is a train is a greeting.<br />
A heart is a gun barrel is a black box<br />
is a sail is an old couple in a park<br />
is a hostel is the distances between stars.<br />
A heart is a seat is a throne is a promise<br />
is a witness is a mother's foot is forgiveness.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Ali Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-61325087121478909792014-12-01T06:41:00.002-05:002015-02-01T05:20:25.898-05:00how does a universe fit inside a human being?There is a voice inside me<br />
with the patience of the sea<br />
twenty six flowers rest on one branch<br />
by day's end<br />
each has blossomed into a thousand trees<br />
worlds of forests, deserts<br />
valleys and undiscovered peaks<br />
By moon rise<br />
their petals sway into the spiraling arms of a galaxy<br />
and the vast empty infinite of the cosmos<br />
is kissed with the cloying fragrance of evening primrose<br />
moonflowers, nightshade, gladiolus, geraniums<br />
and drunk, the great starry void inhales<br />
and breathes out all the colors of the dawn<br />
The Beloved arrives <br />
the Beloved is here<br />
the Beloved was always here<br />
(and never)<br />
There is nothing but the Beloved here<br />
There is nothing but the Beloved<br />
I thought I existed<br />
I and the world<br />
I and so many other I's <br />
I and the sun and earth and ocean and sky<br />
I and Nature and the cosmos and you<br />
and you and you and you and you<br />
But I have never truly existed<br />
How can something have existence<br />
when it is here one moment and gone the next?<br />
<br />
How does a universe fit inside a human being?<br />
It curls into the body in the fetal position<br />
like a prayer <br />
or a question<br />
whose answer requires an eternity of now<br />
<br />
the great starry void of the cosmos is within<br />
the vast stretches of infinity<br />
the endless desert of space<br />
star nurseries, galaxy clusters<br />
and all the empty space between<br />
is here, right here<br />
Heat death and the expansion of the universe<br />
the beginning, and the final trails of light<br />
the big bang, the apocalypse and the end of our sun<br />
all the moments of the cosmos and the earth<br />
from the birth of light and time<br />
to the end of eternity and the shores of pre-darkness<br />
how can so much time fit into so small a body?<br />
It curls into it in the fetal position<br />
Like a prayer<br />
or a spark from a fire leaping skyward<br />
trailing light in the shape of a question<br />
whose answer requires an eternity of nowAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-45073368263624138772014-12-01T06:23:00.003-05:002014-12-01T06:23:42.526-05:00To the flowers that have not yet bloomed;<br />
<br />
turn your face toward the sun<br />
let the shadows fall behind you<br />
and soak up as much blood, water and tears<br />
as your roots and veins can holdAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-50972984177993282742014-09-18T09:46:00.000-04:002014-09-18T09:46:09.912-04:00The ancestry of languageThey come and we break words<br />
and wet tongue to speak to each<br />
but you and I share something beyond words<br />
a dance of light in the eyes<br />
something rooted so deep in the seed of our being<br />
that it precedes language...<br />
<br />
What is the mother tongue of the Universe?<br />
And what was its first word?<br />
<br />
What were some of the earliest languages<br />
of being and becoming?<br />
And what was the first death<br />
experienced by the Universe?<br />
<br />
I think the Universe's first experience<br />
of death, temporality and finitude<br />
may be what preceded the birth of language<br />
<br />
In coming face to face with its own mortality<br />
did the silence of the cosmos<br />
erupt with the ripples of language<br />
each word a container<br />
a souvenir from travels past<br />
a glimpse into the untimebound for the timeboundAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8857509527776719703.post-56293392478736763202014-02-17T03:33:00.000-05:002014-02-17T03:33:03.825-05:00confessions p 30Mercy on mercy on mercy<br />
Light on light on light<br />
13 years in an instant<br />
Then, now, always<br />
The same question<br />
At the heart of all I hold true<br />
<i>What did I do to deserve this?</i><br />
Nothing<br />
I did absolutely nothing<br />
I just am<br />
And You love me like this<br />
For nothing<br />
With no reason<i> </i><br />
I just want to learn how to love like thatAli Alikhanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07870383993844549285noreply@blogger.com1