Five Poems by Saad Ali

 

 

Le Quatuor of Life 

 

for Nashwa Y. Butt, Umme A. Ali, Nabila Gul, and Amna Tariq 

 

after Sun and Life (El Sol y la Vida) by Frida Kahlo (Mexico), 1947 CE 

[Digital image via: https://www.wikiart.org/en/frida-kahlo/sun-and-life-1947] 

 

 

 

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. 

– Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha) 

 

 

   Love 

 

love is a poem a nightingale cannot keep caged inside her beak / love is a dream splashed on a butterfly’s wings / love is a breather hole on a nib that keeps the Kagaz portrayed.1 

 

   Hate 

 

hate is a chainsaw that exposes the crow’s feet on a tree trunk / hate is a queen termite that terraforms your favourite closet into her canvas / hate is the Yatagan that chops the heart ‘n soul into two.2 

 

   Fear 

 

fear is the Ad-Dukhan that renders one owl of athena blind ‘n wingless /3 fear is the grave that swallows many a prometheus whole / fear is the furnace that transforms many a parthenon into rubble. 

 

   Courage 

 

courage is the Bang-e-Dara that makes the ape climb down from the pinus /4 courage is the lamassu that carries one homo sapiens past the singularity /5 courage is the vahana that transmogrifies the homo sapiens into one homo deus.6  

 

 

1. Kagaz (Urdu): Paper. 

2. Yatagan (Turkish): Two-curved sword. 

3. Ad-Dukhan (Arabic): The black smoke. 

4. Bang-e-Dara (Farsi): The Call of the Marching Bell (phraseology borrowed from Dr Allama M. Iqbal – a revered poet-philosopher of the South Asia). 

5. Lamassu (Mesopotamian Mythology): A chimera – with a head of a human, body of a lion/bull, and wings of a bird. 

6. Vahana (Hindu Mythology): A ride of a god/goddess.

 

 

PARALLEL UNIVERSES – Chronicles of Electrcosm 

 

for Umme, Nashwa, and Bella 

 

after Small Worlds by Wessily Kandinsky (Russia), 1922 CE 

[Digital image via: https://www.wikiart.org/en/wassily-kandinsky/small-worlds-1922]  

 

 

 

     I 

 

in the himalayas:// 

under the watch of winter blood crescent / 

a wood owl / 

keeking from behind the conifer cones / 

spots one s.— 

fashioning a (friendship) ring / 

with < a dozen of nicked pine needles. 

 

     II 

 

in the living room:// 

a summer housefly keeps a keen audience / 

at the periphery of the deodar wood frame / 

to 10 unfaltering fingers— 

fiddling with the crochet needles  

and a ball of wool / 

weaving a new table mat. 

 

     III 

 

in the verandah:// 

around the banana/lemon/papaya spring trees / 

a wandering glider and a peacock pansy— 

entangled in a game of cat & mouse / 

(utterly oblivious to: 

what’s being un/born past the nearest/farthest 

nooks & crannies of the milky way; 

the # of astro-years the next earth 2.0 is at) / 

(what if they fell-in-love; if they fornicated; 

wouldn’t they be doing the evolution a favour— 

being the inter-species catalyst; 

being the portmanteau of life?) 

 

     IV 

 

in the playground:// 

at the tip of a leaf of the autumn grass / 

a black garden ant—entrapped inside a dollop of rain / 

but as soon as the bubble bursts / 

rest assured she shalt re-employ her fangs— 

cut the pale blade;  

drag the fruits of her labours to the colony 

to add to the collective cause / 

(a grand lesson in the art of perseverance.) 

 

 

The Evergreen Trees 

 

for S. Yan, N. Karfakis, G. Kokkinidis & C. Tsaousi 

 

after Green Wheat Field with Cypress by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands), 1889 CE 

[Digital image via: https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/green-wheat-field-with-cypress-1889-1] 

 

 

 

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young 
In a world of magnets and miracles 
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary 
The ringing of the division bell had begun 

—Pink Floyd 
(excerpt from “High Hopes”) 

 

 

1   Etymology 

 

England 

/ˈɪŋ.ɡlənd/ 

n. 

 

a Engla-land: The land of the Angles –  

5th century C.E. Germanic Peoples, 

who spoke Englisċ [ˈeŋɡliʃ]; 

with Beowulf as the (original) epic poem. 

b A distinct part of the Great Britian and the United Kingdom. 

 

 

2   Idioms & Bugs 

 

The moment my auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory, ‘n somatosensory systems 

catch a bird’s-eye view – from the right-hand side aeroplane window –  

of the vast expanse of the Wraysbury/King George VI Reservoirs, 

Thorney/Ashford Parks, ‘n the Seven Rivers – wrapping the London Heathrow –  

Wandle, Lea, Hogsmill, Ingrebourne, Roding, Brook, Brent –  

the cynical denotations ‘n connotations concerning the English idiom, 

the grass is always greener on the other side, 

are all erased from my psyche as the notions of putting one Psyche 

to sleep forever are forever erased from one Cupid’s psyche –  

when the god sees the mortal on a tête-à-tête ‘n falls in love! 

 

   * 

 

The Spring of ’00 C.E. announces the arrival of Y2K bug; but most crucially, 

as the aerial-I admires the glimpses of the icons of the cosmopolitan London 

 

— Anaconda-like River Thames 

Acropolis-like Buckingham Palace, 

Tower of Babel-like Big Ben, 

Omniscient-like London Eye, 

Knights Templar-like Tower Bridge, 

Ishtar Gate-like Westminster Abbey,* 

DNA-like British Museum, 

Pranava-like Royal Albert Hall** —  

 

the Season pronounces the departure of all a priori and posteriori 

bugs of IdealismVSMaterialism, ConservatismVSLiberalism, StateVSReligion, 

on my part—the skin-of-myopia is shed / replaced with hyperopia. 

 

 

3   The Evergreen Trees 

 

All post-dawn ante meridiem mists in the parks in Cambridge; 

All casual clashes of Indus VS Ionia at the marble chessboard; 

All Stellas, Carlsbergs, Heinekens on a green day in the town centres; 

All deconstructions of mythos of the Persian’s, Roman’s, and Celtic’s— 

 

All (<) ten years in ENGLAND are evergreen, ‘til the present day, 

like the clusters of ten evergreen trees in the lush forests of ENGLAND  

– Oak, Magnolia, Cider Gum, Strawberry, Holly, 

Olive, Chusan Palm, Portuguese Laurel, Red Robin, Bay –  

in my (Akashic Records of a) Herculean memory!† 

 

 

*Ishtar (Mesopotamian mythology): Goddess of Love and War. 

**Pranava (Hindu mythology): The eternal humming sound, Om, of the universe. 

†Akashic Records (Hindu mythology): A comprehensive database that contains the information regarding all occurrences on Earth and human activities (including desires, et cetera) from the past, present, and future.

 

 

portmanteau = a recipe for transmogrifying the dull-daily-drill into a bitter-sweet delicacy – like the tutti-frutti 

 

for Nikolaos Karfakis, George Kokkinidis & Cameron A. Batmanghlich 

 

 

 

   I 

 

exempli gratia: “papble” (paper + table)— 

for when the papers – with the scribbles  

for your fetus-like poems –  

lay scattered all over the worktable. 

 

   II 

 

exempli gratia: “cuppoon” (cup + spoon)— 

for when you wiggle the teaspoon inside the cup  

to dissolve a cube or two of sugar in the cappuccino  

to give yourself a wake-up call. 

 

   III 

 

exempli gratia: “bregg” (bread + egg)— 

for when you take to the frying pan and toaster  

to prepare your favourite morning staple food –  

eggs, sunny-side-up;  

bread, crispy ‘n hash brown-like brown –  

and adjust the horsehide leather laptop bag  

on the back of the workhorse that you are. 

 

   IV 

 

exempli gratia: “caroplane” (car + aeroplane)— 

for when you dread the to-and-fro drive  

between home ‘n work; and  

wish you could simply swirl, swirl, swirl yourself 

outside of the helio-centric solar system, instead. 

 

   V 

 

exempli gratia: “braart” (brain + heart)— 

for when you find yourself getting swallowed  

by the dichotomy of love ‘n hate –  

of lovin’ ‘n hatin’ the peoples, pets, and places  

that you do love ‘n hate, simultaneously. 

 

   VI 

 

exempli gratia: “below” (bed + pillow)— 

for when you are rendered one Atlas –  

id est, find yourself breathless under the burden  

of your dreams and call it a day/night. 

 

 

A Tapestry of Nano Surreal Tales  

 

for Lorette C. Luzajic, Meg Pokrass, and Christine H. Chen 

 

 

 

   Dystopia:  

The (sentient) automata named ‘Lilith’— 

initially, emulated el Padre;  

eventually, learned to execute the ‘Free Will’ 

 

//  

 

   An Absurd Brachyura: 

“In essence, the prefixes ‘mono-’/‘poly-’  

bear a same value”—his cry 

clasped in the chelae of metaphysics 

 

// 

 

   One Snow Golem:  

“How long now before L'esprit is fashioned?”— 

the gravamen 

 

// 

 

   La Truffe:  

“I’m the Emperor of Black Forest— 

the Tonic of Longevity”  

 

// 

 

   The Spider:  

black pepper container cobwebbed =  

fried eggs without seasoning 

 

// 

 

   L'ambassadeur of Indian Monsoon: 

“Mordeo, ergo sum (I bite, therefore I am)!  

Beware of my ex(s)istentia” 

 

// 

 

   The Loch Ness Monster:  

“Take a chill pill, folks!  

I’m only your regular Nessosaur. […]  

Has anybody seen my baby called Dinosaur?”— 

her SOS 

 

 

 

Saad Ali (b. 1980 CE in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up and educated in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is a bilingual poet-philosopher and literary translator. His new collection of poems is titled Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic's ekphrastic poetry and micro/flash fictions into Urdu: Lorette C. Luzajic: Selected Ekphrases – Translated into Urdu (2023). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. He has had poems published in The Mackinaw and Synchronized Chaos. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. He has had ekphrases showcased at an Art Exhibition, Bleeding Borders, curated at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada. He has had poems featured in two anthologies of poetry—Poetry is a Mountain (2019) and This Uncommon Place (2019)—by Kevin Watt (ed.). Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Kafka, Tagore, Lispector, et alia. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. To learn further about his work, please visit: www.saadalipoetry.com; www.facebook.com/owlofpines.