Tag Archives: The New Verse Movement

As long as You are not angry…

 

As long as You are not angry with me then I do not care
For me is the model of Musab bin Umayr
The best dressed man in the city
But that was for him a state of pity
Until there came to him the Message
All did he leave of his privilege
For the sake of Allah and His Beloved

As long as You are not angry with me then I do not care
For I think of Bilal when his chest was bare
On the burning sand did they make him lie
Until he thought he was going to die
They crushed him with rocks in the blazing sun
And begged him to reject the Almighty One
But never did he give in to the wicked

As long as You are not angry with me then I do not care
I remember Khabbaab when they pulled his hair
In the blacksmiths of his evil mistress
With burning rods did she cause him distress
She twisted his neck and burnt his skin
Until his fat dripped into a tin
But he remained firm to his belief as long as he lived

As long as You are not angry with me then I do not care
For I picture Khubaib when he was there
Tied and bound to an immovable tree
With no chance of him being free
Their spears and arrows did they fling
Yet grapes to him did his Lord bring
Until his noble soul was lifted

As long as You are not angry with me then I do not care
I think of Yasir, Sumaiyah and their heir
Even when placed on sizzling ember
None but their Lord did they remember
Patience you all when paying this price
Indeed your abode is Paradise
As a reward for all that you did.

As long as You are not angry with me, then I do not care
My example is Your Beloved when struck from the rear
By the sticks and stones of Taif’s crowd
Yet he did cry in a voice so loud:
“O Lord! Forgive my people for they do not know,”
And even thought I am feeling so low…

As long as You are not angry with me, then I do not care.

-Babar Ahmed

Get THE RESURRECTION WALTZ

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Biography 

Poet- Writer R.M. Engelhardt’s work over the years has been published and has R.M. Engelhardt’s work has appeared in many journals & magazines in both print and on the net including in Retort, Rusty Truck, Sure! The Charles Bukowski Newsletter, Thunder Sandwich, The Boston Literary Review, Full of Crow, Fashion For Collapse, 2nd Avenue Poetry, The Outlaw Poetry Network & in many others.

The Resurrection Waltz is his 13th book of poetry.

www.rmengelhardt.com

 

DEAR LIFE

 

MACHINE 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Life

 

Upon all the souls

Of all these poor saintly creatures & upon these very

Saintly apparitions of these very very

Saintly words of the very very dead gods you

Ask me to be a poet of this age and write

Something well,

 

New?

 

When love is merely a mortal look,

Long since the days of the camera began

 

But I will hear you.

Let you be my compass and agree

With thy heart as teacher to know my full sensibilities

And nothing in my verse nor in my time and

Not even in my mind nor soul

 

Which has never been pierc’d

With heat

 

Or truth.

 

For not in me is eternity

But only this temporal

And brief moment in time.

Copy die: nor can hold it

Up to the candle, the masses

No longer here to mourn for humanity

Eternal and cold

Like a machine

Everlasting

 

Oh muse,

I burn thee

Beneath the heart

Beneath the sea

 

Of lies

 

And sleep

Until you awaken

 

Again.

 

 

___________

 

R.M. ENGELHARDT

Death Is a Beautiful Car Parked Only By Richard Brautigan

Car_crash_1

Death is a beautiful car parked only
to be stolen on a street lined with trees
whose branches are like the intestines
of an emerald.
You hotwire death, get in, and drive away
like a flag made from a thousand burning
funeral parlors.

You have stolen death because you’re bored.
There’s nothing good playing at the movies
in San Francisco.

You joyride around for a while listening
to the radio, and then abandon death, walk
away, and leave death for the police
to find.

~ “Death Is a Beautiful Car Parked Only”  By Richard Brautigan

HOPE

hope

I wear hope around my neck like a noose. It’s loose enough for me to breathe when I need to get me through the day. And, with each swagger and sway, comes a new belief that there’s a new relief around the way. So I keep going, halfway knowing it’s just a trick my mind likes to play so I don’t quit. Or is it? Maybe, I’ll never know. Maybe I’ll never go past the dreaming that there’s more, the scheming that what I’m searching for is seemingly reminiscent to the folklore that there’s a garden paradise where I can settle and never have to leave. Where I can breathe deep breaths and exhale with abandon. Maybe that paradise is wherever I’m standing… tall, believing in myself, that I can conquer all the sadness and all the madness, and have a ball wherever I go. Could that be the paradise I’m looking for? Maybe. Maybe I’ll never know.

~ Jeremiah

I Believe

jimharrison

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I believe in steep drop-offs, the thunderstorm across the lake
in 1949, cold winds, empty swimming pools,
the overgrown path to the creek, raw garlic,
used tires, taverns, saloons, bars, gallons of red wine,
abandoned farmhouses, stunted lilac groves,
gravel roads that end, brush piles, thickets, girls
who haven’t quite gone totally wild, river eddies,
leaky wooden boats, the smell of used engine oil,
turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages lost in the woods,
the primrose growing out of a cow skull, the thousands
of birds I’ve talked to all of my life, the dogs
that talked back, the Chihuahuan ravens that follow
me on long walks. The rattler escaping the cold hose,
the fluttering unknown gods that I nearly see
from the left corner of my blind eye, struggling
to stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.”

~ jim harrison, i believe

BANNED

bannedbooks

Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
We warned you before
and nothing that you built has stood
Hear it as you lean over your blueprint
Hear it as you roll up your sleeve
Hear it once again
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down

~ Leonard Cohen

WRITER

 

Writer
Writer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These days

Everyone

Calls themselves

A writer

 

But unless

You have spent

Most of your life

Searching for

The perfect words

Unless you have lost

Hours, years & moments

Of sleep, unless you have

Stalked, loved every image

In your mind and have

Chased it down like

A mistress, or a woman just

Out of reach

 

Then

You are not

A writer

 

Unless you

Have truly

Bled the ink

 

And if you

Are serious about it

And it is your only ambition?

 

You will.

 

 

R.M. Engelhardt 

2013