ALT

Tired All The Time since returning from Afghanistan
Running late because of a codebase error

Difficulty expressing myself in English
Difficulty understanding his English

Walking away clutching a form for some blood tests
Baseline bloods should reveal anything serious

Reading a letter from my doctor. In English.
A raised ALT and γGT – come and see me at your earliest convenience

Walking away clutching a form for more blood tests
I didn’t realise he’d lost his son

Another letter from my doctor. In English.
Have you ever used drugs? Any tattoos?

I can’t believe I’m crying
I can’t believe he’s dying

By Tauseef Mehrali
Top 300 entries for the 2010 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Iqbal on the (1935) Credit Crunch

An extract from Allamah Muhammad Iqbal's 'Lenin in the divine presence':

The towering Bank out-tops the cathedral roof;
What they call commerce is a game of dice
For one, profit, for millions swooping death.
There science, philosophy, scholarship, government,
Preach man's equality and drink men's blood.

Iqbal for Dinner

Between dinner and dessert at a friend's place yesterday, we were treated to a farsi masterclass via the medium of Iqbal.

A Dialogue between God and Man

God

I made the whole world with the same water and clay,
But you creater Iran, Tartary and Ethiopia.
From the earth I brought forth pure iron,
But you made from that iron sword, arrow and gun.
You made an axe for the tree in the garden,
And a cage for the songbird.

Man

You made the night, I made the lamp;
You made the earthen bowl, I made the goblet.
You made deserts, mountains and valleys;
I made gardens, meadows and parks.
I am one who makes a mirror out of stone,
And turns poison into sweet, delicious drink.

And perhaps my favourite, delightfully oblique piece:

Solitude

I went up to the ocean and, addressing a wave, said:
‘You’re always restless; tell me what is it that troubles you.
You have a million pearls enfolded in your garment’s skirt,
But do you, like me, have a heart – the only pearl that’s true?
It squirmed, retreated from the shore, and uttered not a word.

I went up to the mountain and said, "O huge heap of stone!
Can you not hear the wailing of a heart in agony?
If in your stones there is a gem which is a drop of blood,
Then speak, O speak, to a sad soul that pines for company.
If it had breathed, it breathed no more, and uttered not a word.

I travelled long in upper space, approached the moon, and said:
"O ceaseless wanderer, is there any rest ordained for you?
Your radiance makes the whole world gleam white like a jasmine field.
But is your breast aglow with a live heart whose light shines through?"
She looked round at the starry crops, and uttered not a word.

Transcending sun and moon, I went up to the Throne of God.
"There’s not a thing," I said, "I can be friends with, not a thing.
Your world is heartless, while my dust is all of heart’s stuff made.
A pretty garden, but not the kind of place to make one sing."
He answered with the smile He wore, and uttered not a word.

The Moths and the Flame by Farid ud-Din Attar

(Courtesy of the Grand Mufti. Or to be precise, the Grand Mufti's new father-in-law. As in he didn't have one before but now has one, rather than a different one).

Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned --
And went no nearer: back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: "He knows nothing of the flame."
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he'd been,
And how much he had undergone and seen.
The mentor said: "You do not bear the signs
Of one who's fathomed how the candle shines."
Another moth flew out -- his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both self and fire were mingled by his dance --
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head,
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth's form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: "He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak."
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
Will drag you back and plunge you in despair --
No creature's self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.

Karbala in Verse

A pretty self-explanatory link that does what it says on the tin.

Waiting for the Barbarians

Waiting for the Barbarians by the Greek Alexandrine poet Konstantinos Kavafis (1836-1933) was one of Edward Said's favourite poems. In fact his daughter Najla recited at his funeral service.

Waiting for the Barbarians
by Constantine Cavafy (1864-1933), translated by Edmund Keeley

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

Perspectives on the Death of Poetry in Beirut

by George Dickerson

The commando cradled the poem in his arm.
When he made the poem speak, it spit stanzas
At pedestrians who fled from poetry.
From the rocket launcher a barrage of poems
Burst like roses in the street. The eloquent shards
Inscribed the houses with an elegy.
Fragments of the poem's petals were found
In the face and chest of a young girl
Overcome by the eternal aspect of poetry.
At night, when we fought with fitful sleep,
The deep guttural throat of poetry roared
Across the rooftops and devoured our dreams.
A wayward poem entered the boy's head
And left his eyes hollow with amazement.
A poem snatched hunger
From twenty people waiting for bread.
Two poems recklessly slit each other's bellies.
The head of a truncated poem
Was proudly impaled on a barricade.
From the cellar, where fifteen poems lay crushed,
Oozed the sweet odor of poetry.
When the plane lifted off over Beirut,
I could see poems shrouding the city,
And I abandoned poetry.

© 2000 George Dickerson
(Prior publ.: Medicinal Purposes Literary Review)

So how did it come to taste of smoke and fire?

Avari-Nameh's Haroon Moghul once again takes an insightful, critical and refreshing look at the situation in Lebanon.

The same site links to Paradise Lost: Robert Fisk's elegy for Beirut.

The anger that any human soul should feel at such suffering and loss was expressed so well by Lebanon's greatest poet, the mystic Khalil Gibran, when he wrote of the half million Lebanese who died in the 1916 famine, most of them residents of Beirut:

My people died of hunger, and he who

Did not perish from starvation was

Butchered with the sword;

They perished from hunger

In a land rich with milk and honey.

They died because the vipers and

Sons of vipers spat out poison into

The space where the Holy Cedars and

The roses and the jasmine breathe

Their fragrance.

Juan Cole, at Informed Comment, lets the facts do the talking.

Someone pointed out the Independent's front page to me. Says it all really.


Meanwhile, the picture in Iraq looks bleaker than ever.

The Terrorist at my Table

An extract from Imtiaz Dharker's collection of poetry and art of the same name.

The right word

Outside the door
lurking in the shadows,
is a terrorist.

Is that the wrong description?
Outside that door,
taking shelter in the shadows,
is a freedom-fighter.

I haven’t got this right.
Outside, waiting in the shadows,
is a hostile militant.

Are words no more
than waving, wavering flags?
Outside your door,
watchful in the shadows,
is a guerrilla warrior.

God help me.
Outside, defying every shadow,
stands a martyr.
I saw his face.

No words can help me now.
Just outside the door,
lost in shadows,
is a child who looks like mine.

One word for you.
Outside my door,
his hand too steady,
his eyes too hard
is a boy who looks like your son, too.

I open the door.
Come in, I say.
Come in and eat with us.

The child steps in
and carefully, at my door,
takes off his shoes.

Lament for Seville

Wondering through Cordoba over a fortnight ago I was surprised at the feelings of nostalgia and sadness stirred up within me.

I recently stumbled across some poetry that perfectly captures the allure of Andalucia. The first couple are relatively contemporary pieces by Allamah Mohammed Iqbal penned in the 1930s after visiting the cities of Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, and Seville. The second is a classical work by Abu al-Baqa' al-Rundi, a poet from Ronda who died in 1285. 'The poem was written in the hope of gaining aid from Muslims in North Africa to help battle Christian armies. Although the fall of Seville is its theme, the text was actually written in 1267, after the Nasrid ruler Muhammad ibn al-Ahmar surrendered several cities to Alfonso X. The poet refers to events in ancient Arabian and Persian history as well as to the capture of Seville in his attempt to inspire military support.'

A Prayer: Written in a Mosque in Cordoba - Iqbal

Whose lofty, inspired vision blessed the East and the West,
Whose wisdom was a beacon in Europe’s Dark Ages;
Who left an abiding imprint on the Andalusian mind:
A cheerful spirit and warmth, a simple, genial soul.
Abundant in this land today is gazelle-eyed beauty;
So are the shafts that pierce the heart from those gazelle eyes.
Wafted on its breeze still is Yemen’s aroma sweet;
And in its sights and sounds is the holiness of Hijaz.
In the eyes of the gazing stars thy earth is exalted as heaven;
Alas! for long thy walls have not echoed with the sound of azan.

Spain - Iqbal

Treasure the Muslim blood,
That sanctified thy soil;
Thou art pure and holy,
Like the holy precincts.

Buried in thy dust are imprints
Of heads that bowed in prayer,
And thy breeze at dawn
Echoes the sound of azan.

Granada, the eye of the world.
In the twilight of time,
Pierces the heart that bleeds
For glories that are no more.

(An extract from) Lament for Seville - Abu al-Baqa' al-Rundi

Therefore ask Valencia what is the state of Murcia; and where is Jativa, and where is Jaén?

Where is Cordoba, the home of the sciences, and many a scholar whose rank was once lofty in it?

Where is Seville and the pleasures it contains, as well as its sweet river overflowing and brimming full?

[They are] capitals which were the pillars of the land, yet when the pillars are gone, it may no longer endure!

The tap of the white ablution fount weeps in despair, like a passionate lover weeping at the departure of the beloved,

Read the full poem here (and in Arabic here).

'Windows is shutting down' by Clive James

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.

Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.

The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.

Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.

The Guardian Review, 30 April 2005, 36