Poem For Myself
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 13, 2005
I don’t really live my life anymore
Except in the poems that I write
Travelling to the places
Created by re-arranging the past
Until the future
Soon I will be confined to a bed
Where I will be redefined
In the minds of my friends
As heroic
A superhero for this decade
Begotten from denial
Rescuing myself
While the buildings
Burn
Poem At The End
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 13, 2005
it’s still all about me
or you
Yet
Everything in-between seems so dark
Basement still cold
Children don’t play outside anymore
Not because they’re scared, but due to the natural progression of things
So I’m going to stop right here
This is a bad poem
But the author recognises it as such
So don’t panic
You’ve only sort-of wasted your time
Alone
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 13, 2005
I wrote my first poem
About being alone
As we know
The best verse is written
In or about isolation
I recall
That I personified the walls
They screamed silence
Tonight
Everything has changed
And nothing has changed
The universe deepens
While I age
Alone again
But you are alone with me
You say
That we are our home
Build our own foundations
Sometimes strong, sometimes not so
But still
Everywhere we are together
We are home
I imagine myself walking in the door
And there you are
While I sit
Cold in my basement
Alone
Evolution
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 12, 2005
When I hold your body
It is not just you
That I touch
But histories
That bare their strength in my hands
Many revolutions
Simple ones
Of moon and sun
Woven into the scar on your back
Which my hands find in the dark
The hope of our ancestors
Carried by your feet
Your breathing like tiny dinosaur
As we dance
Holding each other like
Two soldiers before a battle
This is our story and everyone’s story
Our moment, like every moment
Until the end of time
When I say I love you
I mean:
I am comfortable with my place in the universe
And I know that I am decaying
Moving forward toward death
Like those
Who came before me
After The Evening Poem
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 7, 2005
lake be still
wait for the rain
one tear falls
another dries, and you kiss my eyes
whispering
Do not be sad
I am going to die too
death in mind
we move closer
somewhere, something
moves apart
Abraham Carried The Light Of God
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 7, 2005
Abraham carried the light of God. As he walked to Mt. Moria with Issac, he could not explain what he was doing to his wife. He could not explain what he was doing to himself. Abraham, the first prophet, sacrificed his only son in the hope that somehow, everyone would be ok. And when I young, I often wondered what would have happened had Isaac not turned into a goat.
Poem On Bus
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: June 3, 2005
Moving toward home
On the same bus
I took to school everyday
The night was gentle
Other passengers non-threatening
And for the first time
I allowed myself to say
I was free
My left arm is numb
I feel my veins narrowing
Soon the left side of my body will lose feeling
Except what I choose to remember
To re-create the feeling of touch
Feeling will be memory
A passenger stabs me in the arm
Old Russian woman to my left screams
red of my life stains her hand made dress
as if he womb was bleeding
As my left arm become a piece of meat
And the ambulance arrives
I remember what it felt like to be happy
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: May 24, 2005
Dear,
Life will probably be a series of looking for a good amount of control, and you will always be meeting new people, some good, others not so good, but you are a loving and smart person, and you have something a lot of other people are short on — wisdom. You have it in you to get what you need and want, to meet other people just as great as you. Think of how lonely they are tonight Think of how lonely I used to be, before I met you, and how very lonely you used to be before you met me, writing dark poetry in your basement. But now you are starting to live in the moment, and you have a world of wonderful things to learn, we will learn them together, you will learn with others. And most importantly, you will learn them on your own, and then share them with lucky people such as me.
Another Piece Of Writing
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: May 5, 2005
I’ve already written so much about being alone. How many more times can the same theme be re-worked until it drifts into a nameless fog, or worse, popular culture?
But tonight feels like strange dark and silence. These themes deserve to be waken is for no other reason than they provide a temporary solace to those who they effect. It is true we have been here too many times. “Move on”, they say, remember there is so much more than this. And yet here is where we seem to return.
Writing makes you feel better because it reminds you of someone listening. In a way, you never wanted anyone to listen, just to be listened too even when they pretended that somehow they were helping you, it was always you who had to make them feel that you were more than worthy of being listened to.
This isn’t anything in particular, just something to help me understand what you already do: that inside me I have everything I have been searching for. This isn’t a poem or a story. It is a search.
You aren’t a lover or a friend, you are a moment existing throughout time which I come back to that reminds me of what I am searching for.
I am not really searching. I am killing time until the day when I get over the fear of self-realization.
You aren’t really reading this. You know what is it because you’ve heard it before.
Poem After A Long Time
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: April 24, 2005
After too much time in reality
His eyes became very dark
Gained weight
Lungs like children’s party balloons
Success made his health suffer
Sitting down to write a poem
It was quite
Felt different
Strange
But welcoming
Not attempting to say
Anything in particular
The act was selfish
But it never occurred to him
He just wrote
A poem
Any poem
To take a short breath
And hold back the night