The Power of the West

The East imitating the West is deprived on its true self
It should attemp, instead, a critical appraisal!
The power of the West springs not from her music
Not from the dance of her unveiled daughters!
Her strength not comes from irreligion
Nor her progress from the adoption of the Latin script
The power of the West lies in her Arts and Sciences
At their fire has it kindled its lamp

~Iqbal~

Greetings to the Continent

Greetings to the Continent

I

They separate us

the passports visas frontiers all names for barriers

they rob us with their laws

sending bullets wrapped in dollars

forcing us to choose

and choose we must

there is no other way

II

Friend, you have chosen guns and bullets

many leaders prefer their dollars

for this you must soak your clothes

red grass, red river

children’s weeping

the blood of the exploited

III

You squeeze cactus and grind stones

to make food and drink

girls toil decorated in dust

little children sling on their weapons

you darken the sky with exploding pipelines

others sing in prisons

for the freedom of Palestine

IV

We strive in drying rice fields

daring peasants have begun to clear the virgin jungle

small beginnings in a cloudlike calmness

a calmness that nips us in the bud

we the few are still learning

from all your experiences,

and our own

we shall consolidate the May eclipse

at the true targetof this archipelago

V

Greetings

without visa

passport

golf

colour

to humanity,

people,

of all continents.

~Usman Awang, 1970~

(Translated by Muhammed Hj Salleh)

Beggarly Heart

When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder

~Rabindranath Tagore~

The One

“The One remains, the many change and pass,
Heaven’s light for ever shines, earth‘s shadow fly.
Life, like a dome of many colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until death crushes it to fragments”

~Shelly~