Poetry
The Strike That Never Happened
They froze with the dawn the sand hills silent the motionless sea mirror like the waters reflected the pain of a static day They froze with the dawn and the fountain of light became...
Lost Emotions
These barren hills, that in my youth meant to me a million things stand purple in the twilight. They are hills today just earth deformed by rain and water cracked open by the sun....
Larkana 1979
Long shadows the evening sun and the smell of earth and dung and the ever-present haze of dust and the air of hopelessness and the endless colour of nothing The waiting night and the...
Architecture and Childhood Memories
In the brazenness of architectural practice I sometimes have a nostalgia for the scenes and sentiments of my childhood a loneliness with an unidentifiable pain soothed by a low mist over a calm sheet of...
Politics 1981
The sun has set beyond the city but the sky is not ablaze with crimson the south-west wind from its African home is angry and the seas are rough. the gulmohars have blossomed and the...
At The Tomb of Shah Abdul Latif at Bhit Shah
(Shah Abdul Larif was a 17th century mystic considered a saint. Among other things, he collected Sindhi folk stories and wrote them down and put them to music.) Once again A man of the world...
To Riad – My Palestinian Student
I received you at the door All smiles Across the marble of the table We sipped green tea We spoke of metaphysics And discussed the cosmos How unlike us! The buzz of traffic on Shahrah-e-Faisal...
Usto Mohammad – 1985
I know this smell well Earth damp and reed And the sudden fall of temperature after sunset. I know this smell In another century When my heart was full of anger Against the injustices...
Development
We play games You and I and they Play at reconciling what is irreconcilable Agreeing on irrelevant details and grand concepts But glossing over love and understanding That the concepts embody We play games You...
Poetry And Development
The gardener cannot know the secrets of the garden Until he has been bruised by the thorns that protect the flowers. Because of the drought the peasant knows it has not rained on the...
It Has Been a Long Journey
It has been a long journey, From the winding brick paved lanes of Panipat1, Where Boo Ali Qalandar2 Preached the unification of God and Man, To the wide avenues and squares of Paris, Where Voltaire...
To Ashraf – My Neighbour’s Son
Ashraf You were no Islamic fundamentalist Your beard was not a fistful And you did not carry the mark of the sijdah on your forehead In Ramadan You did not spend your days in fasting...
