Ears And Arrows

Le t eLo v e r Be . .

S a mi r

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded, sweetly wild. (Loveplums sitting in my fridge)

Samir

all poems © samir m. malik

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be.

I have five things to say, Five fingers to give Into your grace. First, when I was apart from you, This world did not exist, Nor any other. Second, whatever I was looking for was always you. Third, why did I ever learn to count to three? - Imam Jallal Ud Din Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

one ears.

your ears tiny little whorls of silk fashioned from the purity that rains from above how I long to touch them but I am afraid. i will, i know. but not now when soon. Soon as I will kiss you and this kiss will carry us home. i know where it is i have been there but I came back in search of you.

all night I went in search of you. the island of my dreams is vast and I searched for your elegant fragility amongst all the peoples who crowd my countries. looking, searching for the line you create as you sail through the masses through the misery and joy of it all as if walking on the wings of God’s message bringers you go your way. I felt that I had missed something. as if a gift from spirit was lost to me. even though placed before me. i had been not brave. i could have touched them, i know, and then kissed you, taken you in my arms and let your heart whisper to mine. but i did not. and this filled me with a grey melancholy a shape undefined clouding the sun from my path. and i so longed to worship the sun again find it's light again in your light. so i searched, blind, and asked, lost but praying for hope to come and bring you across my searching. so i could see again, breathe again and finally kiss you as i wanted since the first time i saw you. again. many spoke of seeing you. many knew your ways, your dreams and i felt again and again and again that our dreams almost touched. almost. but my hunt went on under grey skies and i awoke not even having sighted that great mane of yours

of gold and earth those eyes the colour of depth, magic and longing, those high arched feet that grace and bless our earth with each step, those delicately fabulous ears that only God knows how i long to touch, kiss as if i i would find the taste my lips have endlessly endlessly searched forever. i awoke on the shores of a great ocean alone. full of longing. but full of knowing.

no sooner had we kissed then, suddenly the wind had found it's voice suns rained down lighting, burning paths, where seas would enshroud their waves in depths deeper than deep the place where i had hidden me suddenly whispered tones beneath of silence of fishes fish that swam from back then and kissed our toes and i knew of glory again and gladfullness and joyness knew who i was again. but lost me again the moment your lips brushed mine. again.

you paint great strokes across my face my heart all dizzy the rest of me i do not know i can not tell. you paint great strokes of juice of itallness redandorangeandgoldand violently your lips speak to my toes the rest of me i can not tell. i have lost myself in this i have just realised the guard has gone i hear someone call “the guard has gone!” and i am here! with these applemangogreatcherries that paint great strokes across my heart my soul. has just begun to realise maybe there's more to you than ears. and the smile has come back to life and i realise. that my soul... i don't know. are there words? yes! yes!! kiss her again!!! and i lose the words as i do.

i should be waiting for a sign i guess for some hidden voice to call that it has been ordained and that i belong to you now. or not. and i does not come. and i continue to tumble into this gracious emptiness catching flowers and kisses on the way down to the life that's waiting for me. the life that’s been written for me.

i am a king of beasts prowling jungles of Madhat hungry for a sight amongst the dense curtains of stares ajanbis, thieves and saints... sight of you, my lioness proud and simple like a child's hands capable of greatness but able to shred hearts mutilate egos creating glorious sacred spaces to allow serenity, joy to live in between barbarians and beasts.

do not ask me. i would not tell. ...gregarious spices laden in shop fronts scent of jasmine or even nana on little table tops the strains of Fairuz carried over rooftops after maghrib even looks of passerbys babyfeet racing down streets and traces of birds at dusk. Loveplums sitting in my fridge. laughter and play children celebrating in houses below.

afternoons too, tea with a view of the heavens so clear, so crisp, little cherry tomatoes full of life begging to be tasted the call to prayer at sunset the call back to God. all this carries me to you. as if all this, framed in light and shadows were the world, burning a path in the rough leather of my days carrying me, urging me on back, after so many chores so much talk of nothing back, to the smile i adore. the ears that taste of honey and free summer rain these lips i worship everytime they touch mine and worship more when absent there, only in traces, tastes out of which everything grows. all this is my truth all this carries me back home. but do not ask me. i would not tell.

on the terrace under the stars thinking of you. tonight the mountain lights call to something inside of me a song inaudible that my soul relishes distant. yet so near. strange. yet so clear. familiar. calls to a part of me that although missing you, lies waiting for your essence to pass through walls abstinences and feelings holed back then. to come and kiss me. touch my cheek maybe caress my waist and say of course i feel for you of course i dream of us i don't want it this way at all. but you can not show me, it can't be that way but i say to you wait. for i too shall give you a rose.

i feel myself afloat a single boat with no oars on an ocean as far as the eye can see my sails are broken and fish swim past playing shadows in the waters before me. the star are out, too many to count fashioning voyages and charts in the breeze but i am happy to sit, wait and watch the miracle of it all and let God carry you gently to me. i should do something, i think make noises and move but that comes just occasionally but i know i have no choice my heart has found it's voice and it sings of out love constantly. it tells me you are mine and that now i am yours and very soon our hearts will be freed to play in the same waters on which i float adrift and make real this wondrous dream.

love. desire. faithfullness. 2 questions placed delicately at my feet. hopes. wants. fears. 2 questions i am trying to rhyme this. i want to be great. but nothing comes because all this greatness stays in side to ponder 2 questions.

...love functions exponential ly i think because that makes it okay that i don’t under stand what it (really) means.

wild were you. sweetly wild.

sweetly wild. no other words come your touch on mine has left scars shapes only God knows of burned on my skin, telling of us. that mere mortals can only endeavor habiba, to decipher, read but i am left with scars. that only i know only you and i know can only be read by our lips, fingers and hearts whilst we are sweetly wild.

as i walk, float you do alongside my faltering steps a child lost in this world of wonder made more alive with each passing second that i walk amazed how you float as you do as if carried on divine hands next to me along the path that leads to us.

the moment we met i did not realise that although your small hands being simple, empty and beautiful as the skies were laden with gifts for me gifts that although i had forgotten of were the ones i had longed for to set it free to fly free in the skies as simple, empty and beautiful as your hands.

sometimes i am afraid that this love so brilliant, bright only visible in shades and vows half whispered when it is brought to light will burn all will leave only charred out remains kisses now cause angels to flee and hide their wings touches stolen in the souk cause all around to search for fire looks full of so much longing put the sun to shame and cause flowers to turn to us. unknown children greet me endlessly during my day on the way back to you people stop me endlessly driven by a hunger to touch the light, burning in my body, me being since you came back from only God knows where back to breathe the gifts of laughter, belonging, fire back to my life and quicken the search for reasons why. how your look has banished all questions burnt them. i am afraid that i, we. will set the world aflame.

i want to make love to you on a bed carved of eucalyptus wood from the forests of old Africa draped with roses with thorns that, as they cut let me taste the blood that carries my spirit now the blood that will one day run through the veins of my children. i want to make love to you on a bed carved of eucalyptus wood laden with roses with thorns.

two waking.bewildered...

Habiba. Last night i felt you visit me. i was not dreaming but it felt like a dream, so unreal yet at the same time so real, where suddenly you were standing at the door to my room., as if framed by the heavens behind you. i beckoned you to me and you came, taking steps that betrayed your desire and suddenly, your lips were on mine and my hands were they most long to be, tracing the places that i most long to kiss, taste, worship with my lips. as your breath mingled with mine, i felt how our love had grown, as strong as, if not stronger than our desire for each other, the longing to be one, to be lost in each other, something so primitive, something so pure. So beyond this world. So of this world. i loved you last night as i never imagined was possible for mere humans. i loved you and laying there with your body pressed to mine on the shores of this great ocean, i knew i had finally come home…

(waking in the night mixed and bewildered full of joy. is that your leg or mine?)

all night we will walk i know this, i know this. sleeping we will walk in the world of shadow of dreams where no one can disturb us and i will feel you next to me your fingers laced in mine your breath echoing mine your laughter lighting the way our love will follow. all night we will walk until day calls like an unwelcome visitor ringing in the sun from so far away. and i will go. i will leave you and my fingers missing you, my whole being feeling your absence led by this touch just a memory will continue to follow the path i will take like roses that appear before my feet shooting stars a compass of mine invisible to all but me through those ungraceful hours until we meet again walk again, your hand in mine. together, in shadows of dreams.

your eyes so tender mouth. half open as you lean to me across unimaginable distance place your lips on mine lightly lightly touch the tip of my tongue with yours. ...lightly lightly i touch ever so softly the inside whorls of your ears ever so softly i touch ever so softly the path your cheek makes ever so softly down the half moon of your throat. your breast i caress ever so softly ever so softly i bite ever so softly, you sigh. this, pulls me away from sleep makes me laugh out loud find reasons to celebrate life to love you call you my joy and miss you touching lightly. lightly ever so softly your light with mine.

fire burns at night guiding my soul to where it finds quiet inside of you where it finally takes flight inside of you a prayer i recite inside of you a longing you incite inside of you day and night day and night day and night…

if God were to ask me what wishes i wish to fulfil i would say: keep her a close to my heart as you are. let her feel my love. always, nourishing her being let her always be a source of mystery to me; let me always, every day be amazed, always at her beauty. make her never want to wander, too long too far from my side. keep our love always pure so her heart will always feel destined for me. He does ask. everyday in between moments that fill my day inbetween words that come. like gentle arrows sent from you to me. in the birdsong i spy in the morn causing me. to feel a longing, feel complete, feel God calling you to me. in the whispers of my soul hidden from all eyes including mine telling me. you are mine.

a thousand times last night i remember this being a marvellous dream but knowing it to be real every time your body touched. mine sending waves of recollection of somewhere i knew before. (coming here) i remember being troubled, unnecessarily that i keep you from slumber. but most, my love, most i remember i slept. i slept knowing my body, my soul, toes, i had finally come home. that now i am yours that no one else except you, except you will now sleep in my dreams.

lost in this day far away from the one i love i remember. memories that transform your essence calling me to this new day those eyes longing the urgency to take me inside of you, deep inside your life. i remember your body beside mine joined together. unimaginable purity. as if made of the same cast, as if made of the same clay and sweetness. made to fit with a perfection. filling me and the world with light. i remember your voice, your hair, your mouth, your breasts, sweet to my taste. your sleek feet, all of you that i will worship with my lips, my hands, my body, my soul til it breathes it’s last and leaves this world. i remember waking in unison as if my soul had learnt your rhythms or, maybe, yours mine. i remember a new rhythm being born. maybe. one of you with me with you. i remember your embrace holding me, holding me telling of fears

that need a hunter to find them, to banish them. i remember those fractured moments between wake and sleep secrets whispered in your kiss without words. telling me that you want me to travel, to share the hopes of your life to be there in whatever dreams may come.

the ache of surprise it's amazing how you can light up the park as i try and explain the smile on your face the truth in your eyes will catch me. if i fall.

three thiswithoutwords.

leaving you carry me in you words spoken by me will echo around you. looks from children will bring you my eyes photos in magazines posterboards, shopfronts streetsigns under which lovers pass gently by will bring you my touch on your heart, your body your listening so delicate. everything. everything. my love will be like little boats that will sail to you carrying parcels of me essence of me through time and distance along rivers under all skies calling you in a whisper as loud as the Adhan back to my side where you will come. back to my side. where you belong.

you are the sound of the sun at dawn the light that rings the day in and wakes the bird into song the seraphic song that greets us on the way back from beyond the reasons why.

great panes of glass separate us. the doors are closed. the magic of smile. yours still there but a violent sadness hits me. hits me with a great pain. as the train moves carrying you away again. slowly. slowly till more than great panes of glass. separate us.

and you're gone.

the longing comes falling from below. rising from above. filling me like light. the longing comes to feel your skin against mine feel your voice ringing through the empty spaces that will surround us all externals banished by the touch of you on me. me on you. painting truth for none to see. but us.

i asked myself if this is true the love i feel should it bring me places unknown where i am suddenly afraid places where, lost, i want to hide. places where i compromise. my love for life.

what are hands? they have lost their purpose since not being allowed since then to touch to cup excite prepare. for my tongue my bite to follow the path that your back creates as your eyes small your mouth an o your teeth bared pain, pleasure. actually none of them but something beyond a sound not for those who listen but for those who love.

what are my eyes? they search endlessly blind since not being allowed since then to witness the curve your belly displays as your back tenses always more and more as you are driven pulled by thiswithoutwords. into oblivion.

why is my nose? a tag of flesh and grisel dead since not being allowed since then to swim in the splendour that has no words to explain a collage of summer and intimacy innocence and evil Jung called it Anima i preferred to call it you. with me. as one

i tried to call.

tried to get through. tried everyone.

and still you are lost to me. and i notice how i sit patiently a good boy waiting for it all to wake up. and you to turn up at my door again or someone to call up and say “she's fine” “she's sad” “she's faraway” “she's dead” “she loves and misses you” “she'll never come back” something. anything. as i try and reach out try to get through as i try.

i want to be the tree you used to lie under As a child creating the world you were going to live into unfold with me at your side. i want to be the tree you used to lie under as a child. Since you left.

groping around i smell the twee sitting in my life all me you and three blue am i tired blind to my needs and all others and i want to fold up grow branches deep and lose my trunk lose my crease dis appear to you and all your queens and all your kings who smile as they unknow ing chew and spit out. destroy my heart. groping around brings tears sweet.

forget the bills. work not important any more food. eh? sleep. hunh??! going for a shit and watching the rain and making coffee for incase you come back is all i do.

the sliver of the moon outshadows my fears sometimes. as i call silently to come come quick and save me from this terror that lays wasted

around me every corner since you left and don’t call anymore. i was there and birds greeted me everyday. now all flee away escape my sullen looks. the one i love has gone. she flits about so i see her. i hear her voice. but her soul in on some distant shore. a place where i don’t rejoice.

four arrows.

gone are you (I now know) and the lie hands me a towel to wipe my face so i am free to scream and love you hate you all at once and be okay with missing you like i do.