Monday, April 13, 2009

HELPLESS TO HELP

This loss I see you struggling with
That I seem helpless to help you with
This anguish that keeps you awake at night
That I seem helpless to abate your plight
This torment that inflames your lonely soul
To which I helplessly appear to be cold
This grief that shadows your every moment
While I’m helpless to cast enlightenment
So I’m there just there and I care it’s true
But for your loss and grief I have no clue
I can’t hustle what it takes Time to do
For only Time can alter your mood’s hue
Fostering feelings of warmth to accrue
Paint your mem’ries colours other than blue
Of one that is so, so special to you

© Fazir Mar 2009

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

IF I WERE KIPLING

If I were Kipling I would put in verse
A map to ease your stay in this universe
But I’m not, so I’ll do my utmost best
Not to repeat Ruddyard, but say the rest:

If you can traverse this uneven road
With real reverence and humility
If you can hold head high with heavy load
Rounding each bend optimistically

If you can smile when you feel emptiness
And your insides churn with melancholy
If you can lift others out of their sadness
Using the strength deep inside your belly

If you can say thanks with sincerity
Even when you feel slighted or insulted
If you can maintain your manners persistently
When everyone else’s has abated

If you can sustain your deep convictions
In this modern time of fleeting truths
To withstand a world of opposition
Nurturing trees of facts to bear fruits

If you can always keep your mind open
But ensure that your screen keeps filtering
Knowledge you’ll find again and again
While rubbish you will go on rejecting

If you can with fellowmen empathize
Even when it is inconvenient
If you can always to the moment rise
And on one self never be lenient

If you can strive harder for distinction
In everything that you set out to do
If you can use failure as motivation
To propel you toward heights that are new

If you can do all these things my dear girls
More often than not in your lives to come
Your legacy shall be a life of pearls
And you’ll be persons I’m yet to become


DEDICATED TO MY DAUGHTERS Ariana and Alyssa
© Fazir Khan July 2007

TIGHTEN YOUR BELT

Imagine being told to tighten your belt
By a man who wants to fly ‘round in a jet
While the treasury money he does pelt
To satisfy every whim and fancy yet

Imagine being told: curb your expenditure
After so many billions have been blown
Adding to the inflation even more pressure
Grinding we Trinis straight down to the bone

Imagine being told to hold some strain
Because the vision is for twenty-twenty
Yet every time it rains in Port of Spain
The depth of flood in inches is forty

Imagine being told to have some patience
With important things like health care and crime
Displaying arrogance with no conscience
While the murder rate going up all the time

Imagine being told not to worry
The government have it under control
Now they are saying come on let us hurry
Before the dollar depression takes its toll

Now imagine a belt that hypocrites wear
To hold their political pants up high
It has a label that says, we care, we care
But when it drops it says: we lie, we lie

And imagine a belt for we the people
Placed around men at the top of the line
So when upon our lives they trample
We could tighten it ‘till it reach their spine.

© Fazir Khan
November 2008