Devil's Call

Bouncing bodies and tapping feet
Feel my rythmic beats
Swaying to and fro
To tunes that feed the human soul

Come one come all
Frivolous joy has made its call
Upon strings pulled taught
Accompanied by the drummer's bop

To the sound of singing and screaming
That bares the soul and emotional quaking
I call you down to join the play
Of bodies wild in trancelike sway

And say not no to my creed
To set you free with pumping beats
The clash of cymbals to fill my song
And chorus that calls to sing along

Roll my lyrics on your tongue
Sing to me the tales I've sung
To plaster stories of favored youth
Drawing life within my groove

Do you not feel it
Coursing through body in heat
The magic I weave in my song
Reaching out to the gyrating throng

Guitars thrumming shrill
Playing smoke high as hills
The call of the musical lords
The summons of mortal gods

To me dancing queens
Harken breakers and moshing teens
Gather round the voice of youths
Carve your breaks in time in grooves

My Heart

Where is my heart?

Be it strewn across the land? Tiny little pieces seeking to be found dangling upon strangers' hands?

Or does it flutter wild and free like the wind? Unpredictable and irrepressable it flows to and fro with abandon. Then where is it now?

Has it found itself in the cage of love built upon it by sweet words and promises? Hope do I if that be the case that this captor is kind in nature and angelic in demeanor.

Does it lie cradled in the arms of a woman? One so dear whom I call my mother. If so then I pray for her more than ever.

Is it then shattered to broken bits? Lying in shards and minuscule debris. Lost beyond saving and ever finding. Oh woe is me then.

Or has my heart found its way deep into the darkness of hatred and fury? Does it now consume itself in blind rage and reckless vengeance?I wonder where my heart will lead me upon such a path fiery and red.

Has worldly treasures stolen its virtue and sense of direction? If so it must be truly lost now.

Or does spirituality hold a grip firm as earth upon its sense of purpose? If so then blessed indeed is my heart.

Dearest heart of mine, where hast thou gonest?

Leaving

Lay me down
On earthen bed to rest
Water this parched ground
With coolness hope it's blessed

Blanket me up
In cloth, earth and stone
Leave me with the grubs
That chew me down to bone

Pray that I'm learned
Free with my wealth on earth
For all that I treasured
Only knowledge would aid my rebirth

Beg the angels pair
Would kindly be to me
With softness and smiles fair
Set my soul at ease

Cry not as I fade
My time has finally come
Freed from a world so fake
To spend a time in the ground

Hope against hope for peace
That torturous flames not lick my skin
That kindness has bought me my lease
And forgiven are all my sins

My final breath taken
My last words uttered
Prayers last spoken
Before the light in my eyes muddled

Lay me down
On earthen bed to rest
To no longer tarry around
In this life that I have left

Hurts

It hurts to be human. It is human to hurt.

What is "hurt"?

Hurt:
1) to inflict phyical pain
2) to cause emotional pain o anguish
3) to suffer pain or grief
4) to cause damage or distress

A word synonymous with pain. It makes a person human to feel pain. Be that pain physical or emotional, it hurts just the same. Why is it human to hurt?

To hurt is a weakness. Feeling pain is a weakness. Being human means being born with a weakness. It is to be born human that makes us weak. Our only strength lies in what is known as our "Aqal". Our ability to think.

Hurting helps build the humanity in a person. Only in suffering does the human soul mature.

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be not forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower
Grief not, rather find,
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,
In the faith that looks through death
In years that bring philosophic mind.

- William Wordsworth

It is human to hurt because it is human to be weak. And it is human to hurt because it is human to learn and grow. Pain marks change and the breaking of bounaries.It is the cost of wisdom and learning.

These are the reasons why life hurts so much.

Chameleon

Can't decide
Am i black or white
Drifting forth
In my discourse

Who I see
Makes the current me
Red or blue
Determined by you

What's understood
The fleeting notes of the flute
Always changing tunes
Unnoticable in the shifting dunes

Lost in colors
As my mask falters
Where is the me
In this colorful sea?

Simplicity Abstracted

Abstraction or simplicity; Which is closer to the truth?

All things bear a simple disposition that can be abstracted.

The complexity within the working mechanisms of all simple things is not something to be trifled with.

As you delve deeper into simplicity's web, you'll find that it is itself a complexity impossible to understand.

The readily accepted truth is always simple upon the forefront.

1 + 1 = 2

A simple equation.

The world is round. An undeniable fact.

The sky is blue. An obvious observation.

My name is Abdul Aziz. There is no point in denying that.

All these are facts apparent and easily digested at first glance.

But what happens when you abstract it and begin to question their validity?

Numbers are mere symbols. An equation a combination of symbols. A sentence.
1 + 1 = 2
If you chose 1 to represent a pair and 2 to represent a single object, then this equation would be wrong would it not?

Thus you would have to first identify what the numbers represent before you can first justify the sentence that this equation brings to bear.

Questioning that symbolism tat everyone has grown to accept as a given, is a form of abstraction. Is this something that can bring you closer to the truth?

AS for the shape of the world, long had it been assumed to be flat until the times of philosophers such as Pythagoras and Aristotle.

Earth-shaking as this discovery was, people slowly began to change their perspectives and belief as bit by bit the vacuum of outer space was unveiled and the elliptical nature of our planet is uncovered.

Abstraction most often changes perspectives. Enforces sometimes new beliefs. What was once readily believed was replaced with a new reality. How long before people stop and think and uncover a new reality to that very belief?

Had people been satisfied with the belief that the world was a flat surface and that the entire universe revolved around us, where would we be now?

Had the near circular nature of our planet not been accepted and believed, would the simple truth of the flatness of our world be a reality and a truth?

The reality of the blueness of our skies is undeniable. Or is it?

What happens when you put to question the existence of the sky? Is it even matter? Is it of any particular color at all? The only reason we see the blueness is due to the naturally greater refraction of blue rays among the seven rays of sunlight's color. Thus we detct the mere abundance of blue light around us.

An object is said to be of a particular color due to the fact that all other colors of the light's spectrum is absorbed except for that particular color we see the object in which the object reflects. But the sky, is it an object? Is it reflecting any of that color?

It refracts sunlight through the difference in density between our atmosphere and the vacuum of outer space. Thus it is not the color of the sky that we see but the bending of light that is observed. The sky is in truth made of colorless gases.

So is it colorless or is it blue?

And the name of a person. What makes one name right and another wrong? What is acceptable and what is not?

If a given name is disliked, can a person change it? Then who is to say one name is a truth and another a falsity?

There are many matters in whih we choose to simplify to avoid losing ourselves in the trails of abstraction. Is our hunt for truth really a wild goose chase?

The Earth

The land quakes in fear
Shivering beyond control
It feels the end of years
And how its bones now feel old

Days grow ever longer
As the sun skips to its youth
Growing ever shorter
The delay of impending doom

The skies twirl confusion
Clouds spun overturned
Raindrops not waiting their turn
Still man does not learn

The signs have shown
Written in woes
Their covers are blown
Yet concern they do not show

Chaos in its roots
Has begun to fester
With faces covered in soot
They burn on their desires

Upon sun baked land
Icy whiteness was glittered
Do you not understand
Have you not pondered

The world now trembles
Buying its time
Buried in battles
And endless crime

Candles of wisdom
Snuffed out one at a time
Fading to chrome
Arts no longer enshrined

All's lost
In that dying breed
Their lives their cost
When time ends their deed

The land in fear does quake
But why don't they?

Happiness and Sadness...Life and Death

Where does life begin or end? Are the sad really dead and the happy truly alive?

The lives we live rarely seem to satisfy our needs and wants. Living in strife more often than not can leave a person weary and drained.

As the burden grows heavier, your legs begin to tire and the distance stretches. Do you walk the endless path in silence and gloom or with the cheery disposition of the sun?

A life led in melancholy rarely seems worth the suffering. Simply enduring the pain from beginning to the end of time may leave you a living zombie. Nothing more than but a husk of a broken man.

Does such a depressing existence truly exist?

Is such a depressing existence warranted to be called living?

Smiles. Smiles brighten up our day. They are a sign of hope. The guardians of joy. Happiness begins with a smile. And what is life without happiness?

So every person strives to his utmost ability to achieve that joy.

Once happiness is infused into life, it becomes thoroughly fulfilled. And happen it might to you.

The joy of having all your needs and wants fulfilled and experiencing true freedom marks the opening of man's dream lives.

Happiness marks fulfilment. Fulfilment draws the line for the form of life that is led by a man.

Sadness comes from the lack of fulfilment. Lack of form for the life of a man. But should sadness be the final note of a man's life?

Should death and sadness be or are they ever the same taste and feel?

What will life look like lived in despair?

Does only death hold the answer?

The Simpleton

The simpleton cries
His heart torn asunder
His beloved now lies
Buried and plundered

All lay in ruins
Distraught by war
Ravaged by grave sins
Of hearts cold to the core

All his power stolen
Life taken away
His face entirely ashen
Drained by dismay

He stood now a wight
Eyes deathly cold
His soul now in blight
To revenge existence sold

The simpleton reborn
Hungers for blood
Tainted and torn
Bleached now he fights

A demonic spirit
Remorselessly sharp
Anger burns in timeless fits
To the tunes of ghostly harp

The trailing past become
Striding the lands in search
To the swing of the blade he hums
As to the ground blood's splurged

Blood for blood
Tears caked dry
Softness grew hard
The day the simpleton died

The Future

The world. It moves. Changes day by day. Slowly revolving and evolving. There is a constant beat to it. Bleeding the present away to make space for the coming future.

And every action we take helps to further mould that future into shape. What will it look like at the end of the day?

How we change the world, is entirely within our own hands. But the clumsy hands of man never fails to fumble while he's toying with his own fate. Thus more often than not, consequences beyond our expectations are a common end result.

And in that way, fate and future is unpredictable.

Look around us. How much we've changed the world. The way we've sculpted every brick and stone not to mention layered every street and moulded lands. What have we done?

We call it civilisation. The advancement of mankind. How much have we trancended above our past?

Claiming embetterment above the past is very boastful indeed. The big question is how we back that claim up. What do we hold now that is of truly great import to us?

When we compare us now to our ancestors, are we any different from them? Is that difference an improvement?

That power to meddle with fate has gotten to our heads.

Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Aston

We have let the gift of control over the path of our future blind us. We see only the future we wish to see, and we strive to mould the passing days to build a replica of that image.

By whose permission do we do so?

Who is the one who is truly in control?

It cannot possibly be us. We lack that absolute totalitarian insight into cause and effects to truly become the masters of our own fate. We but fumble and pull upon strings within our reach hoping to arrive at a desirable result.

Knowing. It is what we lack. The knowing. The more we learn, the less we feel in control. And we cover that helplessness by exerting control over what we can. As we gain, we bend it to our whims. Do we then realise how much toll control exacts from us?

Look at our world. What's happening to it?

How have we come to be in the position we are in now? Can anything be done about it?

Of course, we'll try to correct our mistakes. Perhaps make new ones along the way. In the end we'll stumble. But into what?

Trickling Waters

Clouds in tears
Upon freckled cheeks;
Greeted in cheers
Though melancholy reeks.

Trickling on by;
Droplets a thousand.
By your company cry;
The foolish love's errand.

Bemused and assured;
The rain shall to pass.
Sadness acquired;
Shall by the days depart.

In the filter of mist;
Of watery wonderland.
Shadows guide by the wrist
And trail by the hand.

Dancing to a song;
The beating of a drum.
A beat dragged long
By the rain's whispy hum.

Why so glum?
Ask the earth and air.
For tears have been strummed
By sadness in one so fair.

Who may this be
That stirs such emotion?
Queries then the sea
And the vastness of the ocean.

All who listened
Answered in tears;
Tis' our love imprisoned
That's filled skies once clear.

And the blessings;
They continue to pour.
To accompany the strings
Strummed by hearts that tore.

It spoke to them
In voice and silence.
There there my gem;
I share your grievance.

And so I look
Upon the passing rain.
Whose peace was took
To live once again.

Inquiry

What is the spirit of a question?

In a world rigged by reason,is there a place for the chaos incurred by questions?

Beliefs can be crushed by the proper question. Doubts raised are more tha capable of bringing about the downfall of an entire nation. And religion can be shaken down to its roots by endless queries.

Where do you stop asking?

The thin coating of reason we wrap around our sanity is easily torn asunder. All you need is the right question.

What is the purpose of a question?

For good or ill, a question brings change into view. The spark of chaos lives in the minds of men in the form of doubt. And some recognise it as the true form of humanity's freedom.

What is the spirit of a question?

It is the soul of a man. For without it, he is nothing more than a machine.

God alone knows all things. For everything else, we merely question.

In Your Lies

May I be deceived
By the lies you weave
To remain in darkness
Suspended on a harness

Swinging wild and free
Caring not what I see
Than be caught in truth
Trapped by reality's roof

Swimming in dreams
Hoping you tear it not at the seams
This illusion you gave
I wish to keep to my grave

But life has its ways
Dispersing the haze
All that's left
Is but cold bereft

A stinging abscence
Shrouded in dark cadence
As the walk continues
Loneliness in lieu

The trees whisper
While the air's filled with laughter
Watching the trudge I do
Of a man blind without a clue

Wishing once again
For dreams spent
To be lost in your words
Feeling as free as a caged bird

Immortal

There was a man who lived through history. A man who saw yesterday's future as it passed by him. Living through time, a part of the world yet apart from it.

He was a historian; a sage; a learned man.

Watch he did as time flowed in its endless twists and turns. Observing the changes in the river of ages that left him withered.

His timelessness was his gift. His curse.

Lives entered the world and exited in the blink of an eye. He watched them come and go. Short meaningless existences. Beings most often with little control over the paths their lives would take. A strange sight they were.

Desperately grasping at every moment of joy and satisfaction as they did, he saw them lose their puny little souls in the reverberations of the river. And wrote down their journeys he did.

Each spark presented an experience. The man, he realised the value of what he saw. Of what they lived.

Yet they did not. Engrossed as they were in their own lives, they could not possibly see what he saw. Only he understood. Only he realised it. Only he was removed enough to understand it. And all he could do was look.

The man witnessed wars break. He listened to tears and laughter. He trembled at the sight of blood and violence and shook in anticipation of joyous celebrations.

He lived with them. But he could not die with them. Among them yet removed from them.

Immortality was his curse. The source of his alienation. His loneliness. So he watched them away from the crowds and alone. Secretly fearful of growing attached to them. He did not wish to experience loss.

Detachment was the source of his sanity. His wisdom. His self.

He was a historian; a sage; a learned man. Living till the end of time.

Our Hours

Hours. They come and go. They mark the passage of time and break it to bits.

Though a seemingly large amount of time, an hour is really pretty short. Passes by in a mere glimpse. It quickly trails away like water. An hour is rarely enough for anything. Especially not learning.

How many hours make up a lifetime? Let's say you're bound to live up to the age of 65. A day is made up of 24 hours. That adds up to about 168 hours a week. Or 744 hours a month. Or a whopping 8760 hours a year. Multiply that by that good old 65 and you'll get a grand total of 569400 hours. That's a good deal isn't it? So much time.

What are we doing with all that time? Say you sleep exactly 8 hours a day. That adds up to a total of 189800 hours spent asleep. That leaves you with 379600 waking hours.

So much time. What do you do with all that time? How much worldly experience can you gain? Will you learn anything? Is that enough time to absorb all there is to know of this world as well as the next?

With so many hours at your disposal, what will you waste your time doing?

Hours will come and go. Mesh them into a single lifetime and what will you get?

She Hurts

Citrus scars
Line these hands
Mangled by time
To foreboding ends

Seeking soul
Bent to breaking
Wiorn by age
And stares unending

Divided attention
Delving in sin
Touching the forbidden
Fearless in the din

Screaming pain
That none notices
Smiling away
ignoring the captious

Will you listen
Or understand?
Or ground by blindness
Bind her hands?

All she asks for
Is a friend
All you need do
Is be one and understand

The Cripple

The crippled mind
Struggles to define
What is
What's not

Searching a point
Thoughts anoint
Too many
Uncaught

Simmering in the sun
Trudging weighing a tonne
So much work
No rest

Vision slowly breaking
Following paths cracking
Nearing end
Close to begin

The crumpled heart
Beats ragged part
Thumping
Too soft

Hell frozen over
Flames sinking under
Icy chills
Biting the bone

Left to chance
No energy left to prance
Grounded down
Motionless

Dying Thoughts

Suicide. What could drive a man to the brink of it?

We are naturally inclined to fear death. So what could tip the scales in favor of death?

Approaching the point of cracking. No one could possible realise it but the self. Perhaps even the self does not fully realise the implications of his own personal thoughts.

Suicidal thoughts and wish for death easily comes at the face of problems monumental beyond solving. But these thoughts are rarely strong enough to provoke action. Simple words such as "I wish I was dead" escape our lips and are taken as mere words. Few among us recognise its ability to escalate into something more unlikely as it may seem.

It is best to stay from such thoughts. Simply wishing you're not there, hoping you were only dreaming as well as wishing you were someone else are merely some alternatives to suicidal thoughts you could use if you get them.

Loss. It all begins with loss. The crumbling of everything around you. When it starts to break down, you try to patch everything up and staunch the flow of the lifeblood of your existence out of your being. But as it slowly continues to bleed out, yoou're inching even farther away from your reasons to live.

When all's lost, you'll be empty. Is an empty life worth wading through? All that's left is simply to escape. And what way is there to escape life?

It all begins with loss and ends with the final loss of life.

Suicide is not chosen, it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.

Or perhaps it is a choice. Can you choose to live with nothing to live for?

Blind

Burn my soul in the cold
Revel in the flames of my bones
Do as you wish when you will
My soul is yours to kill

Twist my spine and make it crack
Turn my skin to but dusty specks
Hollow out my rotting mind
My self is yours to take and grind

Break my fingers and my toes
Relish the soft cracking of my woes
Toy with me as you would an ant
My heart is yours to break and bend

Spew acid upon my face
Scald me forever in disgrace
Do as you wish and like
I will not hide behind my pride

Take what you will of all that is mine
I care not of what you take
I count not what I give
All that I see is what you've given me

Pain
Pleasure
Hatred
Love

What I see now is nothing
For the day I lost you
Was the day I lost my sight
I am blind. Always have been.

In a Hug

A hug. We all need one sometimes.

That simple gesture that says 'I'm here for you."

One act that can sum up "how I miss you."

You know that when all else fails and words no longer cheer you up, a hug will do.

Says "I'm close" and "I care."

In the swift moment telling you "I'll be there."

All things can be said in one single hug.

In smiles or in tears, a kodak moment.

Points of Views

Points of views. Everybody has one. Some are similar to a completely startling degree while others are as different as the sun and moon.

What is interesting and what is not?

Where lies the good and the bad?

What do you see?

What do they see?

What is there to see?

In a picture is painted a thousand words. In it a million emotions and just as many unwritten feelings.All you need do is find the right point of view. Is there a right point of view?

Can a movie be shot with only one camera angle?

There are times when we feel we are right. Times when we think we understand the whole picture clearly. With a million and one different ways to look at a single situation, how do you know that you're looking at it the correct way? You can't be sure that you've seen all the minute differences in viewing it. And you wish to say that you fully understand the situation?

Impossible!

Dare I say more? What is this point of view I bring up? Or is there even one? Do you see what I see?

There may be little to be plucked from this menial little entry but if you look at it the right way, there's probably something to be learnt. A hidden message perhaps.

All that needs to be done is for it to be seen the right way.

The Rose

A rose is rose
No matter the color
Be it black or white
It still is a flower

A rose is a beauty
One has to ponder
Though thorny and rigid
Favored by lover

Soft to the eyes
Yet not to the touch
A dangerous thorn
Loved very much

A rose is a rose
Worth the pain
A drug of the heart
I'd taste once again

Humor

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he ears, however measured or far away

- Henry David Thoreau

We are all different. Different temperaments and variations in behaviors abound from person to person. Time and again philosophers have strived to classify our behaviors into archetypes to better understand our characters.

What are these temperaments? There's the Choleric, the Melancholic, the Sanguine and the Phlegmatic. Each experiences varying degrees of both positive as well as negative emotions.

Also known by the name of humors, the discovery of the temperaments theory was credited first and foremost to Hippocrates(460 - 370BC). Hippocrates believed that certain human behavioral tendencies could be attributed to bodily fluids he knew as humors.

Let us delve into these four temperaments in further detail.

The Sanguine:

The Sanguine represents the extrovert; the talker; and the optimist. Sanguines hold the temperament of "blood", the season of spring and the element of air.

A person prone to Sanguine personalitiy tends to experience an exceedingly high amount of positive emotions and less negative feelings. This group of people are generally optimistic, cheerful and even-tempered. A really fun-loving and popular bunch.

The Choleric:

The Choleric represents the extrovert; the doer; and the optimist. Cholerics hold the temperaments of 'yellow bile', the season of summer and the element of fire.

Choleric personality archetypes tend to be a driven and ambitious lot. They are a bunch prone to exceedingly high amounts of both positive and negative emotions. Though natural leaders, the Choleric is a very short-tempered person easy to anger.

The Melancholic:

Being an introvert; a thinker; and a pessimist, the Melancholic is characterized by 'black bile', the season of autumn and the element of earth.

The Melancholic dwells much on negative emotions, oft drowning out what little positive emotions they experience. They are a very depressing bunch often lost in their own contemplations. Creativity and poetry comes naturally to Melancholics though their perfectionistic nature more often than not leaves them dissatisfied with their creations.

The Phlegmatic:

Representatives of the introvert; the watcher; and the pessimist, the Phlegmatic soul's personality is tied closely to 'phlegm', the season of winter as well as the element of water.

Being calm and detached is part of the charm of the Phlegmatic. He experiences little negative as well as positive emotional input. Generally self-content and shy, the Phlegmatic may appear lazy and resistant to change, preferring a more stable, consistent and relaxed state.

Four temperaments, which are you most like?

A person may be most like one of the four humors or even turn out to be a mix of the different temperaments. But understanding your tendencies will give you a clearer picture of yourself.

What's your humor?

Find your temperament.