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Comments:
"Sonnet
by Dr Mohammed Fakhruddin cannot be ignored simply because
it is also a regular and specific feature of Poets International.
If I call him the Shakespeare of India, I think, the
critic of India will not create waves. But I hope that
they would welcome my justified tribute to his dedication
and the worth he has created for the sonneteers and
its lovers. It must be considered as "the most
precious of the intellectual possession of this poetic
form ." He handles this poetic form with great
ease. He touches the all walk of life ranging from emotion
and passion, fervour and enthusiasm to humanity, humility
and sublimity. He has established the touchstone to
judge the embodiment of his mind and heart through the
contents of his sonnet"
Dr
Shujaat Hussain
(Aligarh, India)
.
SONNET-1
The deep
blue sky look royal during day,
Romantic at night, sensuous in eve;
Winsome in the morn, breaks rays of love,
Interacts with all but loves none to say:
Love is a means to through which heart speaks to heart,
Soul merges with soul, mind communes with mind,
Feelings warms up blood, longing eyes turn blind;
See nothing but love, two halves of a part:
Made for each other, draws divine pleasure,
Through words, through syntax, through vision, phrases,
Feeling the rhythm of speechless images,
Its love , pure love, love beyond measure;
Now tell me, are you not in love with me?
If so, allow love stream to join the sea.
SONNET-2
Clouds, gathering,
pile up in fields of air.
The sun seems tethered to the earth, behind
Thick walls of cloud, creating deep despair.
As darkness gathers, making all things blind,
Unseen wind, --- howling --- circles. Drenching rain
Threatens but does not come. All things retreat
Into their nests or burrows, fearing pain;_
And I am numb and frozen to my feet.
Yet my heart leaps: The hazard yet to come
Looms like a heaving ghost of massive weight.
The storm now breaks, and I am stricken dumb:
It is this power that I celebrate!
Caught up, I am thrown down. I gasp for air...
To live! or die! --- with no time for despair.
SONNET-3
Words, words,
and words, I write; but to what end?
I write of life and death. What do I know?
The world around me I may comprehend,
And know myself a little. --- Even so,
Both rich and poor who, like me, stride this earth,
From vice and virtue offer no respite.
All compromise till they are of small worth,
Unwilling to divide the wrong from right.
The poet in me never is at ease,
I fear the weight of what I do not know.
I fear my sight, and what my mind foresees
Fills me with terror. --- Yes! --- But, even so,
I am obliged, by what I am, to be
Recorder of my own mortality.
SONNET-4
I loved you
well, then left you at my will.
I gave my heart, in turn I pain received.
Your infidelity torments me still.
I do not know why I was so deceived.
Futile, I know, to blame you for your deeds
The part you played by part-ignoring me
And then enslaving me till the heart bleeds ...
You played the game of love too perfectly.
Had you ignored me firmly once for all,
Giving no space in life to me as lover,
Then had I spurned you, set you beyond call,
Giving my heart, and me, time to recover.
But now I say: Best marry who loves you
Not whom you love.--- God help me, this is true.
SONNET-5
When deeply
hurt, sometimes I wallow
In shallow water, leaping like a fish;---
Strength vanishing, I then feel hollow:
Brittle, shattered, like a broken dish ...
My anger spreads all over. I go mad.
Wild fire burns within, and what I do
I do not know; nor know the good from bad,
Nor right from wrong;--- nor recognize the true ...
Time and again, I feel that I am damned,
Like jelly stones in concrete set in stone,
Hammered and broken, buried deep and rammed
Into a living tomb. I am alone ...
Desires, aims, and will, submit to death;
And yet, though dead, I live, and still draw breath.
SONNET-6
Bards of all passions on this earth
Do you know what the pure heart seeks?
As I, do you endure the mirth
And mockery of rosy cheeks,
Sharp sidelong glances that can kill,
And eyes that murder easily?
Dear friends, I fear that I am ill
With a contagious malady.
It is as if within my heart
I built a temple where I crown,
Upon the altar of my art
The goddess, Love, who bids me drown
Myself for her as others died:
My sacrifice; my suicide.
SONNET-7
In the vast open topless sea of air
I thought a scarlet boat appeared to sail,
So silently it moved; --- I know not where,
But shapeless it became, it seeming frail...
My wonder grew. --- No bounds could I descry
To that pale golden silver of the sky
As wheeling birds flew back;--- and there was I,
Watching the boat which vanished.--- By and by,
Torrents of light, in strips from east to west,
Flashing upon grey cloud --- a darkest grey,
As if they plunged to earth, there finding rest
(As if disdaining me, no words to say!) ---
Nonetheless filled me with perfect rapture;---
I, prisoner of love, enthralled by nature.
SONNET-8
Sweet memories are fathomless delight:
My dried-out heart blooms like a desert rose.
I live, I die! --- Forgotten my dear plight:
My flesh and mind refined a lost repose
My mind surveys the woodlands of desire;
My heart tranquility in a fairyland...
Imagination leaps, as if on fire.
Sleep shines! --- I wake --- I hear my love's command...
This is no limitation, and my dreams
Which, like volcanic floods, so interact
-- That all cascades before them. Nothing seems
To question my delight which is a fact...
But dreams are facts called phantoms of the mind.
The heart is self-deceived, and love is blind.
SONNET-9
Our thought, serene, imbued with patience, is
For perfect contemplation our sure need.
Suppression fails, like other hindrances
Which, churning in the mind, serve there as feed...
Silence, seclusion: these are realms of gold,
Threshold and gate into eternity---
Who turn to the Almighty and take hold
Of faith to end it, meet the Deity.
Our heart, though in this world, is paradise
For those who seek their God: for it is in
The mind alone that we encounter lies...
We find the soul where we find God: within.---
Quit this dark world. Quit hell and earth, both grim.
Be as the soul is --- now --- with God! --- in Him.
SONNET-10
There is a valley between high and low
And smooth-browed hills a place where I would go
By running crystal streams through pathless woods,
I walked there most in spring, when waking buds
And early flowers and the honeybee
Were sweet upon the air, delighting me...
At times, a songbird, warbling in the sky
Would break through mist and hover. There was I,
Enchanted, as I ever: sharing my
Too strong too deep a joy with me alone.
I walk alone as now. I walk; a stone
Shaped like a jewel hung above my heart.
It is a ruby. Here it is. My art
Encapsulated here; a thing of worth:
As jewels are not ordinary earth.
SONNET-11
My wanton habits and my morbid thought,
Crippling my mind, now charged with sheer distress,
Shatters my effort, and my pledges, brought
To scattered pieces --- Will less, I confess
Man is creator of his problems, he,
While solving some: leaves others in despair:
His thoughts untrimmed can plunge to misery.
Unresolved thought is nothing but a snare.
Suppressed our hidden passions cause the pain
That taints the silly pleasures we enjoy.
The laws of nature, reasoning, make vain
Whatever skills we have and may employ.
When tempests tear the mind, our plight is clear:
We stagger on with patience;_ also fear.
SONNET-12
To honour love and trust, I take the hand
That faith and fortune have thus given me;
But, faithlessness I cannot understand:
It is both cause and root of misery.
Therefore this contract:--- Who love me, I love
With all the bliss within the human heart!---
Who does not love me, must I not remove
Fully, and complete, from every part
Of this my life forever?--- Tainted lips,
For all their sweet enchantment, offer pain
When infidelity unclothes and strips
In shameless hunger or for private gain;
Who sacrifices truly may achieve,
But who would sacrifice must first believe.
SONNET-13
My lust complains and calls me a disgrace.
Hours and hours, idly, I would see
Your marble body and your smiling face,
Your eyes, your lips, your whole anatomy
A carnel offering, to lust, and love.
Your narrow waist and pillars of your thighs,
They drive me mad. They torment me, but of
Their nature I know nothing. Reason dies.
When you breath deep, cheeks red, my lips go dry:
Muscles compress, your bosoms stand upright.
Dear God, can this be madness? Who am I
To be recipient of this delight?---
O let my passions thrive, complete, intact
In word and deed, and dream and wake, a fact.
SONNET-14
The moment
that we first were introduced,
A bolt of lightning struck me: all my cries
Were silenced as my cold heart was seduced
And my mind stunned with elegant surprise ...
In silence, so it seemed, we exchanged eyes,
Ignited feeling like a lover boy
Exchanging truths wherein true profit l |
