Saturday 28 June 2014

My little flask

Ye Jamsheds who hold the Earth in fee
Your cups belie ecstasy.
Tho' Khayyam's songs the Heavens scry
That Galaxy is wrong in which we die.

My little flask
You only ask
That her to view
I empty you.

Thirsty is the lip o' the tilth
Sehra's tongue for Khizr's filth
Did the Saqi depart to seal its doom?
Or are my eyes now their own simoom?

Little flask, why
Do you empty lie?
She isn't here
Nor was ever near.

In the Stars' Wine Cup, the Sun casts its stone
Shadows forsake us, themselves forlorn
The world is the prayer mat on which Muezza sat
Couldn't the Prophet shoo a sleepy cat?

Why in these wastes did you let go my hand?
My little flask filling up with sand
Will you with the desert's advancing dunes
Hunt the gazelle with goliard tunes?

Or, like the Sphinx enclosed at Sehra's heart
Practice yet the Saqi's art?
Self mutilation is the only Sin
Yet how else heed the Muezzin?
Envoi- 
Prince! Tho' savants thrill thy Cup to task
Happier yet my little flask.





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