friends,i thought i'd share this poem i wrote to my wonderful

baxishta

friends,

i thought i'd share this poem i wrote to my wonderful Arabic wife, Intesar. i just found out that it came in second in Allpoetry's contest for new poets in february. i hope you enjoy it!

baxishta

===

if the angel Gabriel
were to offer me three measures of grace
i’d tell him
“give them all to my Queen”

you need all three dimensions
to dance and move at will
while i need none merely to watch
in speechless admiration

in this we are different
you win by winning and i win by losing
so by losing my heart to you
we shall both win

sourlemon

Congrats on the contest!! Thank you for sharing. The poem is very sweet. That's how I imagine love to be. You're being happy just because your love one is.

dmatador

It is so refreshing to see an amateur poet (in terms even of the very essence of the word) to write something like this. Poetry is art, not an upchucking of emotion... or something like that.

I think the poem would be even better if you could rewrite part of the second stanza. Maybe consider removing the word "three" and replace the line with "you need all the dimensions" or "you need every dimension." This makes the object of your affection seem more powerful, less limited by some boring number. Also, since this is PF after all, try to embrace and expand on this lack of dimension you occupy at this point in time in the poem. What does it feel like to be a single point in space observing the dynamic beauty that surrounds it? This might be a bad suggestion, because it potentially lies in the face of what I most like about the poem, which is your quiet and intelligent love for your wife.

Anyways, I think the poem is great. I just really like talking about poetry, and thought that you might want to hear what other people think about it. I'd love to hear back about your thoughts on my suggestions and more importantly how you see your poem.

baxishta

sourlemon,

thank you so much for your kind words. it really seems to be true for me that the more i step back and let her do her dance of life, the more i enjoy her. plus it seems like i find my real home in that place in which i've given it all away and there's no-one there but me.

bax

baxishta

dmatador,

i appreciate your taking the time to give me this supportive feedback. my personality type is that i have a natural inclination toward mystical insight. i noticed that, when i tried to write regular poems to my wife, i couldn't do it. but when i tried to highlight her unique role in my inner world, the words flowed out.

here's an example called 'Nasura',

when the world has just begun
but before it has any names or forms

when i’ve just become aware of it
but before i know what it is
i call it Nasura

that’s why i say that you are the world

you are the sunshine and I am the sun
you are life and I am being
I alone exist as existence Itself

yet i am nothing without you

and here's another called 'the river',

you could no more stand still
than a river could stop running
while I couldn’t move an inch
if my life depended on it
which it does

where then can we finally meet?

let me be the rock
on your river’s bed
and as you run over me
let us embrace our love

and one more called 'the marriage of shiva and shakti',

what can I give you
that’s not yours already

I’ve never owned anything anyway
but my spiritual heart
which is my very self

non-dual love
denser than diamond
let It then be
your wedding ring

i hope you like them, and thanks again for your support.

michael

baxishta

and here's a picture of us on our honeymoon in Italy, plus a diagram called 'the 3 faces of self'. (i guess 3 is the language of the mystics).

bax

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