Two Poems by Sarim Baig

You are the smoke,
at the cen­ter of my eye:
you are,
shat­tered like the uni­verse.

You are the smoke
falling along
the pil­lars of cre­ation:
I look at you and reflect.

I pon­der, the sym­me­try of the world,
and I: the com­plete non­sense
of its begin­ning.

You are the daze
of this pas­sion,
the craze of this urge
to explain abstrac­tion
in bet­ter words.

Bet­ter words: thought­ful,
tighter, bet­ter verse,
provoca­tive,
invoca­tive,
dec­o­ra­tive inven­tion
may define you
but, I don’t define you,
you are smoke,
to me,

You are the force of
the metaphor
I can’t imag­ine.

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I’ve gath­ered what’s mine in my pock­ets
and I’m lay­ing the rest to waste,
and I’ve asked direc­tions, and I think I know
the turns, the ways to go.
Lay­ing the rest to waste:

I would stop at a cafe
whose col­ors I like, love, but not indulge myself.
I’d eat as I hunger and
drink as I thirst,
and pay for so much, and no more.
I’d imag­ine at the exact vol­ume
noise, so it is music:
and breath in, and hold there
no more air than I can hold.

I’d ignore myself in the ele­ments:
a beam of sun on grains of soil, such as,
I’d turn from my reflec­tions,
and tufts of dead grass in mar­ble walls,
I’d turn.
I’d not be curi­ous of the cul­tures,
of laughs I can’t tell between men’s or wom­en’s
I won’t tell,
and I won’t name pro­fes­sions I can’t name,
and busi­ness­es I don’t rec­og­nize.
I’d not rec­og­nize.
I’d not under­stand,
footages of wars I don’t under­stand.

I said I shall not under­stand.
Because there’s noth­ing in nature and peo­ple:
in peo­ple’s nature, and nature’s peo­ple
that is mine.
But these:
brush­es against the shoul­ders of strange women,
the starts of their faces turn­ing to apol­o­gize,
the dots of sta­t­ic on the TV screen.
These I’ve gath­ered in my pock­ets
and asked direc­tions, and I think I know,
the ways to go.

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(Sketch by Faheem Abbas)