Manhood stands tall and high, and becomes madness; The self takes leave of being and becomes ecstasy. When iron sated with blood embraces love, It tu… - Khan Abdul Ghani Khan

I do not need your red sculpted lips,
Nor hair in loops like a serpent’s coils,
Nor a nape as graceful as a swan’s,
Nor narcissus eyes full of drunkenness,
Nor teeth as perfect as pearls of heaven,
Nor cheeks ruddy and full as pomegranates,
Nor a voice mellifluous as a sarinda,
Nor a figure as elegant as a poplar,
But show me just this one thing, my love,
I seek a heart stained like a poppy flower – <p>Pearls by millions I would gladly cede,
For the sake of tears borne of love and grief.

What is man’s life but love, love of self;
Man is dust, dust as his passion, dust as the beloved.<p>Death, it is your great act of piety for man –
You take him to your house or he’d be left to himself.<p>Death is a covenant between the lover and the beloved;
Death is a secret wedlock between being and non-being.<p>Death harbors the hidden port of life’s ocean;
Death is helpless and a vision of beauty to itself.<p>Death is the only witness of my life and your grace,
And O strange lord, of night and the crescent.

Death, go somewhere, get lost! I’m not done as yet –
Joy still flows from the amphora of colors into my cupped hands.