Shadows of a Reflection

If we gave you the Truth of what was Given,

We know you could never understand even,

If it were laid out before you: the past and present,

And future.  Because you conceive the Self ascent.

When nothing arisen and nothing had descended,

Because you imagine that there was movement,

When in fact there was nothing you intended.

No power and no strength; nothing you meant.

You speak of intentions as if you know it well,

When in truth, you could not understand that

Which was from other than the Self - to dwell

Upon matters of the Heart and what deeds beget.

So here we say what you will learn eventually.

That Heart of the Believer He Dwells within.

But there is no mu’min except al-Mu’min actually.

And the Heart you tear is yours with sin.

The arrogance of Separation has clouded you

And made you heedless so that you will learn

That there is a price to pay for forgetting to do

That which was Promised – to Remember and Yearn.

You imagine there is a ‘me’ and there is a ‘you’.

You see everything by the light and deception.

You do not see the Light by which you do

See all that is mere shadows of a Reflection

Terence Nunis

Forever Dreamless

I see clearer now.  Looking back it’s true.

But the eyes are purple and the world is blue.

And I realise that in the end, I always knew.

I have always seen beneath the wrapping the real you.

Some days I think I am fine and some days I am sad.

Some days perhaps I am sane.  Some other days I am mad.

Sometimes I remembered I loved you and you were my world

Other days I don’t and watched our dreams unfurl.

Some days I am strong with empty faith and forlorn hope.

Some days I am broken and bleeding and living is beyond the scope.

Sometimes I remember what I once was, and how it could be.

And then I am sober again and it hurts when I know what would be.

I think the nights are too long and I cannot sleep for pain.

I think the days are too bright - I pray for rain again and again.

I want it to rain a thousand oceans and wash this world away.

I want it deluged in a thousand storms for I lack the tears to portray.

I cannot eat so I fast and I never want to break it.

I’ve walked this road before - so how again can I take it?

I wear that darkness like a shroud and the world is darker than grey.

I know the path, the cutting rocks and the hearts that bleed away.

I hold the shattered goblet with bitter tears to the brim.

I am small and apathetic and melancholic and the world is a whim;

Of heartless laughter and tormented souls and howling winds;

Of cutting words and shattered dreams and hungry fiends.

I don’t sing anymore.  And I’ll never draw your portrait again.

I don’t write songs and the words don’t rhyme like they should - just pain.

I don’t feel happy or sad.  I don’t laugh or cry with feeling.

Just numbness and more pain when I thought I shouldn’t be feeling.

Perhaps this time if I prayed, He would Listen and Grant me this:

A thousand cuts for every cut and yet your pain is not my bliss.

Perhaps I should ask for oblivion - the Angel of Death, I would kiss.

Perhaps I am standing on the ledge staring at nothing but the abyss.

The breathing a chore - I don’t want to wake up from the bed.

I just want to sleep forever - I crave the silence after all that’s said.

I just want to close my eyes and never see the sun again.

I want to dream forever dreamless and never know this pain.

Terence Nunis

Dancing to Static

Do you even remember what it was then?

The nights were long and lonely when,

You cried alone for a beating heart,

That was dead and bleeding yet moving but,

The bed was cold and the pillow bereft.

When the dream you had was gone and left,

In the arm of another woman and the lies,

Were a river that did not cease the ‘Whys’.

He promised you a garden abode.

He took the reins of the horse you rode.

You believed him when you wore his ring.

Never knew it the prelude to suffering.

And he cheated and he lied and he did hit you,

So hard you almost lost your child.  You knew

It could not go on and then he was gone

With no trace but bills and bankruptcy and a son.

Did you remember the stories and the tales and the rumours?

And then the SMS-es and the messages and the pictures?

Of another woman and another life and another world?

You were everything less in his eyes, not a wife but a girl?

When you lay on the bed next to him crying in the dark.

When all you believed was just a dying spark.

Once you were a wanton libertine dancing to static.

A verbal machine gun on a New Age romantic.

Once you were everyone’s world

Now he was with everybody’s girl.

Once you were the belle of the ball.

Now you were discarded to fall.

And in those nights you turned to God.

The One you ignored and now you sought.

A promise on a prayer, a help and a hand.

And that was why he came to you then.

But you forgot.  Just like you did the last time.

You forgot.  Just like you do every single time.

The storm abated and the darkness is gone.

He did what he promised though the heart was torn.

He knew the ending but kept his promise to you.

And now it is over, you have forgotten twice.  He knew

The things you said when you were lonely

And a task given he could do only.

You forgot.  Just like he knew you would.

And walked away.  Just like he knew you could.

You will never understand what a mess you left behind.

That you have already lost what you could never find -

The value of a tear from the depths of a soul.  Shattered

By a callous girl who never knew worth in what truly mattered.

It was only love that made a man sacrifice all that he did share.

Though he knew you for the heartless creature who could not care.

Terence Nunis

Opium of the Soul

There are days you awake up when breathing is a chore.

You think should you pray but faith is such a whore

To needs and wants and desires of the heart

And hurts and sorrows and pain play their part.

Have you ever thought to share

People need love the way they need air.

Without love they die a little inside each day.

The flower of the soul surely wilts away.

It is the state of the few, the opium of the many.

It is the shadow of doubt to faith contrary.

It is the surrender of Self to apathy and despair.

It is the loss of heart and the will to care.

I want to be a shooting star soaring far above.

To fly and leave behind all that I called ‘Love’.

I want to sleep an endless sleep without dreaming

To fade to nothingness from a world without meaning.

I’ve read Your Books - they are but lies.

I’ve tried Your Ways - it shan’t suffice.

I’ve watched Your Will - You Called it Just.

I’ve tried to wait but You Broke my Trust.

How can I bow to You and pray, do tell;

When after a Glimpse of Heaven, there’s only Hell.

After the Promise of the Garden, you torment me so.

Tear away my Ka’bah, leave me bereft to go.

I wish I could believe there was a tomorrow.

When the sun would melt my winter of sorrow.

I wish I believed all my prayers made a difference.

But ten years is too long to have that sense.

All I ask of You is my opium of the soul.

My inadequacies laid bare, my heart is cold

To anything new and the promise of spring.

I think it a lie, the autumn it will bring.

So where’s the God that said He would Hear?

Where were the times, You Said you were Near?

All I ask is my opium of the soul.

Can’t be now, if I were so bold?

Terence Nunis

Manly Love?

He said, "My dear, you were the light of my life.

I was sure that all I wanted was a wife.

I thought that I could love no other,

At least until I met your brother.

I now know the meaning of manly love.

In certain ways we fit like a glove.

When I bend over and take it like a man,

That love is worth all the hurt in the end."

Terence Nunis

Broken Hearts Never Heal

A broken heart will never be whole.

It may be patched, not healed as told.

The shards are swept to dark reaches of the soul.

A thousand years hence, the agony is not old.

The shards of broken hearts will cut you then

As surely they did as it happened when.

The agony does not fade though you pretend.

The bleeding never stops until the very end.

When words are inadequate, the music flows.

A heart may bloom again, a delicate rose.

But the thorns multiply, an uncertain pose.

Broken hearts never heal - the broken-hearted knows.

Terence Nunis

Tinkerbell & Friends

There once was a fish named Tinkerbell.

Pretty and pink, the favourite of El;

Who lived in a tank with her fishy friends;

In a house full of surf boards, one contends.

So now I tell, this tragic tale;

Of Tinkerbell’s fate by a horny male.

Tinkerbell’s owner has a spouse most sly;

Whose entire world was lie after lie.

And then one day, the relationship over;

He had to leave and said he’d show her.

He took his stuff when El was away.

Poor Tinkerbell and friends, were the ones to pay.

He flushed the fishies down the toilet bowl.

That son of a bitch was very cruel.

So El came back to no Tinkerbell.

He wanted them gone to fishy hell.

For what he did he has to pay.

They haunt his dreams, every single day.

They come to him whenever he sleeps,

And say these things until he weeps:

“Someday we’ll come to take your soul,

And make your grave like a toilet bowl.

Here lies the body of a liar so.

Where he’s gone to, I don’t know.

For if he went to heaven above,

Kiss good bye to peace and love.

And if he sought a lower level,

Surely God has mercy on the Devil.”

Such a tragic tale, but please don’t cry.

There’re fishy angels in the heavens high.

A cute, pink fish called ‘Tinkerbell’,

Is waiting in heaven for her El.

Harlequin

This is a true story about fishes flushed down the toilet.  Al-Fatiha.