The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,

The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,

And the Year

On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

Come, Months, come away,

From November to May,

In your saddest array;

Follow the bier

Of the dead cold Year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,

The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the Year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone

To his dwelling.

Come, Months, come away;

Put on white, black and gray;

Let your light sisters play -

Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead cold Year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

The fog comes

On little cat's feet

It sits looking

Over the harbour and city

On silent haunches

And then moves on

Lure de Butterfly

By Pir Ali Shah

On the hilltop;

On a cold morning

Feeling the smooth breeze

While I sat there mourning

Looking at the gray sky

The dewdrops glowing

I felt a feeling inside me

And steadily it was growing

Suddenly, a butterfly appeared

With its majestic wings soaring

She spoke to me -

Like a teacher knowing

You feel, but

You are not feeling

You breathe, but

You are not breathing

You cry, but

You are not crying

You live, but

You are not living

You love, but

You are not loving

The butterfly's lure, I

Remember having heard before

The same mantra -

Yet so old

The same silvery mist

Still very cold

Biological Adulation

By Muhammad Waseem Elahi

Living in my heart

Running in my veins

She has started flowing even in capillaries

I am bound to play my role yet being apart

Struggling devotedly, destiny gains

Now neither afraid of foes nor rivalries

Fickle Persistence

By Salman Latif

I am the fickle persistence

You, the humble grace

My silence, heavy with the sounds

Yours, always healing my screams

I dance my way, away from the love

You hold on, to the frail thread

And I can't

Never can, move away

The dove with the olive leaf

Creeps behind the nearest reef

Seeing the sinister hawks alight

Fearful of the thrushes' plight

She sees their ugly ravine abode

Befouled by dwellers whom greed corrode

Festooned by the ivy of bigotry grows

A group of warmongers, which create the rows

She listens to the woes of the throttled justice

Heralding the epoch of existence's eclipse

They roar the calls of servitude to the crushed

And echo the whimpers that slain souls gushed

She smells discontent in foul stream of the gulch

Reek of hypocrisy from tiny asphodels' mulch

Fumes of evil doings from their mighty arise

With cologne of conceit, their vain talk cries

Crestfallen at their discord and heartless try

The dove in the crevice heaves a sigh

When smitten by the vulture's sepulchral lull

She hoots an alarm that no warbler could dull

Viewing the rapacious Tartar hawks

The stupefied brethren stumbles and baulks

The predators with their eerie raucous screams

Revel in the prey of their ravening dreams

Fleeing lords who ought now to lead

Fall prey to the hunger and are first to bleed

The terrible onslaught ready to commence

Signals to the lulled to guard their fence

But the victim of evils – the weakened thrushes

Had no strength to fortify their bulrushes

And so left the weeping dove, their decaying remains

Vulpine vultures enjoying feast in their domains.

Have you ever noticed

In the busy world of yours

When someone thinks about you.

Have you ever heard

In the noisy world of yours

Someone's cries for you.

Have you ever realised

In the depressing world of yours

That someone prays for you.

Have you ever guessed

In remembrance, cries, prayers and smiles

That someone misses you, more than life…