All Questions Lead to One

Oh,why? Why this cruel smile?
Must I cry or simply smile

Suffer might I to stay afloat?
Pull not with a cripply smile

Was flying spark heavenly light?
fizzling out my wimpy smile

Then why my bottomless depths?
you smirk at my limply smile

Is the game a mighty puzzle?
There seem clues in impy smile

Do the questions have answers?
Or exist to evoke a grizzly smile

Why a phoenix if fire is to end?
Answer not with that frisky smile

My experiments with the "ghazal" continue. I still have not tried to adhere to a beher, and although I find the "radif" tiring sometimes (It does not sound quite as natural to me in English as in Urdu/ Hindi), I see the necessity of using it to give structure to my lines.

A humble Offering

I cannot recall when it was that I fell in love with you

But do you remember the doubt that first behest you

A while it took for me to shed my vain defiance in full

Perhaps  when a part of me was in thirst to be just you

I could never have known an entire day of futile gloom

Had you bestowed that smile on me that once vest you

If I have learnt to value every unfinished hour of the day

It is a trifling tribute to every single virtue that crest you

Vain now are your rebukes and your distant demeanor

It is your love and patience not your anger that test you

This phoenix rises not out of ashes but from gentle flame

Stoked by those tender caresses that could only nest you

This is an offering for a friend who means a lot to me, and who I often miss dearly.

The other person I acknowledge is a friend who suggested that the ghazal form of poetry might better suit my style. Although I have not strictly adhered to all its rules, I have tried to embrace it in principle.