Call Me Ishmael Tonight

by Agha Shahid Ali

Flood the market, O Blood, so the liver is restored,

  again emotion’s sea, the heart’s forsaken tie-in.

  By the Enemy, after battle, I place flowers

  and the swords he’d heard the angels’ lullaby in.

  When even God is dead, what is left but prayer?

  And this wilderness, the mirrors I multiply in?

  When you missed its “feet and fur,” JM, I too mourned

  the caterpillar spring had sent the butterfly in.

  Doomsday is over, Eden stretched vast before me—

  I see the rooms, all the rooms, I am to die in.

  Ere he never returns, he whose footsteps are dying,

  Shahid, run out weeping, bring that passerby in.

  Beyond English

  No language is old—or young—beyond English.

  So what of a common tongue beyond English?

  I know some words for war, all of them sharp,

  but the sharpest one is jung—beyond English!

  If you wish to know of a king who loved his slave,

  you must learn legends, often-sung, beyond English.

  Baghdad is sacked and its citizens must watch

  prisoners (now in miniatures) hung beyond English.

  Go all the way through jungle from aleph to zenith

  to see English, like monkeys, swung beyond English.

  So never send to know for whom the bell tolled,

  for across the earth it has rung beyond English.

  If you want your drugs legal you must leave the States,

  not just for hashish but one—bhung—beyond English.

  Heartbroken, I tottered out “into windless snow,”

  snowflakes on my lips, silence stung beyond English.

  When the phrase, “The Mother of all Battles,” caught on,

  the surprise was indeed not sprung beyond English.

  Could a soul crawl away at last unshriveled which

  to its “own fusing senses” had clung beyond English?

  If someone asks where Shahid has disappeared,

  he’s waging a war (no, jung) beyond English.

  (FOR LAWRENCE NEEDHAM)

  Of Light

  At dawn you leave. The river wears its skin of light.

  And I trace love’s loss to the origin of light.

  “I swallow down the goodbyes I won’t get to use.”

  At grief’s speed she waves from a palanquin of light.

  My book’s been burned? Send me the ashes, so I can say:

  I’ve been sent the phoenix in a coffin of light.

  From History tears learn a slanted understanding

  of the human face torn by blood’s bulletin of light.

  It was a temporal thought. Well, it has vanished.

  Will Prometheus commit the mortal sin of light?

  She said, “My name is icicles coming down from it . . .”

  Did I leave it, somewhere, in a margin of light?

  When I go off alone, as if listening for God,

  there’s absolutely nothing I can win of light.

  Now everything’s left to the imagination—

  a djinn has deprived even Aladdin of light.

  We’ll see Manhattan, a bride in diamonds, one day

  abashed to remind her sweet man, Brooklyn, of light.

  “A cheekbone, / A curved piece of brow, / A pale eyelid . . .”

  And the dark eye I make out with all within of light.

  Stranger, when the river leans toward the emptiness,

  abandon, for my darkness, the thick and thin of light.

  “On these beaches / the sea throws itself down, in flames”

  as we bring back, at sunset, the incarnadine of light.

  Again on the point of giving away my heart,

  Life is stalked by Fog, that blond assassin of light.

  One day the streets all over the world will be empty;

  from every tomb I’ll learn all we imagine of light.

  Galway, somehow with you in Freedom, New Hampshire,

  Shahid won’t let Death make of Love a ruin of light.

  (FOR GALWAY KINNELL)

  Stars

  When through night’s veil they continue to seep, stars

  in infant galaxies begin to weep stars.

  After the eclipse, there were no cheap stars

  How can you be so cheap, stars?

  How grateful I am you stay awake with me

  till by dawn, like you, I’m ready to sleep, stars!

  If God sows sunset embers in you, Shahid,

  all night, because of you, the world will reap stars.

  For Time

  You who searched the world for a brave rhyme for time

  got real lucky with a Guggenheim for time.

  At the shrine I’ll offer not roses but clocks.

  When I return, I will have no time for time.

  After the first death, there’s only the first, which

  with each death is now your paradigm for time.

  All summer the news from the lost peaks said that

  soldiers had died simply in a climb for time.

  From new springtimes gather your loot of blossoms.

  Let Kashmir arrest you for a crime for time.

  Must we always cook with heartless substitutes?

  Caraway for cumin and cloves? And lime for thyme?

  When the blade became secretary to steel,

  the knife’s sanctuary was made sublime for time.

  You never belonged even to yourself though

  as you abandoned me your cry was I’m for time.

  What a wonderful party! It is the Sabbath!

  And everyone’s cry is “Le Chaim.” For time?

  I really need a drink to be able to drink!

  That clink—cracking ice—crystals my chime for time.

  The Country of the Blind has ordered mirrors.

  Its one-eyed king’s vision is now prime for time.

  The gravestones are filled with poetry or pathos?

  Well, you knew the war was a pantomime for time.

  Who amputates clock-hands to make you, Shahid,

  await the god not there with all the time for time?

  God

  Of all things He’s the King Allah King God.

  Then why this fear of idolizing God?

  Outgunned Chechens hold off Russian tanks—

  They have a prayer. Are you listening, God?

  I begged for prayers to the Surgeon’s answer,

  my heart alone against terrorizing God.

  Masked, I hold him enthralled who’s harmed me most—

  I will hurt him as he’s been hurting God.

  So what make you of cosmic background noise?

  Well, there’s the Yoni (My!) and the Ling (God!).

  A butterfly’s wings flutter in the rain.

  In which storm looms the fabricating God?

  I believe in prayer and the need to believe—

  even the great Nothing signifying God.

  Of Fidelity I’ve made such high style

  that, jealous of my perfect devotion,

  even the angels come down from Heaven

  and beg—beg—me to stop worshipping God.

  How come you simply do not age, Shahid?

  Well, I wish everyone well, including God.

  Forever

  Even Death won’t hide the poor fugitive forever;

  on Doomsday he will learn he must live forever.

  Is that nectar the cry of the desert prophets?

  See angels pour the Word through a sieve forever.

  On the gibbet Hallaj cried I Am the Truth.

  In this universe one dies a plaintive forever.

  When parents fall in love with those blond assassins,

  their children sign up for Western Civ forever.

  With a brief note he quit the Dead Letter Office—

  O World, they’ve lost Bartleby’s missive forever.

  Am I some Sinai, Moses, fo
r lightning to char?

  See me solarized, in negative forever.

  In the heart’s wild space lies the space of wilderness.

  What won’t one lose, what home one won’t give forever!

  A perfect stranger, he greeted herself in joy—

  Not to be Tom, how lovely—she said—I’m Viv forever!

  Jamshed, inventor of wine, saw the world in his cup.

  Drink, cried his courtiers, for he won’t live forever.

  He lives by his wits, wears blue all day, stars all night.

  Who would have guessed God would be a spiv forever?

  Will the Enemy smile as I pass him on the street?

  I’m still searching for someone to forgive forever.

  As landscapes rise like smoke from their eyes, the blind hear

  God swear by the fig and the olive forever.

  The Hangman washes his hands, puts his son to sleep.

  But for whom, come dawn, he’s decisive forever?

  Alone in His Cave—His Dance done—He’s smeared with ash.

  The Ganges flows from the head of Shiv forever.

  You’ve forgiven everyone, Shahid, even God—

  Then how could someone like you not live forever?

  (FOR DONALD REVELL)

  After You

  We are left mute and so much is left unnamed after you—

  No one is left in this world to be blamed after you.

  Someone has disappeared after christening Bertha—

  Shahid, will a hurricane ever be named after you?

  Now from Miami to Boston Bertha is breaking her bones—

  I find her in the parking lot. She says, “I’m blamed after you.”

  The Deluge would happen—it was claimed—after you

  But the world did go on, unashamed, after you

  ANDREW BERTHA CHARLES DAVID ELLA FLOYD GEORGE but S comes so late in the alphabet that although

  SHAHID DEVASTATES FLORIDA is your dream headline, no hurricane will ever be named after you.

  In Arabic

  (with revisions of some couplets of “Arabic”)

  A language of loss? I have some business in Arabic.

  Love letters: calligraphy pitiless in Arabic.

  At an exhibit of miniatures, what Kashmiri hairs!

  Each paisley inked into a golden tress in Arabic.

  This much fuss about a language I don’t know? So one day

  perfume from a dress may let you digress in Arabic.

  A “Guide for the Perplexed” was written—believe me—

  by Cordoba’s Jew—Maimonides—in Arabic.

  Majnoon, by stopped caravans, rips his collars, cries “Laila!”

  Pain translated is O! much more—not less—in Arabic.

  Writes Shammas: Memory, no longer confused, now is a homeland—

  his two languages a Hebrew caress in Arabic.

  When Lorca died, they left the balconies open and saw:

  On the sea his qasidas stitched seamless in Arabic.

  In the Veiled One’s harem, an adulteress hanged by eunuchs—

  So the rank mirrors revealed to Borges in Arabic.

  Ah, bisexual Heaven: wide-eyed houris and immortal youths!

  To your each desire they say Yes! OYes! in Arabic.

  For that excess of sibilance, the last Apocalypse,

  so pressing those three forms of S in Arabic.

  I too, O Amichai, saw everything, just like you did—

  In Death. In Hebrew. And (please let me stress) in Arabic.

  They ask me to tell them what Shahid means: Listen, listen:

  It means “The Beloved” in Persian, “witness” in Arabic.

  Tonight

  Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar

  —LAURENCE HOPE

  Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?

  Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight?

  Those “Fabrics of Cashmere—” “to make Me beautiful—”

  “Trinket”—to gem—“Me to adorn—How tell”—tonight?

  I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates—

  A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

  God’s vintage loneliness has turned to vinegar—

  All the archangels—their wings frozen—fell tonight.

  Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken;

  Only we can convert the infidel tonight.

  Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities

  multiply me at once under your spell tonight.

  He’s freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven.

  He’s left open—for God—the doors of Hell tonight.

  In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed.

  No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight.

  God, limit these punishments, there’s still Judgment Day—

  I’m a mere sinner, I’m no infidel tonight.

  Executioners near the woman at the window.

  Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight.

  The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer

  fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight.

  My rivals for your love—you’ve invited them all?

  This is mere insult, this is no farewell tonight.

  And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee—

  God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.

  Existed

  If you leave who will prove that my cry existed?

  Tell me what was I like before I existed.

  for Christopher Merrill

  Acknowledgments

  Ghazals traditionally do not have titles, and most of these, in earlier or later versions, appeared simply under “Ghazal.” For convenience, I have now titled most of them after their refrains.

  Acumen: “Of Water”

  The Annual of Urdu Studies: “Angels,” “By Exiles,” “In,” “Of It All,” “Of Water”

  Antioch Review: “In Marble”

  Boston Review: “In Real Time”

  Chicago Review: “Angels”

  Grand Street: “Arabic”

  Interim: “About Me”

  Massachusetts Review: “Tonight”

  Many Mountains Moving: “Of Fire”

  The Nation: “Not All, Only A Few Return,” “Forever”

  The New Republic: “My Word”

  The New Yorker: “Beyond English,” “Of Snow”

  The Paris Review: “For You”

  Partisan Review: “From the Start”

  Persimmon: “In Real Time”

  Poetry: “Land,”“Of Light”

  Poetry Pilot: “From The Start”

  Quarterly West: “Of Water”

  Slate: “For Time”

  Salt Hill Journal: “In Arabic”

  Tri Quarterly: “By Exiles,”“Of It All”

  Verse: “Bones,” “God”

  Washington Post Book World: “In Arabic”

  Western Humanities Review: “Shines”

  Yale Review: “Even The Rain”

  Some of these ghazals also appeared in the following anthologies:

  The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (“In Arabic,” “Of Water”), The Norton Anthology of Love (“From The Start”),

  and in two previous collections of the author:

  The Beloved Witness: Selected Poems (“Arabic”) and The Country Without a Post Office (“Arabic,” “Tonight”).

  Foreword

  . . . do as thou art bidden;

  thou shalt find me, God willing,

  one of the steadfast

  —THE KORAN

  SURAH 37:102

  IN THE SIGNATURE couplet of “Arabic,” one of the ghazals in this volume, the poet says, “They ask me to tell them what Shahid means— / Listen: it means ‘The Beloved’ in Persian, ‘witness’ in Arabic.” Agha Shahid Ali, “the beloved witness,” witnesses the world here from an even more unique vantage poi
nt than in his previous volumes. During the time when he wrote most of these ghazals, Shahid was confronting his own mortality while undergoing treatment for brain cancer. In some of the ghazals, using a line or a phrase from an American poet, he salutes the craft of those whom he knew and loved. In other searingly honest ghazals he courageously faces death.

  Shahid worked assiduously to establish a place in American literature for the formal discipline of the ghazal. He often used the phrase “the ghazal in America” in conversation, and invited American poets to contribute to the anthology he edited, Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English. Now, in this posthumous volume, Shahid offers us his own American ghazals. The couplets, “gems that can be plucked” from the ghazal’s necklace, shine with Shahid’s brilliance. Again, he is educating the reader: Making clear that while a ghazal’s couplets do not require a narrative continuity, they do have an emotional coherence.

  The story of Ishmael in the Holy Koran made an indelible impression on Shahid. Directed by God, Abraham says to his son, Ishmael, “I see in a vision that I offer thee in sacrifice.” Differing from the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, the sacrifice is demanded not only of Abraham, but also of Ishmael. Ishmael’s willingness to be sacrificed (as in the above epigraph) heightens the beauty of God’s redemption where He says: “This is indeed a manifest trial.”

  Shahid died on December 8, 2001.

  —AGHA IQBAL ALI and HENA ZAFAR AHMAD

  The Ghazal

  THE GHAZAL CAN be traced back to seventh-century Arabia. In its canonical Persian (Farsi) form, arrived at in the eleventh century, it is composed of autonomous or semi-autonomous couplets that are united by a strict scheme of rhyme, refrain, and line length. The opening couplet sets up the scheme by having it in both lines, and then the scheme occurs only in the second line of every succeeding couplet— i.e., the first line (same length) of every succeeding couplet sets up a suspense, and the second line (same length but with the rhyme and refrain—the rhyme immediately preceding the refrain) delivers on that suspense by amplifying, dramatizing, imploding, exploding.

  —Agha Shahid Ali

  ALSO BY AGHA SHAHID ALI

  POETRY