Today's poem is by Vivek Sharma

Blasphemous Apostle
        For Salman Rushdie

apostle, lovers seek you on the stage tonight.
Let the goddesses apologize and pay you homage tonight.

Why accept inherited beliefs, practices, symbols, and biases?
Why not emulate Prophets and unveil a sacrilege tonight.

So what if zealous mobs erect pyres to blaze your books?
Inked ideas don't die; send rebels a message tonight.

Argue, converse, differ; bitterness makes liquor better.
Step out of your fictional propriety, show courage tonight.

Like a scientist, examine every received fact, favor disbelief.
Say Neti! Neti! Not this! Not that! Emerge as a sage tonight.

Every persecuted voice is your voice; stop mourning, fight!
Censor not metaphors; rewrite your history's page tonight.

Where poets are prosecuted, hearts turn into mute utensils.
Toot your trumpets, lament, publicize your outrage tonight.

Verses too, like daggers, can scar the duelist and his foe.
Allow none of their idioms an unchallenged passage tonight.

Beware Vivek of the snare in believing you can know it all.
O labyrinth-heart, seek a thread out of this maze tonight.

Notes:
In Vedanta philosophy (in Hinduism), the phrase "Neti! Neti!" which means "Not this, not that" constitutes a line of thought, an analytic meditation a person must undertake to comprehend the nature of Brahman, specifically by deciphering what is not Brahman. It is equivalent is trying to understand God or ultimate reality by negating rationalizations and assumptions.

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Copyright © 2024 Vivek Sharma All rights reserved
from

Nũr Mélange: A Ghazal Anthology

Glass Lyre Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission