Poems by Muhammad Shanazar

Poems by Muhammad Shanazar


Muhammad Shanazar is a contemporary renowned poet from Pakistan who has achieved worldwide recognition owing to his poetic talent. Most of his poems deal with the contemporary issues and challenges face by the world.  Voices Network from North Carolina U.S.A placed him among the prominent contemporary poets by awarding him the International Special Distinction “Poet in Residence” in 2004. He has authored three poetry books, The Cold Stars, Gems and The Dance of Darkness. He received appreciation from all around the world for his poetic contribution. 22nd World Congress Of Poets included him in the list of United Poets Laureate International, International Poetry Translation and Research Centre, China awarded him The International Best Translator Prize 2012, on account of translating the work of several contemporary poets. World Poetry Movement (U.S.A) declared him one of the Best Poets 2012. He had been President of the jury constituted for Frang Bardhi Albanian Literary Prize 2013. International Writers and Artists Association U.S.A bestowed upon him its membership; just now Margutte from Italy included him ‘Poti Dal Mondo’ which mean ‘Poets from the World’ and published him on the website. He has emerged as a ‘Poet Against War’ and has been published and appreciated in several world anthologies.





How Long


How long we shall go on
Increasing the rows of graves,
How long we shall go on
Extending boundaries of the graveyards,
How long we shall go on
Lengthening the list of martyrs,
How long we shall go on
Starving our kids against the gadgets of war,
How long we shall go on
Lamenting on our dear ones,
How long we shall go on
Burning valleys and villages,
How long we shall go on
Carrying on the backs bodies of fellow beings,
How long we shall go on
Increasing the queues of orphans and widows,
How long ambulances will hoot on the highways,
For the reason your mind doesn’t match mine,
For the reason your eyes don’t see as mine do,
For the reason I have grown the beard long
And your face is close-shaved,
For the reason your skin is white and mine is black,
For the reason you go to the temples, and churches
And I bow before God in the mosques,
For the reason you wear tight jeans
And I loose shalwar and qameez,
For the reason I follow some principles of legitimacy
And you move around unrestrained.

O! My enemy though I am not coward,
I have the ability to fight against you
As long as you wish,
I have the strength to contest you
With the double force of blows,
Yet I shall not wrangle against you,
I here throw my weapons, I open
My arms to embrace you, though it falls
Upon my ego very cumbersome,
I care least you will perforate my chest.

O! My enemy, Just be patient,
Let me allow and get allowed to breathe
Under the blue sky, upon the fair Earth,
We both are destined to die, sooner later,
But with natural death by our own accord,
So don’t point your gun at me,
Or sharp your spear or knife
Or attack with dagger or drone to kill me,
Which will be done naturally.

O! My enemy henceforth I shall call you my brother
Be heedful! We are the children
Of the same mother, of the same father,
Similar hearts and similar brains we have,
And similar blood. O! My brother.





A Planet Of The Step-Mother


The world is busy in sports,
Stadiums are jam-packed with the spectators,
Their shout echoes in canopy of the sky,
Medals are being awarded to the winners,
The natives of my own country do not have time
To see through the sufferings of others,
The TV channels display seminars, recipes,
Songs and dances to the starving nation,
Just now one of them demonstrated in a jar of water
How fresh egg is heavier than the rotten one.
The other one exhibited how a small gadget
Neatly removes unnecessary hair from the skin,
Politicians run as usual behind the power:
The chair of authority, the maulvis have nothing
To do but gather alms and charities,
My own prime minister has gone
With an aero-plane loaded with the crates
Of mangoes for the King of Saudi Arabia,
And other royal characters, to perform umerah
Along with family, to please God and seek
His blessings, leaving behind the poor masses
Panting for bread, the nation is busy
In ostentatious deeds, holding feasts
And aftar dinners, belly befitting actions,
The mosques and places of worship are jostled
By the men of piety dressed in rustling cloth.

Operation here, operation there, operations
All around, killing, killing just only killing
To merely have in grips oil and minerals of the soil
The world has become an operation theatre,
Jews are busy in availing opportunity,
They kill and kill Palestinians and their kids,
Smash their abodes with the shells of high explosives,
The clouds of smoke rise to the Heavens,
God Himself with the angles might be sniffing
The pong of explosives but He sits there silent too,
NATO too fights for her own interests,
UNO snorts in slumber like a step-mother,
She ever turns a deaf ear to the men of intellect,
But knows well what is to be done and what isn’t,
When the proper time is to awake from the sleep,
I cannot think the world will grow a better place,
Worth living for my generations, for the Earth was
Destined to become a planet of the step-mother,
O! The reader, so cherish not vain hopes my brother.




In Memory Of The Burnt Bees


It was the month of December,
A swarm of bees perched in the mulberry tree,
Quite adjacent to my residence,
They were in thousands and deemed
To start the job afresh.
They hummed around when the sun came out
And kept busy at the day time,
But sat jumbled at the sun set.
They hissed when someone went close,
At one night, a fortnight after they had settled,
A band of men came
To extract honey from the honey-comb,
Which they didn’t make then,
I admonished them not to play the devilish game,
But they had their own will,
They were human but brute from within.
To avoid from their stings,
They adopted the easy route,
They set a bonfire exact beneath them,
First of all they hissed and then began to fall down burnt,
Some attempted to fly, escaped from the crown of creation,
Yet they all were damaged, most of them lost their wings,
The band of men could extract no honey,
Out of the immature comb.
After a while clouds emerged in the sky,
They began to float hiding the face of moon
The eyes of stars,
Then harsh cold wind began to blow,
The rain began to drizzle down,
And humanity went asleep snug in the warm houses.

Early in the morn when I woke, I beheld,
A gruesome sight and heart grew cumbersome,
With the load of grief,
Mostly the bees scattered burnt,
The ground around grew sable,
Numerous dead bees lay close to one another,
All supine with burnt wings,
My heart began to lament over the colossal wreck,
As naught remained behind in the branches,
They reminded me the nuclear blasts,
Of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when human bodies
Lay burnt in the streets similarly.
I apprehended fear of the future war,
When the heads of the leading powers,
Will become crazy cracked and launch nuclear weapons,
The world will meet its catastrophic end,
With no conqueror to celebrate the victory,
And no conquered to mourn on the plight,
But a hushed dismal amphitheatre of burnt bodies.

Some of the bees that lay supine afar
On the wet ground seemed alive,
They imperceptibly moved their legs and hinds
But all helpless, I picked them all
And placed in front of the heating apparatus,
Most of them came into senses,
Some began to fly as well,
My heart felt felicity that I never tasted before,
But those that flew and those that seemed recovering,
All died in the next few hours,
As if they died of the after effects of radiation.
Dejection overshadowed my existence,
I was only to lament over their plight,
Men and women of the world were indifferent,
They had other cares, and worries to confront,
I sat pondering beside the charred bodies,
Of the bees that they gave us honey,
But we gave them death, death too painful,
Death too gruesome, death too agonizing,
Men of God burnt them with fire but God Himself
Drizzled on them cold water of rain,
Ah! It was sorrow. Ah! It was pain.




The Catastrophic End


Humanity cannot help making
The devilish weapons,
Each nation is running the race
Of inventing the fatal devices
For the catastrophic end,
Conventional, nuclear and chemical,
Some have attained the skill to devise
The antimatter bomb.

I know on a certain day
Some crazy so-called pioneer
Of peace will push the button
With a leprous hand,
A hail of missiles will pour down,
The earth will sustain the wounds
Of enormous, massive craters,
Smoke will engulf the planet,
Biological life will be at the verge
Of extinction, a few furious rivals
Will survive, but they will incessantly fight,
With stones, clubs, teeth and nails.

A time will encroach when two rival combatants
Will remain behind,
They will wrangle with each other,
One will be killed and the other left behind,
He will regard himself in arrogance,
The great warrior, the hero, the triumphant,
And move unaccompanied all alone,
Prolonged solitude will make him brute,
And he like a lunatic bull will smash
His head against a rock by ending himself,
No animal, no scavenger bird will be to dispose
The bodies on the lifeless face of the Earth.