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Souls are delicate, and words are cruel

Souls are delicate, like threads of mist, They bend with sorrow, they break with a twist. Words strike like stones, careless and cold, Cracking the quiet where secrets unfold. A whisper can wound, a silence can burn, Once spoken, the harsh ones never return. They echo inside like a haunted refrain, Leaving behind invisible pain. So handle with care the hearts that you see, Their strength is silent, their wounds unseen. For souls are spun from glass-like grace, And words can shatter what no hands trace.

You get what you give

You get what you give
If you give respect respect to others
You will get respect
If you mistreat you friends
You are going to lose them
And you will end up alone
And isolated
From the outside world
If you make a promise to
Your friends you should keep it
If you break the promise
You will be letting your
Friends down

A Forbidden Love

My longing for love was lethal
it was shamelessly primeval,
sinful and forbidden
hard to keep it hidden,
and sure to cause an upheaval.

I plucked a rose from neighbor's yard
embraced it, savored it and marred,
intense was my yearning
frightfully concerning,
to avoid this craving was hard.

I did lure someone else’s soulmate
tried to make her my own lovemate,
to covet what was thine
and craved to make her mine,
It's an ethical lapse of fate.

God, forgive me my transgression
I have to make a confession,
Powerless to resist

Tears Of. A Clown

Against a willowy wailing backdrop of inner chaos,
an indignant incendiary mask stifles the simmering cauldrons,
of a stoic stage clown post lachrymose performance wearily stunning yet stung,
or the surreptitious posture of the laugh it off as mediocre bypass,
iron clad ruthless repression of bone rattle indignation a seeker of impoverished aperture,
whilst many can manage to laugh through their toppling tears,
this feeble feat can be turgidly reversed as in  cavernous crying through laughter,

O melhor amigo

O melhor amigo
Doesn't judge me
He accepts me
The way I am
O melhor amigo
He doesn't put me down
O melhor amigo
He helps me to
Solve all my daily
Problems
O melhor amigo
We get along very well
O melhor amigo
Is a Christian like me

Jaun Elia: English translations of Urdu poems

These are English translations of Urdu poems by Jaun Elia, who has been called the "poet of pain." Syed Sibt-e-Asghar Naqvi (1931-2002), more commonly known as Jaun Elia, was a Pakistani Urdu poet, philosopher, biographer, and scholar. A child prodigy, he began writing poetry at age eight but didn't published his first poetry collection, Shayad, until age sixty.

I am strange—so strange
that I self-destructed and don't regret it.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wound is deep—companions, friends—embrace me!

Second Sight

I never touched you—
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

***

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

not as you are now,
but as you were then—

eternally present
and Sovereign.

I cracked on the central air-conditioning on Juneteenth 2025...

the first time this summer,
when martyrdom got chucked aside for cold comfort.

How heavenly the climate controlled apartment
unit b44 felt and damn the torpedoes
(originated from a quote
attributed to Admiral David Farragut
during the Battle of Mobile Bay
in the American Civil War)
about being the poster child for Peco.

Sensitivity to global warming
increased intolerance against
hazy hot and humid weather
adversely affecting me
the older I get,
thus body electric of mine
caving into temptation
to set the digital dial