Often I suddenly start in fright,
A trembling plays through my whole being. There is a knocking at the door, an ominous knocking,
Poetry
Poems by Akrom Malik, newest first. Pick one for your mood.
If everyone praises you, you had better flee,
Praise is a fire that is lit for your soul. Stay quietly within your limit, like the soil,
There are all kinds of people in the world, after all,
To know each one of them is impossible, impossible. For one may wear a mask, his insides full of filth,
The wife of a certain scholar and saint
Had a bitter tongue and a very hard nature. Without the least embarrassment, defying her husband,
Wandering bewildered through the steppe of doubt,
A youth came upon a man of wisdom. Feeling sincere respect within his heart,
If you seek honor, flee from the in-between —
Do not be on every side, be on one side. Open your arms to the stranger and the poor,
Seek knowledge, O seeker of knowledge,
For knowledge is the conqueror of ignorance. But if, becoming learned, you do not know
If you have become friends with some brave man,
You will never be unaware of his state. First of all, ask God for faithfulness,
THE CODE OF TIMUR IN VERSE
Praise of Allah 2
As long as man lives amid the turmoil,
Time’s work, indeed, is plunder and pillage. Tearing a person’s life to pieces,
As long as you do not roam the desert of love,
As long as you do not feel the pain of parting, As long as you do not grow weary of this world,
If you do not burn, living is pointless, meaningless,
To walk about with a dried-up corpse — oh, what sorrow. Death is the continuation of this life, but
Sometimes I do not want to love you,
Because others love you too. So be it, let my love stay hidden in my heart,
For happiness, a sweet word and an open face are enough,
To overcome the pain and laugh is a worthy deed! A sweet word holds out tulips to your heart,
Losing is hard, losing is bitter,
It is as if a piece of you were gone, alas. Every loss is a stabbing pain in the heart,
I was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,
I was twenty-three, or twenty-four. In short, I was young, and never once
At times I feel as if I were left in the grave,
All around is silence, and I am all alone. I lean on You alone, my God,
Until you climb a lofty mountain, you cannot know
The breadth of this world and its majesty. Until you cross the Sirat bridge, you cannot laugh,
When God set the order of the world,
He laid upon everyone a task to do. Whoever has followed the divine command
Do you know anything of the shape of love?
What color is it? What is its form? The one who loves dies a thousand times each moment,
This world was created for the heart,
And the heart was created for the Truth. So that, remembering the Truth, it might gain its purity,
Not everyone who is first to set out on the journey
Will always be the victor, my friend. As long as your ego rules over your head,
Do not think, “I have kept my inner self hidden,”
Your deeds are a mirror of your inner self. Do not think, “I have won with my mask,”
A believer who has sinned does not sigh for nothing,
For the word for sin, “gunoh,” holds an “oh” within. Sin sows nothing in the heart but thorns,