SOMETHING ELSE Comments

When I was a child I could have pretended I was sleeping next to someone I loved,
perhaps later I would have needed less nights to learn how.

All the things I shouldn't have done when I was a child, didn't I have anything else to do then,
every night I tried to imagine what it would be like if I loved someone, isn't that enough?

If I can say that I am so slow that I always arrive late, I have something,
if I can say that there are more examples than necessary, I can take one back.

My father said that it helped to think of something I can look at for a long time,
a sailing ship on the water, for instance, or hatever I can look at for a long time.

Poetry is making meaning, not something else,
each time Ghalib thinks up a new meaning God wants him to exchange it for something else.

A poem brings the day of decision closer, a dream about a poem gives a day's respite,
where words mean something, Ghalib's are law.
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