The Chair Poem by Mystic Qalandar

It was only a chair—
yet when Sheikh Ji sat,
no face lit with joy;
when he was gone,
silence sealed every mouth.

When it toppled,
the hush began to speak;
when it splintered,
only his heart felt the wound.
And when it returned to him,
it came like a coin dropped in pity.

Who crowned him
on this throne of gold?
Who stole it away
without the echo of a footstep?
No name, no face, no trace—
only the shimmer of an empty charm,
the shadow of something never whole.
The chair's story was the Sheikh's own.

It came back again—
bearing either a puppet cut from paper
or the faded emblem of a paper tiger.
Now the throne, too small for his true height,
hung from his neck like a yoke,
clasped his wrists and ankles in iron.

The bird who once rode the clouds
was taught to orbit the chair;
ambition became its own cage,
and the sky, once his realm,
withdrew beyond the clouds.