Saleh Badrah

It's fruitless in this bleakness to seek zest
Or cheerfulness to brighten up your gloom:
For what bird here will ever build its nest?
What fragrant rose in here will ever bloom?
...

My soul stood up today and said:
Your heart is full of sorrow.

I know, I said,
...

Each wrinkle in his ancient face
Bespeaks a monumental deed.
Serenely there with pride he sits,
No longer longing to succeed:
...

Nan-in, the sage, one day received
A guest who'd come in search of wisdom.
...

For things of beauty
constantly am I searching,
despite the bleakness.
...

They say that they have come to set us free
And that they're bringing us Democracy.
Democracy? That dainty entity
We read about in Greek philosophy,
...

Culture is the cultivation of the self,
The weeding out of inner rotten weeds,
The getting rid of inner 'stony rubbish',
The steady noiseless maturation of the intellect,
...

Little bulbul at my window,
To what purpose are you singing?
Can't you hear the noise and clamour?
Can't you sense the disaccord?
...

The mind is like a running brook
With mud and precious gems replete:

To spot the gems, stir not the mud;
...

Should you, my soul, who sailed to distant shores
And traced the founts of sweet serenity,
Be vexed and irked by those insidious frauds
Whose souls are fraught with spite and enmity?
...

(A Haiku)

The Lilliputians
are being themselves again,
...

Fast-running Time is running fast,
Transforming present into past.

Discard your schemes; no longer gleams
...

Who knows not the thief of time?
He's that fiend who slyly steals
And thrives upon suspended dreams,
Upon the things we could have done
...

When envy grips a fellow's heart,
It makes him like a viper act.

It sprinkles venom in his brain,
...

I dream a gentle nightingale
Is sweetly singing on a tree
And that a crafty slimy fox
Is slyly watching from afar.
...

Upon a lonely hill, beneath a tree,
Within the boundless realm of reverie,
...

A simple, cozy hut,
In a calm, secluded, misty glen,
With winding brooks and waterfalls,
With shady trees and bushes green,
...

Keep digging, O my soul, and pay no heed
To what the minds of shallow men may breed.
Within the self, and nowhere else indeed,
The secret mines of golden wisdom lie.
...

These songs, which are with love and passion fashioned,
Which from the springs of wisdom love to drink,
Will always those who harbour malice sting.
...

Sitting here in careless comfort,
Far away from their affliction,
Reading news and viewing pictures,
Rambling through the Internet,
...