A Night Like This -- a Poem

A Night Like This

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
August 26, 2004


A night like this brings ice and fire
of bitter and a trapped mountain
standing in stones, glittered like
precious diamonds and proud fountain

A mountain with nimbus from thousands of years
of burning and freezing in a cycle of time,
torturous and pitiless erosions sweeping away
cobbles and boulders in miniaturized shrine

Can a mountain be sinusoidal, rhymes
like a string, flowing in seismic waves
through crusty tectonic plates
wiggling away bones, dead leaves
and zillions of species
piercing other universes
or dimensions invisible,
undiscovered by "civilized" or "braves"?

A night like this brings ice and fire
of throttling "spirits" enmeshed in silent twister
round and round that goes and goes by bitten
monk, rabbi, priest, imam and prankster
delivering customized sermons
deciphering complex hegemons
forgettable but potent
for destruction of mortals and the spirit world alike

A night like this brings ice and fire
of sustained defeat, disintegration of mountain
to fragments abjured,
retreating from distal pure!