Chorus of the Shattered Continent

 

 K. Hassan

I saw with my own eyes invaders killing  all my folks 

I

YOU

Missing the thawless sky,

among arcades of treaties and clauses,

Europe dreams in the syntax of tribunals—

where scrolls of jurisprudence

flutter like moulting feathers of the Sibyl.

She counts her decimals of carbon,

her quotas of compassion,

her migrants queued like shadows in vestibules,

chanting in Babel’s intercalated vowels.

The cities rehearse their conscience:

paper lanterns in Strasbourg,

green banners braided in parliaments,

the ritual of penance without altar.

Yet beneath, in the catacomb of armouries,

the rust of forgotten arsenals gnaws.

Drones whine in the Eastern mist—

but the budget line protests: too dear,

too dear the iron birds,

let the accountants weigh the sky!

In the halls of forgotten forges,

where Hephaestus once hammered shields

for heroes bound to Ilium’s walls,

now clerks inscribe ledgers of restraint,

measuring the ore against the edict,

the anvil silenced by decrees of thrift.

The Cyclopes, idle in their caves,

watch as the continent barters its thunderbolts

for garlands of recycled laurel.

II

O Europa, abducted thrice—

once by the Bull of Cretan shores,

once by the Market’s golden yoke,

once by the Law that bound your wrists with red tape—

what oracle do you serve now?

In Berlin a minister stammers,

petitioning the robed Areopagus:

May we lift the sword, or must we bow

until the invader waters his horse in the Spree?

The statute’s labyrinth has no thread,

only footnotes devouring footnotes,

a Minotaur of jurisprudence feeding

on the flesh of swift decision.

Meanwhile, in Albion’s mist-shrouded isles,

engineers dream of counter-swarms,

machines to blind the locust-drone,

Ariadne’s web spun from silicon threads

to ensnare the winged harbingers of Scythia.

Yet the treasurers close their ledgers—

Too costly, too costly,

while iron tides advance from the steppes,

and the ghosts of Agincourt whisper

of arrows unloosed in timely hour.

The Thames murmurs elegies of empire,

where once dreadnoughts cleaved the waves,

now committees deliberate on protocols,

parsing the syntax of retaliation

as if war were a symposium in Plato’s cave,

shadows dancing on walls of parchment.

In the tabloids' tawdry theatre,

Harry's nuptials unravel like a frayed coronet,

debated in the pub's dim glow: "He's not royal,

not anymore, exiled to the Pacific's palm-fringed exile,

real Windsor blood diluted in celebrity's chalice."

The barmaid shrugs, pouring pints of forgetfulness,

while patrons parse the pedigree of princes,

hung up on headlines, not the harbingers at the gate.

III

O readers of treaties,

disciples of benevolence,

have you not seen how swiftly

the Furies exchange their masks?

Mercy becomes paralysis,

rights calcify into fetters,

and while the orators debate definitions,

the frontier smoulders in silence.

Not cruelty, but apathy breeds the beasts.

Not hatred, but hesitation opens the gate.

Already the chorus of extremity rehearses—

they warm their throats in dark taverns,

they measure the silence of hesitant fathers.

The pendulum swings back to bronze,

to the age of Achilles’ wrath,

where pity yields to the spear’s imperative.

In the shadow of the Acropolis,

where once the Erinyes were appeased

by Athena’s olive branch,

now the olive withers in bureaucratic frost,

and the Eumenides stir anew,

their serpents coiling around neglected altars.

The continent, once cradle of logos,

now ensnared in its own dialectic,

debates the essence of defence

while the barbarians polish their greaves.

IV

There is no scapegoat in this wasteland,

only a mirror:

Europa gazing upon herself,

her reflection fractured

between compassion and survival,

between symposium and shield.

The rivers murmur:

choose quickly,

or be chosen by those who do not choose.

And the gods, grown tired of counsel,

withdraw into their mute constellations,

while the continent lingers,

caught between tribunal and tempest,

green banners wilting in the ash-wind,

armouries locked,

and the invaders already rehearsing

the march upon her sleep.

The Rhine, laden with memories of Caesars,

flows sluggish with the silt of resolutions,

its bridges arched like unanswered questions.

In Brussels, the labyrinthine corridors

echo with the footfalls of envoys,

bearing missives of measured equity,

while the Carpathians tremble

under the weight of unspoken auguries.

In the council chambers of Paris,

uncertainty uncoils like the Seine's serpentine bends,

ministers murmur in the mist of indecision:

"Shall we arm the horizon, or audit the alliance?"

The Eiffel Tower, iron sentinel, sways in the wind of whispers,

while the croissants crumble in cafes of conjecture,

patrons debating the diplomacy of doubt,

their espresso cooling as the eastern clouds gather.

V

Recall the shades of Marathon and Salamis,

where the polis armed its oarsmen

against the Persian gale.

Now, in the agora of unified markets,

the hoplites are demobilized,

their phalanx dissolved into quotas,

their spears traded for scrolls of accord.

The Delphic oracle, once cryptic in smoke,

now speaks in spreadsheets and summits,

prophesying peace through parity,

yet the Pythia’s voice cracks

under the drone of approaching swarms.

O Themis, blindfolded arbiter,

your scales tip with the weight of precedents,

but the sword in your hand rusts unused,

while Nemesis circles the periphery,

her wings fanning the embers of unrest.

The continent, heir to Hellas and Rome,

fumbles its inheritance,

clutching codices instead of fasces,

debating the justice of reprisal

as the legions of the east muster.

In the vineyards of Gaul,

where Bacchus once reveled in abundance,

now the vines are pruned by regulations,

the harvest tallied against emissions,

while the Gauls of old, fierce in their torques,

watch from the shades as their descendants

petition for permission to arm.

In the barracks' backrooms, a sergeant's spouse

hears the neighbour’s nagging counsel: "Fix those teeth,

girl, before he returns from the drill fields—

he won't glance your way with that gap-toothed grin,

all those euros spent on deployments, not dentures."

She pulls a long face, the mirror mocking her,

pills for the pain swallowed in silence,

while the husband patrols phantom borders,

demobbed dreams deferred in domestic decay.

VI

The Baltic whispers of forgotten pacts,

where Teutonic knights once carved frontiers,

now the seas are patrolled by protocols,

vessels idling in harbors of hesitation.

The Vistula carries laments from Warsaw,

echoes of partitions and uprisings,

yet the chancelleries ponder the cost

of fortifying the pale.

O Hyperion, fallen from your chariot,

your light dims over the steppes,

where Titans stir in their slumber,

challenging the Olympian order.

Europe, once the forge of enlightenment,

now tempers its steel with temperance,

quenching the blade in waters of welfare,

while the Cyclopean eye of surveillance

blinks from distant towers.

In the fjords of the north,

where Odin’s ravens once scouted,

now the All-Father’s wisdom is archived

in databases of diplomacy,

and the Valkyries wait unemployed,

as the einherjar debate the ethics

of pre-emptive valour.

In Berlin's bier halls, the armless spectre looms,

disarmed by directives, harmless in hesitation,

the minister's plea echoing in empty echoes:

"We are not aggressors, echt pacific,

stamm' aus Europa, no fangs bared."

The patrons nod, steins clinking in complacency,

while the eastern winds whistle through unwatched walls,

the Vaterland veiled in vulnerability's veil.

VII

The Mediterranean, cradle of myths,

laps at shores eroded by influxes,

waves bearing argosies of aspiration,

yet the harbours are clogged with clauses,

the Argo dismantled for inspections.

Jason’s fleece, once golden quest,

now audited for sustainability,

while the Sirens sing of solidarity,

luring the continent to rocky indecision.

In Rome, the Forum’s ruins murmur

of senates that armed legions swiftly,

now the Capitolini debate definitions,

parsing the lex of liberty

as the Rubicon swells unchecked.

The Iberian winds carry scents of siestas,

where once conquistadors sailed forth,

now the armadas are moored by memos,

the New World forgotten in favor

of nurturing the garden within.

In Milan's moda melee, confusion cascades

like spaghetti strands untangled in turmoil,

designers deliberate on directives: "Is it ethical,

this export of arms amid aperitivos?"

The piazzas pulse with perplexed protests,

gelato melting in the heat of haphazard policies,

while the Colosseum's ghosts chuckle at the chaos,

gladiators replaced by gesticulating bureaucrats.

VIII

O Cassandra, unheeded prophetess,

your warnings echo in committee rooms,

foretelling the fall of unbolted gates,

yet the elders consult their oracles of opinion,

polling the populace on priorities.

The horse, wooden and laden,

stands at the threshold,

its belly gravid with omens,

while the priests of progress

incense the air with ideals.

The Alps, sentinels of sovereignty,

crumble under avalanches of accords,

their peaks pierced by tunnels of trade,

yet the passes remain unguarded,

inviting the Hannibal of the hour.

In the lowlands, where dikes defy the sea,

the engineers of endurance

now fortify against floods of formality,

dying the waters with ink of injunctions.

In the suburbs of scarcity, ordinary penury persists,

a pensioner pores over pantry shelves: "Bread or batteries,

for the blackout drills that never come?"

The landlord laughs, ledger in hand,

evicting echoes of austerity's anthem,

while the welfare web frays at the fringes,

children chalking hopscotch on cracked pavements,

dreams deferred in the dust of daily drudgery.

IX

The chorus assembles in the amphitheatre,

voices fragmented like Attic shards,

intoning the antistrophe of atrophy:

We who wove the web of welfare,

now entangled in its strands,

watch as the spiders of strife approach.

The extreme ones, cloaked in antique robes,

invoke the shades of Sparta’s rigor,

promising the helots’ discipline

to a demos grown soft in symposiums.

Yet no venom in the verse for the wanderers,

only lament for the lost compass,

the polestar obscured by auroras of altruism.

In the apps' anonymous agora,

snippets of strife surface: "Not Ukrainian,

stamm' aus Moldova, echt European,

hung up on handouts, not the headlines of havoc."

The scrollers swipe through shattered stories,

emojis eclipsing the urgency's edge.

X

Europa, polyphonic in your plight,

your cantons and canticles clashing,

seek the lyre of Orpheus to harmonize,

but the strings are frayed by fiscal fingers,

the melody muted by mandates.

The Danube, artery of empires,

pulses with the rhythm of reluctance,

its banks lined with bastions unbuilt,

while the Huns of history rehearse

their nomadic narratives anew.

In Prague, the golem slumbers in clay,

awaiting the word to awaken,

but the rabbis of regulation

debate the incantation’s intent.

In the food banks' fluorescent flicker,

a mother measures milk against mortgages,

the queue curling like question marks:

"What you saving for, if not the siege?"

The volunteer vows, voice veiled in virtue,

pills for the poverty swallowed in shifts.

XI

O Proteus, shape-shifter of seas,

your forms reflect the continent’s flux,

from warrior to warden of the weak,

now morphing midst the maelstrom.

The Pyrenees echo with pastoral pipes,

where Pan once frolicked free,

now the flocks are tallied for tolerances,

the wilderness warded by warrants.

The Volga’s distant roar reminds

of realms unbound by rubrics,

where decisions descend like decrees,

unfettered by forums.

In Lyon's labyrinthine lanes,

uncertainty unfurls like baguettes broken,

chefs conferring in culinary councils:

"Season with sanctions, or savor the status quo?"

The garlic ghosts of gastronomy grieve,

as the menu morphs into manifestos of muddle.

XII

The aurora borealis dances derisively,

illuminating the impotence of intent,

as the northern lights mock the night watch,

unarmed against the auroral assault.

In Helsinki’s halls, the sauna’s steam

clouds the clarity of counsel,

sweating out strategies unexecuted.

The Adriatic sighs with siren songs,

luring the unwary to laxity,

while the Cyclades circle in cycles

of complacency and crisis.

In Naples' noisy neighbourhoods,

confusion clamours like cappuccinos frothed,

vendors venting in volcanic volleys:

"Pizza or patrols, which to prioritize?"

The Vesuvius vapours veil the vista,

erupting echoes of entangled edicts.

XIII

O Mnemosyne, mother of muses,

recall the ruins of ravaged realms,

the post-bellum phoenix that rose

only to roost in regulatory nests.

The continent, cartographer of its own confines,

draws borders blurred by benevolence,

inviting the cartographers of conquest

to redraw with redder ink.

The Elbe elegizes the eras elapsed,

where walls once withered,

now spectres of separation stir.

In Frankfurt's financial fortresses,

armless accountants audit the arsenal,

defenceless in their data-driven daze:

"We are not warriors, stamm' aus spreadsheets,

echt efficient, no edges sharpened."

The stock tickers tease with tranquil trades,

while the Rhine ripples with repressed rage.

XIV

The chorus swells in crescendo,

voices veering from verdure to vigilance,

yet the orchestration falters,

the conductor caught in counterpoint.

Europa, emblem of entanglement,

your bull now burdened by bureaucracy,

charges into the chasm of choice.

The gods, in their geodesic thrones,

gaze upon the geodesic gamble,

as the globe spins toward selection.

In the hostels of hardship, humble hunger hovers,

a migrant mechanic mends meagre machines:

"Oil or olives, for the engine of endurance?"

The foreman frowns, forms in fist,

bureaucracy biting at the bootstraps,

while the workshop whispers of withered wages.

XV

In the end, the elegy evolves,

from lament to the loom of legacy,

weaving the warp of warning

with the weft of will.

Yet the shuttle hesitates,

the pattern perturbed by procrastination,

and the tapestry tears

under the tension of time.

The invaders, inexorable as Iapetus,

advance upon the atlas unarmoured,

while the titans of tolerance

tremble in their towers.

XVI

O Lethe, river of forgetfulness,

your waters wash the wounds of wars,

but the scars surface in surges,

reminding of readiness relinquished.

The continent, convalescent from conflicts,

clings to the clinic of compassion,

neglecting the gymnasium of guard.

Now the physicians of policy

prescribe palliatives for perils,

while the surgeons of severity sharpen scalpels.

In the demobilized domiciles, a veteran's vow:

"Polish those pearls, love, before the parade passes—

he'll scan the skyline, not your smile's shadow."

She sighs, syringe in sight, for the sake of semblance,

teeth treated in the twilight of tenderness deferred.

XVII

The Black Forest broods with Brothers Grimm,

fairy tales of forests forsaken,

where wolves wander unchecked,

and the woodsmen wield writs instead of axes.

In Vienna, the waltz whirls wildly,

steps synchronized to statutes,

twirling toward the tango of turmoil.

The Seine serpentines with sophistication,

banks burdened by books of bylaws,

as the bridges bow under the ballast.

XVIII

O Janus, two-faced sentinel,

your gaze bifurcated between backward benevolence

and forward fortitude,

doors ajar to dilemmas.

The continent contemplates your countenance,

hesitating at the hinge of history,

as the hourglass haemorrhages sand.

The extreme echoes amplify,

resonating in the rotundas of resentment,

promising the purity of purpose.

XIX

Yet in this mosaic of malaise,

no tile tainted by tribalism,

only the grout of governance ground thin,

exposing the expanse to erosion.

Europa, enigma of equity,

your equation unbalanced by externalities,

solve for the sum of survival.

The stars, stoic in their spheres,

align in augury ambiguous,

awaiting the axis of action.

XX

The poem prolongs, as the predicament persists,

verses vaulting over voids,

bridging the breach with balladry.

But the bard bows to the burden,

the ink inexhaustible yet insufficient,

as the continent composes its coda

in the key of quandary.

And the chorus concludes, not with clamour,

but with the quietus of query:

Will the wilted wreath revive,

or yield to the yoke anew?

XXI

In the ether of endless echoes,

fragments float like flotsam from fractured feasts:

"Not Baltic, stamm' aus Balkans, echt entangled,

hung up on histories, not the hybrid horizons."

The digital diaspora dialogues in dialects,

threads unravelling in the twittering twilight.

O Tiresias, blind seer of Thebes,

your prophecies persist in podcasts,

foretelling the fission of fraternity,

while the oracles of opinion polls

oscillate in oblivion's orbit.

XXII

The chorus reconvenes in cyberspace,

avatars assembling in asynchronous agony,

intoning the ode to obsolescence:

We who wired the world with welfare's web,

now snared in signals of surrender,

as the algorithms augur the advance.

Yet the human pulse persists,

in the humdrum of hunger's hearth,

a clerk counting coupons: "Rent or rations,

for the roof over recession's remnants?"

The soup kitchen steams with stories suppressed,

ladles lifting the liquid of lost livelihoods.

XXIII

Europa, eternal in your e conundrum,

your mosaic marred by modern malaise,

piece together the puzzle of purpose,

lest the pieces scatter in the storm's scatter.

The gods, gazing from gamified galaxies,

game the geopolitics with glitchy grace,

as the continent glitches in its gridlock.

And the invaders, insidious as Iris's illusions,

infiltrate the interfaces uninvited,

while the firewalls flicker in futile flares.

XXIV

O Echo, nymph of Narcissus's neglect,

your repetitions resound in resolutions repeated,

fading into the feedback of forgotten fears.

The continent, caught in the cave of complacency,

hears the hollow holler of history's haunt,

yet turns to the mirror of momentary mercy.

In the end, the elegy endures,

a litany lengthening like the line of legacies,

warning woven into the warp of wakefulness.

and the invaders already rehearsing the march upon her slumber 

Read More

The Burden of Alexandria's Librarian

 

K. Hassan

Papyrus quivers beneath reverent hand,

A lamp spills amber over vaulted stone.

Each line a jewel, sacred to this land,

Yet trembles with a weight no eye has known,

And hums with secrets mortals cannot stand.

Scrolls whisper like ghosts of vanished kings,

Their fibers shiver under careful gaze.

The librarian moves as though he bears all things,

Each breath a prayer to stave the creeping haze,

While sorrow coils in shadows’ hidden rings.

Margins bleed with truths too sharp to speak,

Every symbol carved with trembling care.

The vault itself remembers what is meek,

The weight of secrets none else may bear,

And bends beneath the guardian’s measured streak.

Reflections show a face long left behind,

A son emerges, stranger shaped by fate.

His hand strikes swift, as night consumes the mind,

And breaks the guardian’s heart, the archive’s weight,

Yet grief and love entwine where shadows wind.

Papyrus shatters like gold upon the floor,

The lamp convulses at the sacrilege.

Every scroll moans, each codex cries, roars,

The vault shudders beneath the trembling edge,

And sorrow rises, spilling evermore.

The librarian falls; his blood threads through the page,

A pulse remains where paper meets the hand.

His spirit melds with wisdom of the age,

A living archive no death can strand,

A presence haunting corridors and cage.

The son departs; yet something lingers near,

A tremor in the margins, spectral, cold.

The father’s voice persists in fear and care,

Whispers in ink, in shadows uncontrolled,

Turning each stolen jewel to tears sincere.

Papyrus breathes; the archive wakes anew,

The guardian moves where eyes cannot pursue.

Each secret, sacred, trembles for his due,

A pulse eternal, sorrowed, and true,

Where love and vengeance intertwine and stew.

No hand may claim the weight of what remains,

No son may steal what fuses life with lore.

The vault itself now bears immortal strains,

The guardian eternal, death no more,

A soul enwoven in the papyrus veins.

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Me gindo

  

K Hassan

Me gindo, me gindo,                                                                                                                                         so si amaro drom,                                                                                                                                           ratfała jasfa,                                                                                                                                                  katar o them so nashti rove.

                I 

Our story is a journey—a journey that has no name.
No Magi, no saints, no prophets;
We have no books, no angels, no true God.
Yet, plunging past His faint, withered reach,
Our souls—like knives—rend time’s decaying veil.
We cleave through grief, through lovers’ ardent cries,
Through kin-born wails, through song and wine and fire.
Our trail, a fire that courts the stars at night

No stream but blood, this path of untamed joy,
It throbs in camps that flare beneath the moon,
A surge of ash and song, of shared red wine,
Of fervent hearts, of bonds the law denies,
Tales leap unbound, no shrine can chain their spark.

The phuro calls, his voice a drum of old,
It hums of India, of winding roads,
Of hands that weave what kings would guard in vain,
Of fire spun from fingers, song from soul,
Of love that bends the rules of saints and men.

He spins the fox that tempts the wolf to joy,
A chart that seizes earth with kindled flame,
We carve our tales through veins of surging time,
From depths our verse in five-beat thunder soars,
Not for their lords, but night’s untamed embrace.

Papusza’s voice—our people’s heart laid bare,
Her hawks of song trapped in outsider’s ink;
She sang of glades where lovers burn as one,
Where priests and lords may curse and chase in vain,
Yet fate obeys the pulse of nature’s law.

In eastern frost, the Red Star crushed our glow,
It broke our wheels, built cells to cage our dance,
It tore the spark from young throats’ blazing cries;
Yet songs sank low, our tongue a hidden kiss,
Our fire a blade to cleave the shadowed gloom.

No creed—Islam’s shroud, Christ’s bleeding cross,
Nor Hindu loops, nor coin’s cold, glinting chains—
Could quench our thirst; their heavens pale and weak,
Our pulse outlasts their gods and emperors’ holds,
Five iambs thrum where mortal law dissolves.

              II

To live is fire forged in five-beat tides,
Our blaze eclipses gods’ diminished spark;
From clashing hands we shape the chaos bold,
The fiddle cries from wood by starlight kissed,
Sings kin-born peaks in five-beat floods of soul.

The woman’s thread spins dreams through dusk’s dark cloth,
Of rose-lit skin, of wings, of turning wheels;
The man’s forge bends raw iron into grace,
From void to form, our craft defies their gods,
Five iambs surge where heaven’s rules grow faint.

Our gifts still flare though scribes blot out our name;
In Paris’ mist, Django’s torn hands call storms,
His strings—five beats of bliss, of aching grief—
Outrun the fates, their cry holds all our loss,
He bids the stars to dance with our kin’s flame.

In Spain’s fierce heat our blood met Moorish wails,
Flamenco’s howl—no act but soul-born fire;
Palms clap like hearts, heels strike the earth’s deep core,
Strings blaze in five-beat flames of boundless joy,
Our passion, our defiance, gods can’t tame.

Our women’s eyes pierce through the veil of chance;
With cards, with hands, they spark the lost with hope,
They weave hot tales for those in pious chains,
Their craft—a spark, a coin from mind’s deep fire,
Five iambs sing the soul’s forbidden crave.

We share the bread, the wine, the fire’s warm glow,
Yet never dim the heart that loves us true;
We bear the wrath of lawless kings and priests,
Yet Nature judges all, and none can flee,
Five iambs thrum where night obeys the wind.

             III

I seek myself, a child of dusk and blood,
Lost in the glade where night’s fierce joy enfolds;
A wolf’s low growl beats death’s own five-fold tune,
My kinsman shouts, his will a burning blade,
He guards my soul with heart, not steel, in war.

He bears me home where flames dance like old loves,
For days their pulse in five-beat tides resounds;
The violin wails—an arrow through the dark,
Gold threads entwine with ancient, searing charms,
A youth’s bold verse defies the tyrants’ chains.

Two lovers steal a kiss; their spark lights stars,
Village mobs curse, yet fate obeys the road,
They hunt the heart, but boundless love survives,
We sing of wolves, of saves, of truths too vast,
Five iambs clash where fear and lies prevail.

We share the feast with orphaned kin and child,
Yet claim the night, the fire’s unyielding glow;
Our path is free, yet Nature weighs the scales,
For justice flows where mortal laws fall short,
Five iambs hum where gods can never reach.

               IV

I dream beneath the moon of our kin’s red,
Of lands where truth wears not the thief’s false mask,
Where Django’s song threads on, unbroken flame,
Papusza’s voice no exile’s chain, but fire,
Our craft no trifle, but the high-born art.

This realm beyond gods is ours alone,
No map but memory’s five-beat blazing heart;
The fiddle’s sob, the heel’s fierce striking call,
The seer whispers tales that bend the stone,
Five iambs hum where no divine can tread.

We keep a hoard of stars—our lore, our wealth;
Our wheels roll free, our art the rebel’s sign,
We sing, we weave, we bear all life’s sharp edge;
We love, we burn, we pay the fire’s cost,
Five iambs flare to paint the world’s dull frame,
No god can steal the fire we call our own.

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Scheherazade

K. HASSAN

I

In a kingdom vast, where dawn once spun its gold,

Minarets like lyres of starlight, sharp and bold,

Their spires, once kissed by moonlight’s saffron veil,

Now splintered, lean toward a void where dreams grow pale.

Rivers, once a chorus of eternal springs,

Choke on grief’s ash, where no soft zephyr sings.

In bazaars where rosewater swirled with silken cries,

Dust weaves a shroud, and silence scars the skies.

II

Temples, crowned with shards of astral flame,

Wail with shadows, chanting sorrow’s name.

Where jasmine bled its scent in endless bloom,

Now barren clay entombs the garden’s doom.

Winds, once heavy with a poet’s fevered song,

Bear screams of maidens, lost in night too long.

Beneath a moon that weeps in crimson dread,

The stars recoil, their ancient light unfed.

III

Shahrayar, whose throne once flared with radiant law,

His heart a stream where justice carved its awe,

Was shattered by a queen’s deceit, a blade of lies,

Her love a venom, clouding heart and eyes.

In wrath’s cold forge, he wove a curse to bind the air,

Each night a bride, her beauty but a fleeting prayer,

At dawn her blood, a toll to still his soul’s despair,

A scarlet flood to mark his reign’s unyielding glare.

IV

The azure vault, once pulsing with a lover’s dream,

Now cloaks itself in gloom’s eternal seam.

The sands, once gold, where sunlight wove its grace,

Bear death’s red stain, a mirror to disgrace.

In Ctesiphon, where poets spun their timeless lore,

The people cower, hearts too bruised to soar.

Each dawn a scythe, each night a wound that festers deep,

The kingdom’s pulse a dirge where only shadows creep.

V

Yet in this waste, where time dissolves to dust,

A flame erupts, unyielding, fierce with trust.

Shahrazad, her name a rose that pierces night,

A beacon spun from shards of cosmic light.

Her hair a dusk where galaxies entwine,

Her eyes a poet’s gaze, where stars align.

No mortal she, though mortal flesh she bears,

Her soul a tide that drowns celestial fears.

VI

In groves where cypresses claw the velvet sky,

Where moonlight fractures, bleeding secrets dry,

Vazir, the sage, with eyes like molten stars,

Holds tales of love beneath the night’s old scars.

His robes, a shimmer of the silken void,

His voice a river where despair’s destroyed.

To him she kneels, her heart a flame unbowed,

Her prayer a chant to pierce the sorrow’s cloud.

VII

“O Keeper of the Word,” her voice a comet’s arc,

“Teach me the art to mend the shattered dark.

For Shahrayar’s grim hand consumes our land,

Each dawn a pyre where maidens’ hopes are banned.

I seek the tales that thread the soul’s deep vein,

To heal the king and break our land’s cruel chain.”

Vazir, his gaze a sea where time’s tides cease,

Sees in her soul a light that knows no peace.

VIII

“Child of the rose,” he speaks, his voice a knell,

“Your words will sing where mortal hearts must dwell.

Beyond the gods, where heavens’ edges fray,

Your tales will burn the dark to endless day.”

Through nights uncounted, under myrrh-drenched boughs,

She drinks the lore that fate itself allows.

Of sailors bold who brave the sea’s wild scream,

Of lovers true who weave a timeless dream.

IX

Of cities lost where rivers carve their doom,

Of truths that flare within the heart’s deep gloom.

Each tale a thread within a cosmic weave,

Each word a spark that mortals may believe.

Vazir’s low thunder shapes the ancient art,

And Shahrazad holds worlds within her heart.

Her mind, a labyrinth where myths and stars collide,

Her soul, a flame no shadow can abide.

X

Of heroines bold who dance with blades of light,

Of mothers fierce who guard the fading night.

Of poets wise who sing with timeless breath,

Of maidens bold who triumph over death.

The sage, his eyes like embers in the void,

Beholds in her a power unalloyed.

“Your tales,” he says, “are more than mortal song,

They hold the might to right a kingdom’s wrong.”

XI

“Go forth, my child, and face the shadowed throne,

For in your words, redemption shall be sown.”

When tidings come, another bride to fall,

Her blood to stain the palace’s marble hall,

Shahrazad’s heart, with righteous fury stirred,

Proclaims a vow the heavens’ ears have heard.

“I’ll face the king,” she swears beneath the stars,

“And break the chains that bind our souls in scars.”

XII

Vazir, his tears a river in the night,

Cries, “Child, you tread where gods recoil in fright.”

But she, her will a spire that splits the sky,

Replies, “My tales will soar where shadows die.”

Through Ctesiphon, where lanterns weave their glow,

She walks, a flame to quell the tides of woe.

The city weeps, their prayers a fevered chant,

Yet none can halt her, resolute and daunt.

XIII

Her tales, her shield; her courage, her command,

She marches forth to save her ancient land.

The winds grow still, the stars above ignite,

As Shahrazad pursues her fated light.

Through bazaars where spice and silk entwine,

She bears the hope where mortal hearts align.

In halls of marble, draped in veils of dusk,

Where chandeliers burn faint with amber musk.

XIV

She stands before the throne, a shadowed pyre,

Where Shahrayar, consumed by vengeful fire,

Sits crowned in thorns, his eyes a winter’s frost,

His soul a labyrinth, locked and long since lost.

“What fool comes here to meet a certain end?”

His voice a scimitar, no mercy to extend.

She smiles, her gaze a comet through the gloom,

“I bring a tale to break your heart’s entomb.”

XV

The court grows still, their breath a fragile thread,

As Shahrazad’s voice sings of life, not dread.

Of seas where tempests roar with primal might,

Of sailors lost who find a sacred light.

Of heroines bold who brave the void’s embrace,

And carve their truth in destiny’s vast space.

Her words, like embers, flare within his mind,

A spark to wake the light he left behind.

XVI

As dawn’s pale hand creeps soft across the stone,

He stays his blade, his heart no longer lone.

“Tomorrow night,” he speaks, his voice less dire,

“You’ll weave again, to feed this strange desire.”

The courtiers gasp, their whispers sharp with awe,

A fleeting hope in what their eyes now saw.

She bows, her heart a flame that will not fade,

And leaves to spin the tales that fate has made.

XVII

So begin the nights, a thousand and one more,

Each tale a tide to crash on sorrow’s shore.

Her sister, Dunyazad, with gentle plea,

Each eve does call, “Another tale for me!”

And Shahrazad, with wisdom’s boundless art,

Weaves threads of light to bind the broken heart.

Through deserts vast, where sands of time dissolve,

Through skies where comets burn and stars evolve.

XVIII

She speaks of lovers whose hearts defy the grave,

Of pilgrims bold who ride the cosmic wave.

Of children lost who hear their mother’s call,

Of poets true who rise where empires fall.

Each tale a thread within a boundless weave,

Each word a hope that mortals may believe.

Of heroines bold who walk the shadowed vale,

And turn despair to triumph without fail.

XIX

Of singers wise who chant with timeless fire,

Their songs ascending where the stars aspire.

The king, once stone, begins to softly thaw,

His heart, once ice, now stirred by what he saw.

Her tales of mercy, woven through with grace,

Carve beams of light upon his shadowed face.

The court, once mute, now hums with quiet song,

As Shahrazad’s words right an ancient wrong.

XX

The jasmine blooms, its fragrance wild and bold,

The bazaars wake, their stories newly told.

The maidens live, no longer bound by dread,

The dawn no more a canvas stained with red.

The skies grow clear, the stars return to sing,

As Shahrazad’s tales give hope a newborn wing.

Through nights uncounted, still she weaves her art,

Each story chipping at the king’s cold heart.

XXI

Of heroines fierce who guard their sacred flame,

Of mothers bold who bear a timeless name.

Of women who defy the grave’s cold claim,

Of daughters lost who find their home again.

Each word a pearl, each tale a radiant light,

To burn the dark and call the day from night.

A thousand nights, a thousand tales and one,

And with each dawn, a brighter age begun.

XXII

Shahrayar, changed, his soul no longer blind,

Sees truth within the stories of her mind.

His heart, once chained by vengeance’s cruel grip,

Is freed by words that fall from Shahrazad’s lip.

“My queen,” he speaks, as sunlight floods the hall,

“Your tales have shattered my unyielding wall.

Your wisdom’s fire has burned my pain away,

No more shall blood defile our land’s new day.”

XXIII

He kneels, his crown a shadow cast aside,

And vows to rule with love where hate has died.

The kingdom wakes, its shadows swept afar,

The rivers sing beneath a brighter star.

The minarets, with gold and azure crowned,

Reflect the light where once was sorrow found.

The people dance, their hearts no longer torn,

In Shahrazad’s tales, their hope is born.

XXIV

Beyond the gods, where mortal dreams take flight,

Her voice resounds through veils of endless night.

The stars themselves now chant her sacred name,

A flame eternal, bound to cosmic fame.

In bazaars and halls, from Ctesiphon to sea,

Her stories live, where truth and hope are free.

The bards now sing of Shahrazad’s great deed,

Her words the seed of life in time of need.

XXV

In every tale, a spark of light endures,

A truth to heal what sorrow’s hand obscures.

From courts of marble to gardens deep and grand,

Her legacy shall evermore expand.

For in the heart of those who dare to dream,

Lies magic born where mortal hopes redeem.

Her name, a star that burns through endless time,

A song of hope in every mortal clime.

XXVI

In every word, a power to transform,

To still the heart and weather any storm.

For stories hold a might no god can claim,

A spark to make the darkest shadows flame.

In Shahrazad’s soul, the cosmos found its voice,

A gift to mortals, born of sacred choice.

Her song, eternal, echoes far and near,

A testament that love can conquer fear.

XXVII

Through dust and time, through grief and fleeting pain,

Her tales ascend, a light that shall remain.

In every whisper, every woven thread,

She lives, where mortal hearts and stars are led.

O Shahrazad, whose voice the heavens sing,

Your stories grant the world its endless spring.

In Ctesiphon, where roses never fade,

Her name is carved in sunlight and in shade.

XXVIII

The zephyr hums, the rivers chant her lore,

The minarets her wisdom’s echo store.

Each tale a bridge from mortal to divine,

Each word a star where mortal hopes align.

Her heart, a lamp that burns through endless night,

Her voice, a tide that drowns despair in light.

From Isfahan to Shiraz, tales unfold,

Of Shahrazad, whose courage never old.

XXIX

Her stories weave a pattern, vast and grand,

A dance of love across the ancient land.

Like Hafez, she with wisdom’s verse does sing,

Her voice a zephyr lifting broken wings.

In every breath, her legacy is sown,

A flame to light the paths where stars have flown.

O Shahrazad, whose tales the heavens weave,

Your words a truth that mortals may believe.

XXX

In every heart that dares to hear your call,

A spark ignites to break the darkest thrall.

Your sacrifice, a thousand nights and one,

Has turned the tide where sorrow’s web was spun.

Eternal now, your name shall ever soar,

A Persian rose to bloom forevermore.

In every tale, a rose that never dies,

A flame that dances in the poet’s eyes.

XXXI

Her words, like rosewater, cleanse the soul’s despair,

Each tale a breath of jasmine in the air.

Of lovers bound by fate’s unyielding thread,

Of heroines bold who walk where angels tread.

In every verse, a truth that never fades,

A rose that blooms where sorrow’s hand invades.

Her name, a chant within the cosmic weave,

A power vast that mortals may believe.

XXXII

Through nights of dust, through days of fleeting pain,

Her stories soar, a light that shall remain.

In Ctesiphon, where minarets aspire,

Her voice ascends, a flame of poet’s fire.

From mortal heart to heaven’s endless dome,

Her tales have carved a path to lead us home.

O Shahrazad, eternal, wise, and free,

Your song is life’s immortal victory.

XXXIII

Her tales, a caravan through deserts vast,

Each word a lamp to light the shadowed past.

Of mothers fierce who guard their sacred flame,

Of daughters lost who find their home’s true name.

In every story, mercy finds its voice,

A light to guide where hearts may yet rejoice.

Her sacrifice, a flame that never wanes,

Burns bright where sorrow’s shadow still remains.

XXXIV

From Kashan’s domes to Yazd’s eternal light,

Her stories echo, banishing the night.

Each word a pearl, each tale a mystic stream,

A bridge to cross the chasm of a dream.

Her voice, a tide that lifts the broken soul,

Her tales, a fire that makes the heavens whole.

O Shahrazad, whose name the stars recite,

Your song a beacon through the endless night.

XXXV

In every heart, a rose that never fades,

Each tale a light where sorrow’s hand degrades.

Her words, like winds that carry jasmine’s breath,

Defy the dark and triumph over death.

Through time’s long veil, her stories pierce the gloom,

A flame to guide the heart from grief’s entomb.

O Shahrazad, whose voice the cosmos sings,

Your tales are life’s eternal, boundless springs.

XXXVI

Her name, a comet trailing endless fire,

Her tales, a chant to lift the soul’s desire.

In every whisper, every woven strand,

She shapes the stars with mortal heart and hand.

Through veils of night, her stories burn and soar,

A light to guide where no despair can roar.

O Shahrazad, whose voice remakes the skies,

Your song a rose that never, ever dies.

XXXVII

In every tale, a world where hearts are free,

A flame that carves a path through destiny.

Her words, like rivers, flood the barren plain,

Her voice, a tide to wash away the pain.

From mortal dust to heavens’ boundless span,

Her stories sing the triumph of the human.

O Shahrazad, eternal, fierce, and wise,

Your tales ignite the stars in mortal eyes.

XXXVIII

Through endless nights, her voice a ceaseless stream,

Each tale a spark to kindle hope’s bright dream.

In Ctesiphon, where lanterns never dim,

Her name is sung in every poet’s hymn.

Her sacrifice, a thousand nights and one,

Has woven light where darkness was begun.

O Shahrazad, whose stories break the dawn,

Your song is life, where death’s grim shade is gone.

XXXIX

Her words, a cosmos spun from mortal breath,

Each tale a star that triumphs over death.

In every heart, a fire that never dies,

A rose that blooms beneath eternal skies.

From Persepolis to Susa’s ancient halls,

Her voice resounds where mortal courage calls.

O Shahrazad, whose tales the heavens bind,

Your song a light to heal the broken mind.

XL

In every verse, a truth that time defies,

A flame that dances in the poet’s eyes.

Her stories weave a world where love endures,

A light to guide where sorrow’s hand obscures.

Through endless ages, Shahrazad’s name soars,

A rose eternal, blooming evermore.

O Shahrazad, whose voice the stars ignite,

Your song is life’s unending, boundless light.

                         XLI

O moon-cloaked witness to a thousand dawns,
Behold her descent—Shahrazad, flame-veiled
And sorrow-draped, a psalm in flesh, a dirge
That walks. No winged seraph bears her tread,
No chariot of fire, but silence shod
In knowledge deep as death. She comes alone,
A bride to the gallows of the Empire’s bed.
Down marble corridors, where eunuchs pale
Avoid her gaze and time forgets to breathe,
She walks as one condemned who blesses fate.
The rose of her lips shuts fast upon speech,
For speech is power, and power watched too close.
In her hand: a book unopened, unread—
A ciphered womb of worlds not yet unsealed.
The veil she wears is not of silk, but thought:
Woven of verses spoken once in dreams,
Knot by knot of ancient tongues erased,
Yet still they burn behind her twilight eyes—
The eyes that see the world and speak it back,
Not as it is, but as it yearns to be.
Her sisters weep. Her father—scribe and judge—
Hides his lament in scrolls. But she walks on.
She walks as the sea walks: with patient doom.
Each step an echo through the caverns of
Dynastic guilt and unrepented blood.
And who awaits her in the perfumed tomb?
A man whose crown is thorns of sleepless rage,
Who cleaves the night to quell his haunted name.
He waits. He thirsts for flesh to seal the sun.
But she is not lamb. She is not star.
She is the labyrinth that snares the hunter.
She is the question no blade can answer.
So enters Shahrazad—her breath a key,
Her silence deeper than decree or law—
Into the chamber draped in crimson veils
Where kings have buried dawns beneath desire.
The oil-lamps tremble. The hour nears.
And somewhere, in the hush between heartbeats,
The first story coils like smoke on her tongue.

XLII

Night folds its velvet over bloodless hours,
And in its hush, the jackals sleep. But not
The king. Not Shahriyar, whose bed is built
Of broken vows and bridal shrouds. He waits—
A lion starved of meaning, bored of flesh,
Eyes ringed in ash, fingers steeped in rot.
She stands before him, neither bowed nor bold,
A silence wrapped in cinnamon and fate.
The air is thick with myrrh and apprehension;
The harem sighs in distant, wilting rhythms.
And yet—she does not tremble. Not a breath.
She studies him as one who reads a wound,
Not to recoil, but to understand its name.
"Speak," he commands, voice brittle with command.
And she, the weaver of the unseen thread,
Lowers her gaze, then lifts it like a veil.
And from her lips—a hush, then flint, then flame.
"Majesty," she begins, "there was a land—
Not unlike thine, yet ruled by other stars—
Where a fisherman cast his net by night,
And caught not fish, but fate..."
And thus the loom begins.
With every word, she casts a spell of time,
Unbraids the tyrant’s darkness with a tale,
And slips the noose a night’s width further off.
Each image painted with the breath of worlds—
Djinn bound in brass, birds that weep like men,
Isles where the dead debate the living’s dreams—
All pour from her in tides that ebb the sword.
The king, astonished, leans toward the flame.
He does not speak. He does not blink.
He drinks the syllables like desert rain.
And when the dawn unthreads the eastern hem,
She pauses—just before the secret turns.
She clasps the story's throat and leaves it there,
Unfinished, trembling on the page of air.
“O King,” she says, “the rest, if life permits,
Tomorrow night, when moonlight knows my name,
Will spread the fate ”
And thus the tale survives, and so does she—
Not by the blade, but by the art of breath.
And in that breath, empires will dissolve.
And in that pause, the world begins again.

XLIII 

“But list, O King, and mark this lesson well,
Which all the annals of the world do tell:
There are more wars than those with outward foe,
When brother’s sword doth brother’s blood bestow;
When doubt, like serpents, coils in every mind,
And trust, once broken, leaves but chains behind.
The realm that fights itself shall ever bleed—
No peace in field, no safety in the seed.
I am not a famous clairvoyante with a wicked pack of cards,
To lay false fate in painted signs upon these marble swards.
I need no trick of prophecy, no phantom’s whispered art—
I read thy future in the past that festers in thine heart.
Look not to mystic symbols dealt by some theatric hand;
The doom of kings is writ alone on reason’s shifting sand.
I see no ghost—I see the wound that bleeds behind thine eyes;
I hear no spirit—but the scream each silenced bride still cries.
Thy future is not shaped by stars, nor cursed by demon’s breath—
’Tis built upon the choice ’twixt love and self-devising death.
Think not this truth belongs to tale alone:
Full many a king on pride’s sharp throne hath known
The taste of ash that follows reckless ire—
The unending burn of his own funeral pyre.
Great Nero, ’fore Rome burned, did Octavia slay,
Then wailed her name amid the cinders’ gray.
And Henry, England’s lord of broken vows,
Who sent sweet Anne to death beneath the boughs,
Saw ghosts thereafter in each courtly glance,
And mourned his haste in love’s lost, bitter dance.
E’en Tsar Ivan, whose heart in iron clad,
Wept for the son his own mad rage struck dead—
Too late, too late doth wisdom hold the hour
When blood hath fed the blind and jealous pow’r.
What prince, by mood, doth let his sceptre turn,
Shall make his palace but a funeral urn;
Who rules by rage, who lets his wrath decree,
Makes war upon his own posterity.
For every edict born of spleen and spite
Doth plant a future battle in the night.

XLIV

 The Admonition

But he who rules with reason’s constant hand,
Doth knit the heartstrings of a bleeding land;
Who measures justice not in blood nor tears,
But in the quiet peace of settled years—
He, not the king who shouts and draws the blade,
Is by the angels and the gods obeyed.
Look on the ruins of great kings before,
Who thought the world but their own trophy floor:
Their names are dust; their dynasties undone,
Ere yet another generation’s sun.
But wisdom—wisdom buildeth in the stone
A throne that time shall never overthrow.
Therefore, my Lord, let not thy heart be swayed
By transient griefs in passion’s heat arrayed.
Rule by the compass of the patient stars,
Not by the lightning of thy private wars.
So shall thy reign—not feared alone, but blest—
In hearts of men forever safely rest.
So shall thy reign—not feared alone, but blest—
In hearts of men forever safely rest.”

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Visions of Francis Bacon

K. H

The Proleptic Vision of Francis Bacon’s Idols: From Early Modern Thought to Contemporary Insight

     When Francis Bacon (1561–1626) introduced his doctrine of the “Idols” in Novum Organum (1620), 

he sought to diagnose the fundamental sources of error that beset human reason. Writing against the 

backdrop of late Renaissance scholasticism and Aristotelian dominance, Bacon identified these obstacles 

not as minor mistakes but as systemic distortions rooted in both human nature and human society. His 

fourfold taxonomy—Idols of the Tribe, Cave, Marketplace, and Theatre—was revolutionary: it cast doubt 

on the assumption that the human intellect could directly apprehend reality without mediation.

From a contemporary perspective, Bacon’s framework appears proleptic; while formulated in the 

language of the seventeenth century, it offers a conceptual scaffold that resonates with, and arguably 

anticipates, the core concerns of modern disciplines, from cognitive psychology and sociology to 

semiotics and critical theory. The connections are not of a direct lineage but are powerful interpretive 

parallels that reveal Bacon’s remarkable foresight.

Idols of the Tribe: Cognitive Limitations of Human Nature

        Bacon’s Idols of the Tribe emerge from what he considered the inherent tendencies of the human 

species. He wrote, “The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself… all perceptions, 

both of the sense and of the mind, bear reference to man, and not to the universe” (Bacon, 1620/1857, 

Aph. 41). In modern terms, this is a prescient acknowledgment that human cognition is never a passive 

mirror of reality. Our perception and thought are constrained by neurobiological structures, heuristics, and 

biases. Contemporary cognitive psychology and neuroscience explore precisely these limits. Gestalt 

psychology, for example, demonstrates that perception is structured by innate patterns of organization, 

while research on cognitive biases (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) shows systematic deviations from 

rational judgment. This modern research, while distinct in its methodology and scope, echoes Bacon’s 

foundational insight that the human mind itself is a source of error. Where Bacon saw the “tribe” as a 

source of error for scientific inquiry, today we recognize the same phenomena as natural cognitive 

constraints that require critical awareness and methodological checks.

Idols of the Cave: Individual Subjectivity

        The Idols of the Cave arise from the peculiarities of the individual. Bacon (1620/1857) writes, “…

everyone… has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolours the light of nature, owing either to 

his own proper and peculiar nature, or to his education and conversation with others…” (Aph. 42). Here, 

Bacon's idea finds a powerful parallel in the sociology of knowledge (Mannheim, 1936), which argues 

that an individual's worldview is fundamentally shaped by their social and historical location. Each 

thinker is shaped by a “cave” of experience—personal temperament, socialization, and prior education—

which refracts objective reality. Where Bacon observed these subjective distortions as obstacles to clear 

reasoning, modern theory, particularly in the work of Mannheim, elaborates them as structural features of 

human understanding: the mind is never neutral, and all cognition is mediated by context and unconscious 

influences shaped by one’s personal and social environment.

Idols of the Marketplace: The Power and Peril of Language

        The Idols of the Marketplace originate in human communication. Bacon (1620/1857) warns that 

words themselves can distort thought, creating illusions when linguistic labels are mistaken for the 

realities they signify, stating, “…the commerce of men with words leads to confusion, and words often 

betray the understanding…” (Aph. 43). In this insight, Bacon anticipates the philosophy of language and 

semiotics. Saussure (1916) formalised the distinction between signifier and signified, while Wittgenstein 

(1953) argued that meaning is a function of language-games and social practice. Derrida (1967) later 

emphasised the instability of signification itself. Bacon’s “marketplace” thus prefigures the recognition 

that discourse is never a neutral conduit for truth but a site where meaning is negotiated, contested, and 

potentially distorted.

Idols of the Theatre: Systems of Thought and Ideological Performance

      Finally, the Idols of the Theatre refer to errors imposed by intellectual systems, philosophical dogmas, 

or traditional authorities. Bacon (1620/1857) described them as “…received systems of philosophy and 

dogmas which resemble stage plays, presenting illusions as truths to be accepted…” (Aph. 44). Here 

Bacon anticipates ideology critique and genealogical philosophy. Marx identified “false consciousness” 

arising from dominant ideological structures, Nietzsche examined the performative aspects of morality 

and metaphysics, and Foucault (1980) analyzed the ways knowledge and power construct regimes of 

truth. In Bacon’s metaphor, entire worldviews are “theatrical,” staging reality in ways that obscure its 

true complexity.

The Legacy and Proleptic Force of the Idols

        Bacon’s Idols were not intended as exhaustive scientific descriptions but as diagnostic tools. Their 

genius lies in their anticipatory force: each “idol” gestures toward a strand of modern inquiry, from 

cognitive science and sociology to linguistics and critical theory. Far from primitive, Bacon’s work can be 

read as a conceptual scaffold; it gestures toward fields that would only mature centuries later.

In effect, Bacon’s vision establishes a critical consciousness that remains necessary today. Modern 

science and philosophy, from behavioural economics to poststructuralism, continue to grapple with the 

very distortions he identified. The Idols remind us that knowledge is not self-evident: it must be 

constructed carefully, critically, and reflectively, always aware of the cognitive, social, linguistic, and 

ideological lenses that shape our understanding

                                                References

Bacon, F. (1857). Novum Organum. In J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, & D. D. Heath (Eds.), The works of 

Francis Bacon (Vol. 8). Longman. (Original work published 1620)

Derrida, J. (1967). Of grammatology. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. Pantheon              Books.

Freud, S. (1917). Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard           edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 15). Hogarth Press.

Mannheim, K. (1936). Ideology and utopia: An introduction to the sociology of knowledge. Routledge.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science,                     185(4157), 1124–1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124

Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Blackwell.

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March of Lost

 K Hassan

O ye Muse of men, sing to me

of bones that bear the stains of centuries,
of oath-bound hearts crossing dust-choked battlefields.

Time slips, like wuthering wind, through cracked fingers;
yet, unconscious, amid the crowd we march
upon the terrain where bleeding never sates.

Let your immortal melody flow,
like silvered light cutting the darkness,
guiding me through shadowed corridors,
beyond star upon star,

until the endless chambers of night unfurl,
woven from the threads of a shattered cosmos.

In the mythical, cave-like darkness,
we march and whisper in dread: “Bismillah,
Bismillah, Bismillah, Bismillah.”

We stand in the silence after God’s final refrain—
a hymn that trembles, then dissolves into starless void.

Our counsel, like stones cast into a lightless abyss,
yields no echo, only the ash of an unspoken inferno—
a smoldering requiem for heavens long forsaken.

Angelic names, once radiant as supernovae,
fray into nullity, their glow devoured by the hunger of oblivion.
Time staggers, a clockwork deity frozen mid-breath,
its gears grinding to dust beneath a sky—
a vast loom, unturned, its threads tangled in eternity’s pause.

Through these unraveling dreams,
we wander, shadows among shadows,
our voices brewing spells to fracture the silence,
yet never piercing the veil of ideals.

Among us, the wise and weathered—
bearded as ancient oaks,
shaped by storm and shadow—
speak in riddles curling like smoke
around pillars broken by silence.

No prophecy comes, only whispers:
warnings tangled in memory
like nets abandoned to the tide;
hints of carnage yet to come,
names swallowed by sea waves.

We bury our dead beneath a moon that silvers the plains—
not with hymn or harp, but with rough hands and hurried silence.
Their eyes stay open, staring into the infinite abyss,
into the indifferent crown of the night.

Blood on their brows gleams like rubies in the last light,
when a laughter rings out—
neither human nor beast, but older than the earth’s bones,
loud as bronze struck by thunder, echoing beneath our feet.

“Behold!” it cries, and breath is caught in dread.
Like a storm splitting the sea, awe and terror seize the ranks.

“Holy Mother of God,” one whispers, fingers white on his blade.
“Get ready,” croaks another, voice raw with broken prayers.

Again the word—“Behold!”—falls,
a spear through hope and flesh.

So men cling to names like shields against the void—
“Holy Mother of God,”
“Are you Catholic?”
“Jesus Christ.”

Earth yawns beneath us, cracked open by our march.

Yet no chariot wheels flame to life, no steeds of dawn arise—
only the names of the forgotten, etched in ash and bone
at the broken rim of the world’s endless night.

The veiled sky turns her face, silent as fates weaving the unseen—
yet oath-bound, bronze-hearted,
we march, we fight, we halt—
driven by fate’s iron thread,
haunted by voices rising from dust and dream,
echoing, fading—
as all men do,
under the responsive sky—
before a throne not made of gold,
but of breath and silence,
where whispered prayers hang like stars,
and the gaze that watches waits—
neither wrathful nor kind,
but vast as eternity itself —

…bearing witness to the march of men,
whose feet ascend beyond earth’s ruin,
with hearts still beating across.

Dieu oublié par le temps.

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The City Beneath the Sand

K. HASSAN

To Attar

I.

I wandered a waste as vast as God’s own wrath,

Where lightning’s fire forged for me a path—

A path of jagged glass.

No man adorned my lips, no star to guide my track,

Only the sand’s soft hiss and the heavens’ boundless lack.

The dunes stretched endless, a mirror of divine disdain,

Each grain a shard of time, each gust a whispered pain.

My feet bled on the glass, yet left no lasting trace,

My shadow drowned in light, my soul a barren space.

Uncounted years slipped by like ghosts through riven veils,

I drank the sun’s red rust, I breathed the desert’s gales.

My hands, once sworn to oaths, now clutched at empty logus,

Forgotten by kin, by cause, by the gods who lingered there.

A Magus stripped of flame, cast from the sacred pyre,

My robe was woven in grief, my staff a playful snake.

My compass lay in ruins,

No whispers carried to me the herald of spring—

Just silence—

Gnawing light beneath the vulture’s wing.

II.

They spoke of two doors carved for the hearts of men:
The mosque, where law burns bright with heaven’s holy flame,
The tavern, where lost souls drown their shame in sin.
I stood at their thresholds, a wanderer without name.
The mosque’s tall gates repelled me, my breath too wild for creed,
Its minarets cast shadows that mocked my heart’s raw need.
The tavern’s raucous laughter spurned my tears’ frail disguise,
Its drunken saints recoiled from the truth within my eyes.
You are cold, they hissed, your longing’s stained with guile.
Your tears are false, your soul a storm too fierce, too wild.
No path remains but dust, no altar holds your trust—
You are exiled from exile, a ghost ground down to rust.
I lingered in the twilight, on glass that cut my feet,
My heart a broken vessel where no gods deigned to meet.
The stars above were silent, their light a distant scorn,
Yet still I walked the jagged path, where no new dawn was born.

III.

The city—                                                                                                                                                           There is not, O heart, some road beyond these poles?

A hidden gate where thirst alone consoles the soul?
Not the mosque’s stern chant, nor the tavern’s reckless sigh,
But a trail unwalked where jagged glass reflects the sky?
I stepped through formless air, led by hunger’s primal call,
Not faith’s cold hand, nor folly’s, but a pulse that burned through all.
The sands began to tremble, the sun paled to ash and gray,
A whisper rose like mist where the desert’s silence lay:
Beyond the cup’s sweet dregs, beyond the prayer’s thin thread,
A city sleeps in shadow where no mortal feet have tread.
Not shaped by hands of clay, nor bound by mortal name—
Seek it, O wanderer, and rise from the ash of shame.
I followed that faint echo, through dunes that heaved and sighed,
Each step a wound on glassy shards, each breath a truth denied.
The wind became my compass, its wail my only guide,
Its voice a woven requiem along that fractured tide.

IV.

From the horizon’s wound, where light bled into dream,
A dome arose—not gold, not stone, but a radiant seam.
A minaret of memory, carved from the heart’s lost scream,
Its spire a hymn of longing no mortal tongue could deem.
No gate stood guard, no wall defined its sacred bound,
Yet it rose from the earth’s deep ache, where chaos’ roots were found.
Dust fell always, soft as grief, a veil that cloaked the air,
Each grain a fleeting scripture, a sigh of ancient prayer.
I passed through no stone threshold, yet entered truth’s embrace,
The city was my forsaking, the mirror of my face.
Its streets were veins of silence, where dust forever fell,
A shroud of timeless sorrow, a hymn no voice could tell.
Its towers pulsed with bone and flame, yet dust was their attire,
A falling, endless curtain woven from the heart’s desire.
No name could hold its essence, no creed could claim its light,
Yet it sang through wind and ruin, through the marrow of the night.
I walked its boundless alleys, where shadows wove with flame,
Each step a revelation, each breath a buried name.
The city was no citadel, no fortress wrought by men,
But a living wound of wonder, where dust falls without end.

V.

There, figures moved like smoke through dust that ever fell,
Their names a fleeting art, their forms a shadowed spell.
The Laughing Judge, whose verdicts split the heavens’ beating heart,
The Blinded Priest, whose prayers burned through the dust’s soft art,
The Queen of Plume, whose words bore stars through dust’s eternal veil,
Each step a dance with falling grains, each breath a ghostly tale.
Their tongues spoke riddles ancient, too vast for mortal breath,
Their eyes held truths that shimmered where dust and death enmeshed.
The Imam poured wine like rivers, through dust that cloaked the tides,
The Vintner read the Qur’an backward, where dust’s own truth resides.
The Librarian wept softly, her tears lost in falling dust,
O’er jars where meanings shattered, their shards now ground to rust.
We Magi were uncounted, yet each a solitary spark,
Not worshipers of fire, but fire’s own pulse in the dark.
Within us burned an ember, through dust that veiled the soul,
A flame that spoke in silence, where falling grains made whole.
I sat among their shadows, their voices wove my own,
Each word a thread of starlight, each sigh a dust-kissed stone.

VI.

Through arches bent like crescent moons, where dust fell soft as rain,
A damsel stood beneath a fig, her voice a fragile strain.
“Oh Wanderer,” she whispered, her breath a woven flame,
“Have you lost the way to home, or found its hidden name?
Does your heart still roam the wastes where glass paths cut the skies,
Or is it rooted here, where dust and dream entwine?”
Her eyes were moons unshackled, through dust’s eternal fall,
Holding all the years I’d wandered, each wound, each fleeting call.
“Home is not a harbor,” she said, “nor a wall of stone,
But a flame you carry inward, a path you walk alone.”
She pointed to the sand’s soft script, where dust fell etched with fire,
Each grain a tale of longing, each spark a soul’s desire.
“Become the flame you seek,” she urged, her voice a sacred pyre,
“And rise, O Magus, from the ash of all you once desired.”
Her words were mirrors gleaming through dust that veiled the air,
Her breath a living coal that burned where falling dust was prayer.
Igniting in my chest a spark that pierced the endless fall,
A flame to light the city, where dust entombed it all.

VII.

I saw then: mosque and tavern are but masks upon the void,
Mirrors facing mirrors, where truth is oft destroyed.
They offer fleeting shelter, yet neither dares to see
The soul’s unspoken forge, where dust falls endlessly.
This city—this forbidden realm—holds no law, yet knows my pain,
No altar, yet its silence, through falling dust, sustains.
No God stands crowned above it, yet divinity breathes near,
In dust that falls like sacred ash, This is the soul’s frontier.
Not chained by creed’s cold iron, nor torn by doubt’s sharp blade,
It cradles light and shadow where dust’s soft veil is laid.
A temple woven of breath, where dust falls as a psalm,
Where the dead confess their secrets in the falling dust’s calm.
I knelt within its silence, my heart a broken bell,
Its chime a hymn of fracture, where dust in quiet fell.
The city was my mirror, my wound, my endless sea,
Its tides the pulse of longing, cloaked in dust’s eternity.

VIII.

Yet still I walked its labyrinth, where dust fell without cease,
Each step a shedding of the self, each breath a truth’s release.
The dunes within its borders sang, through dust’s unyielding rain,
Of lovers lost to starlight, of words that bore their pain.
The city held no scripture, yet its stones, with dust adorned,
Bore cracks of sacred sorrow, where falling grains were mourned.
I saw my mother’s shadow, her hands dust-veiled and still,
I saw my father’s silence, his eyes of buried will.
The children I had never borne sang softly through the dust,
Their laughter wove the arches where the city’s heart was thrust.
And still the dust kept falling, revealing lives unknown,
Each grain a fleeting story, each gust a spirit sown.
I lingered in their chorus, their voices wove my own,
A tapestry of longing, through dust’s eternal throne.

IX.

The city spoke in visions, through dust that burned too bright,
Of oceans trapped in teardrops, of stars that drowned in night.
It showed me wars unspoken, where dust fell thick with pain,
It showed me peace unyielding, where dust fell soft as rain.
I saw the hands that built the world, then tore it stone by stone,
Their dust now falling ever, where no gods’ names were known.
I saw the hearts that loved too fiercely, then wandered all alone,
Their echoes caught in falling dust, their cries a muted tone.
The city held their relics, their triumphs and their cries,
Its walls a living palimpsest beneath unyielding skies.
I walked until my feet were dust, my blood a desert stream,
Yet still the city called me, its dust my waking dream.
It was no place of endings, no haven built to last,
But a flame through falling dust, a present forged from past.

X.

Now I walked again, the Sahara vast and cruel,
Its dunes a sea of fire beneath a path of glassy rule.
And there, an unbelievable sight, a vision to confound—
A trail of people followed me, their cries a piercing sound.
“Save us, Lord!” they wailed, their voices torn by grief,
Each sob a shard of anguish, each plea a heart’s belief.
Their forms were faint as starlight, yet heavy with despair,
Their faces etched with centuries, their eyes a burning prayer.
They stretched across the desert, a river of lost souls,
Their hands reached out to grasp the spark my wandering heart consoles.
I turned, my soul a furnace, yet chilled by doubt’s sharp sting—
Who was I, a Magus frail, to bear such sacred spring?
No lord was I, no savior crowned, yet their cries would not relent,
Each “Save us, Lord!” a hammer blow, each tear a sacrament.
Their sorrow wove a mantle, of ash and light entwined,
And I, their reluctant beacon, bore the flame they sought to find.
The city pulsed within me, its dust their guiding star,
Its silence louder than their cries, its fire their hope afar.

XI.

Yet still I walked, now carrying their pleas within my breast,
The city’s ember glowing, where dust had found its rest.
No mosque’s call could bind me, no tavern’s cup could drown,
For I had seen the face that burns where all veils tumble down.
The desert’s wail still haunted, its voice a lover’s plea,
Yet I no longer bent to it—I was the fire set free.
My prayer was not in words, but in the hush where dust descends,
Where light and shadow mingle, where time’s own arc unbends.
If asked, “What faith is yours?” I’d answer with a sign:
The fire, the dust, the wandering spark, the endless wandering divine.
The city waited, veiled beneath the sand’s eternal fall,
For those too wild to linger, too frail to heed the call.
Not mosque, not tavern, not creed’s cold throne, nor dome’s unyielding span—
But silence that whispered softly: You are already home.

XII.

I walk, and still the desert stretches vast before my gaze,
Its dunes a map of longing, where glass paths carve the days.
Each step a prayer unspoken, each breath a sacred vow,
To carry forth the city’s light, where dust is burning now.
The stars may fade to silence, above a path of glassy lore,
Yet still the city’s embers, through falling dust, endure.
For I am both the wanderer and the path that I must tread,
The flame that lights the darkness, the dust where dreams are fed.
And if the world should ask me, “What truth have you to share?”
I’ll point to the horizon, where dust is breath and air.
For there, beneath the sand’s soft weight, where dust falls evermore,
The soul finds home in wandering, and names it as its shore.

SAHARA , 1997 

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