Words
by Rehan Qayoom
Logos Socrates, Logos Jesus
I created, created I
Without beginning, eternal, they are time, they are locale
They are pathways between conscience and journeys from soul to soul
They are the timely truth and the coercive disgust
They are the symptoms of pain and the marvels of patience
Reigning from land to land indifferent of colour or religion
Running in all blood types and carpeted on all tongues
They are the lies the robbery the war the murder
But that is of course their Achilles’ heal
Without them all life would be superstitious
Every act stilled
No speech no sound
Every mirror but mutely astonished at what it reflects
A mere trepidous trick of the vaunting eye
Like snatched articulation post-permission granted to the tongue to make manifest
Sans beauty, sans love
The wafts that we sense all the wise isles all these oceans of knowledge
Would be mirages, theoretical fancies, conjectures
Words work as chisels to carve out faces for our thoughts
Messianic pens grant these words a voice
They are artists, they are sculptors, they are poets
They are singers, they are songs
They are prophets, they are gods
I am a chemical, they the apothecaries
They want me exterminated
I am hewing them out
And they are building me up