Nazar Mohammed Rashid

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The Drunkard :
Lo, I come once again drunken to my fill!
Why do you glare at me thus with bloodshot eyes?
Thank God, I am, my Love,
A humble servant of the Crown,
And not a boss, or overlord,-a mendicant-in-chief.
Or, how could my inner blaze
Be quenched with just a cup of wine? 

You wouldn't have been shocked with grief
Had I come to-day,
Drunk not with wine, but blood
Of the poor, helpless folks.

Thank your stars, I am, my love,
The British lords' petty hind,
Unfit for luxury of a superior kind.
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In The Deadly Silent Night :
Stretched on your bed sometime
In the deadly silent night,
Desire-drunk my limbs slip into a delirious state;
And my brain, luxury-weighted,
Becomes a barren marshy ground.

Somewhere near at hand, the sleep,
Like an early winter-bird,
Dreading some hunter's sudden swoop,
Flutters its wings and screams.

In the deadly, silent night,
Stretched on your bed sometime,
Restless longings deep-suppressed in the caverns of your breast,
Like a bonded negro slave, cringe and crawl for life.

A momentary thought disturbs my mind:
You are not my life.........