Hello Friends,
“My Heart Was Found in the Streets of Jerusalem” appears in poet Zeeshan Khan Pathan’s 2020 collection The Minister of Disturbances. This poem is written in couplets, or groups of two lines each, but due to screen size may appear to wrap onto additional lines.
Enjoy.
Ællen
“My Heart Was Found in the Streets of Jerusalem” appears in poet Zeeshan Khan Pathan’s 2020 collection The Minister of Disturbances. This poem is written in couplets, or groups of two lines each, but due to screen size may appear to wrap onto additional lines.
Enjoy.
Ællen
My Heart Was Found in the Streets of Jerusalem
My heart was found in the streets of Jerusalem —
in the milk bowl of an alley cat.
Lost between two lines of the same
poem written in the time of the Romanovs.
My heart was a songbird trapped in a song
that was circular like a wheel
— like an ear cut from the furious
head of a bard. My heart was actually a tongue
and a deep register of silence.
My heart the reed flute, the ney, and the drum.
Was nowhere to be found but they
told me I was still breathing and wingless.
My heart was in fact a street to nowhere.
My heart remained unquestionably in love with you
but you didn’t pay any attention to the bleeding
of rivers or swans. My heart was once stolen
by a cherry-lipped beloved who wouldn’t return
even a photograph of our time together.
My heart utterly melancholic, a dream gift, and under a spell.
My heart was my life and my life was my heart.
My heart didn’t know any better; it was never a brain.
My heart searched for you the way a migrant searches a wasteland for water.
My heart led to the oceans but was dammed up by inscrutable sorrow.
My heart was incapable of stopping and became tangled in your hair.
■
My heart was found in the streets of Jerusalem —
in the milk bowl of an alley cat.
Lost between two lines of the same
poem written in the time of the Romanovs.
My heart was a songbird trapped in a song
that was circular like a wheel
— like an ear cut from the furious
head of a bard. My heart was actually a tongue
and a deep register of silence.
My heart the reed flute, the ney, and the drum.
Was nowhere to be found but they
told me I was still breathing and wingless.
My heart was in fact a street to nowhere.
My heart remained unquestionably in love with you
but you didn’t pay any attention to the bleeding
of rivers or swans. My heart was once stolen
by a cherry-lipped beloved who wouldn’t return
even a photograph of our time together.
My heart utterly melancholic, a dream gift, and under a spell.
My heart was my life and my life was my heart.
My heart didn’t know any better; it was never a brain.
My heart searched for you the way a migrant searches a wasteland for water.
My heart led to the oceans but was dammed up by inscrutable sorrow.
My heart was incapable of stopping and became tangled in your hair.
■