Poet and Poetry, by Saad Ali

Life of a Poet, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2010

Poet and Poetry[1] 
 
after Life of a Poet by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada), 2010 C.E. 
 
for Lorette, Sukaina & Frida 
 
 
 I 
Ye and I, we’re all poets. Who said it first, who will say it last? Well, this is a P O E M, not a Genealogy of Human Thought. 
 
 II 
It’s a life, but unlike any other life, life of a poet is. This much I can promise thee. 
 
It’s about—the barbs in a dove’s feather; the veins in a pine’s leaf; the mosaics in a butterfly’s wing; the patterns in a peacock’s plumage; the strings in a spider’s web; the salts in a tortoise’s tear; the pearls in an oyster’s mouth; the droplets in a wave’s gait; the flickers in a flame’s plight; the rainbows in a surakev’s neck; the rings in a snail’s shell; the pictures in an owl’s eye; the lines in a snowflake’s forehead; the vibrations in an ant’s antenna; the flaps in a goldfish’s fin; the seeds in a seahorse’s belly; the notes in a bulbul’s ode;[2] … (keep filling the blanks). 
 
 III 
It’s a life, but unlike any other life, life of a poet is. This much I can promise thee. 
 
It’s about—living in the thin lines; once in a blue moon; out of the thin air; the abstractness; the concreteness; the oxymorons; the juxtapositions; the folklores; the narrations; the orations; the inquisitiveness; the enticements; the celebrations; the adversities; the integrations; the amalgamations; … (keep filling the blanks). 
 
 IV 
It’s a life, but unlike any other life, life of a poet is. This much I can promise thee. 
 
It’s about—the streets; the people in the streets; the flowerpot on the window sledge; the wooden bench in the park; the posting on the litter box; the letters in the letter box; the post stamps on the envelopes; the lone book on a shelf; the raincoat of an old man; the yarn and needles of an old woman; the old wooden door of an old house in an old town; the hour hand, minute hand and second hand on the watch; … (keep filling the blanks). 
 
 V 
It’s a life, but unlike any other life, life of a poet is. This much I can promise thee. 
 
It’s about—the cries of an infant for its mother’s milk; the smile on the face of a homeless wo/man, when s/he receives some coins; the glitter on the face of a homeless kid, when s/he receives some candy; … (keep filling the blanks).
​
Saad Ali

1] This prose poem was first published in my 4th book of poetry – PROSE POEMS: Βιβλίο Άλφα (AuthorHouse, 2020). 
[2] Bulbul (بلبل, Persian/Farsi) = Nightingale.

Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored four books of poetry i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019), Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020), and Prose Poems: Βιβλίο Άλφα (AuthorHouse, 2020). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese, and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com.