#296 “We poets are born old: with the passing of years we become children.” —Humberto Akʼabal (via ZeeshanJaanam) @zeeshanpathan.bsky.social #aphorism #proverb #poetry 🖤

Birth We poets are born old: With the passing of years We become children. —Humberto Akʼabal (1952-2019) ▪︎ Guatemalan-Mayan poet ▪︎ [My translation]

Henri Fantin-Latour - Poppies - c.1891

I feel therefore I can be free. —Audre Lorde

Your love is a poisoned sword that cuts through the bludgeoned heart of mine held by your hand after a night of ravaged lovemaking. Your eyes are wells In which blind lovers drown And your mouth is the door to Paradise In which my tongue learnt the secret of secrets.

Jules Bastien Lepage

For a lifetime I have learnt the language of the stars— This is why I am certain That this night will pass.

Autumn.

The vitriol and bigotry directed at Zohran Mamdani and in effect—at all Muslim Americans—will not succeed. America has been and remains a multicultural country. When Zohran wins this race, he will prove once again that immigrants, brown people, and people of all backgrounds are here to stay

Having surrendered my heart I became defenseless. What sovereignty do I have in the matter? —Meer Taqi Meer

If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That's the beginning of social protest. —Audre Lorde

Francis Picabia

O true Beloved come so that in my ravaged and grief-gashed heart strength may enter again. Come so that in my dying body, Life may enter again Come for separation from You— has sealed my eyes... —Hafez Shirazi

If the lover did not exist, Beauty's House would be lampless. Laila wants Majnun like the moth is wanted by a flame. —BEDAM SHAH WARSI

Pablo Picasso - Couple - 1970

I have the love of the one I love, what else can I ask from life? I love the love of children and if I witness a prisoner I feel like dying. —Leonardo Favio 🇦🇷

You seize my heart but remember this— What never was mine How could it possibly be yours? —Bekhud Dehlvi

Even during the storm my Life remained in the hands of God In this way, I laughingly passed through the vicissitudes of inauspicious stars. —NAYYAR QURESHI

Man Ray

2 years of ĝ3nøç1ḍə in G@za. How have you been silent for 2 years? What made your heart a stone?

My translation 🧿🧿🧿🇱🇧

We inhabit a terror that we call life. With burnt fingers, we collect signs from the forest floor. At undue hours, we study anatomy. The mind is its own supposition. So what? —Etel Adnan

Every day that you are silent—look—what is unfolding all around. This is not the time to recoil. We must continue to advocate for the possibility of democracy and equality for all.

Mohamed Melehi Moroccan visual artist

What does it mean to be an American now—at this particular historical moment? Have you asked yourself this question recently? Look at the news. Look outside your kitchen window. Look at G@za.​ We should all be asking ourselves this question. 🙏

We have not learned the lessons of ANNE FRANK. If we had, things would look very different in America & beyond today.

The days that we stretched out our hands—and no one held them—those days gave us wings. —Unknown from the Arabic

I am the history of [...] limitless armies against whatever I want to do with my mind and my body and my soul —June Jordan

Man Ray at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement. —Jane Goodall (REST IN POWER 1934-2025) #atruehuman

And I thought maybe poetry is good for this, so that on a rainy and cold night someone will see written in a few lines their unspeakable confusion and their pain. —Alejandra Pizarnik

Picasso - c. 1970

My heart has died—now— do not attempt to be my Messiah. Either laugh at me or raise Your hands and pray. —Zaheer Kashmiri

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Dream after dream which I had stitched together indefatigably... Where are they now? They were plundered—long ago. The one who had brought Me to the river's edge— Departed alone by the shore—long ago. —Javed Akthar

A life in Poetry is a life of no return. It becomes destiny. —Etel Adnan

For thousands of years, the nargis flower cries— at its own blindness. With great difficulty—a visionary— is born in the flower garden. —Allama Iqbal

The gardens were destroyed before they could bloom. Nightingales were separated before they could unite. —Anand Bakshi

Blanca Varela: I haven't arrived I will never arrive at the center of everything is the poem— an unspoiled sun inexorable night. [My translation. 🧿]

Vermeer

Redon - Italian Landscape - 1895

Odilon Redon - Marine Landscape with Cliff - c. 1880

The only antidote to tyr4nny is courage. And it comes from your heart. The deepest part of you... that can never be tamed.

Vaccines save lives. Get boosted and protect yourself & your loved ones & community. We are losing herd immunity for many preventable diseases. Think how many lives could be saved if we still cared about such matters as a culture.

State-run mədia and near single-p@rty (0līg4rchic) rule that funds g3n0c1de abr04d and unlįmitəd r3pr3ss1øn at h0m3 are not markers of a functioning demøcracy.

Now more than ever, folks!

BREAKING — U.S. Vetoes Gaza Ceasefire Resolution For ‘Failing’ To Adequately ‘Condemn Hamas’ The United States has again vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the release of captives — its sixth veto since the war began...

I'm fighting against the bad poets who say 'politics cannot be part of a poem'.

Every day that you are silent terrible, abominable things are taking place in our names.

What will our art mean if we can't advocate to save human lives?