Ballad
I Am the King
I am the King. I wear no crown,Yet every wind that stirs the downOf feathered birds or silent treesMust bow before my roaring seas.I do not bark—I roar, I reign.My throne is carved in wind and rain.The sun itself aligns its raysTo greet my dawn, to bless my days.I walk not fast, nor walk in fear,But every hoof and paw draws near.They whisper odes behind my back—Yet none dare plan a rebel's track.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Poets
The Train That Never Lied
She comes each morning, a quiet hymn,At 6:04 — never early, never dim.She doesn’t sigh, she doesn’t dream,Just glides on rails, a silvery stream.The Train — oh yes — she holds her vow,Unmoved by lust, untouched by "how".She hums through dawn, through dusk, through storm,In sun and soot, she keeps her form.She does not flirt with chance or fate,She neither hopes, nor hesitates.And while the world forgets to pray,She whistles firm and finds her way.But man — ah! — the wandering saint,He scrawls his goals in fading paint.He loves today, then lies tonight,He weeps at noon, makes war by night.He builds his gods from crumbling dust,Bows to his gold, yet preaches trust.He prays for love, then leaves by dawn,He sings of peace with armor on.He sets his clocks but rarely shows,He makes a pact — then quickly goes.He holds the wine, but drinks deceit,He kisses truth with poisoned cheek.The Train — she mocks him, not with spite,But with her rhythm, pure and right.No heart to break, no oath to bend,Just purpose clear, from end to end.She doesn’t write a tragic tale,She doesn’t laugh, she doesn’t fail.Yet in her frame of bolts and steel,There lies a soul we strive to feel.Oh irony! That iron knowsThe way more true than men of prose.That gears and steam, with cold design,Surpass the pulse of yours and mine.You call her soulless, void of grace,Yet she, not you, stays in her place.She keeps her word — through frost or flame,While man forgets even his name.We sketch our dreams on fogged glass panes,Then blame the world for sudden rains.We swear we’ll change, then change our mind,We search for truth we never find.We are the gods of flesh and flaw,The makers of unspoken law.We write our names in heaven’s light,Then trade it all for passing night.Yet still — somehow — the Train forgives,In every stop, she still believes.She does not wait for hearts to mend,But still she welcomes foe and friend.So here’s to her — the silent queen,Of ordered steps and in-between.She’s but a servant, nothing more,Yet teaches what we long ignored:That life is not just rush and race,But truth in duty, grace in place.That love is more than fleeting fire,But timing, toil, and tuned desire.The Train, my friend, will never lie,Though she has no tears, nor questions why.But humans? Ah, we’ve learned to fakeThe whistle, but not the path we take.We boast of stars, then sell the night.We claim to lead, but fear the right.We seek a God to make us whole,While stalling every scheduled soul.Still — hope remains. The Train still runs.We board her late, we miss her tons.But she returns, with faithful grace,To teach us time, and truth, and place.She doesn’t preach, she doesn’t plead —She merely moves — and meets the need.While we, with hearts like paper blown,Must learn from her — and find our own.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Poets
When Horror Came to Speak
He came with tales like coiling smoke,With fingers long as funeral notes.His eyes, two bottomless pits of dread,Where lost men fall and never tread.He sat by me — not near, but in,The horror of him not on his skin —But in his breath, in every sound,That reached my soul and spun it 'round.He whispered once, he whispered twice,Each word a wound, each tone like ice.He told of screams that no one hears,Of children born to silent fears.Of mirrors cracked not by the hand,But by the soul that could not standIts own reflection through the years —He showed me death, and called it peers.But I, a writer bold and bare,Have seen the ghosts that men can't bear.My pen is not a sword or wand —It is a mirror, cold and fond.It does not lie, it does not break,Though trembles in the quake of ache.I did not flinch; I did not kneel.I drank the dark and made it feel.For I have watched as others fell —Not into graves, but deeper hells:The hells of guilt, regret, and pride,Where laughter runs away to hide.I’ve seen men paint their love with lies,And call their truths a grand disguise.They bow to flesh, and mock the soul —And call the broken-hearted whole.The horror-man, he laughed at me,A hiss that echoed endlessly."You do not fear me — you are cursed,To see me clear, and feel me first.The ones who scream are not the doomed —It’s those who hear but still resumeTheir daily play of light and sin,That bear the rot that lies within.”Oh yes, I heard him. Loud and deep.He crawled inside the halls of sleep.But he found there a place too bright —My dreams are drawn in sacred light.For though I walk with death and pain,I do not dance within the chain.I see — I write — I bleed — I feel.But I do not pretend what’s real.He told me how the hearers change,How horror makes their logic strange.They build their houses out of dread,They wash with guilt, they dream of red.They stop to speak, to think, to try —And slowly let their moments die.Fear, he said, is not to scream.It is the theft of hope and dream.He told me of a girl who sleptWith every sorrow that she kept.Who looked into a cracked old glassAnd prayed her childhood wouldn’t pass.He told me of a mother tornBetween the man she loved and scorned.He told me of a priest who criedAt every “Amen” he denied.He gave me hell in every tale —And yet I stood, both firm and pale.He asked, “What makes you stand so still,While others break and flee my will?”I said, “You feed on minds unlit,On souls that hide, on hearts that quit.But I am not the one you seek —My strength was forged when I was weak.”He recoiled not in hate — but awe.As if a thing he couldn’t draw.I saw in him not hate, but need —To be believed, to be decreed.For horror has its own desire —To show the soul its secret fire.But I, the writer, did not burn —I wrote instead, and let it turn.And then he vanished like a sigh,Not with a bang, but soft goodbye.No claps of thunder marked the end,No screaming wind, no broken bend.But in my heart, he left a song —Of those who hear and yet stay strong.He cursed me once, then blessed me thrice —For hearing him — and not think twice.Let me speak now, to you, the Hearer:Do not think fear is just a face,It has a home in every place.In laughter, in a lover’s kiss,In every sacred thing you miss.It walks with you, it speaks in doubt,It lights your dreams and snuffs them out.But still — you choose what you obey,And what you write at end of day.I chose the ink, not blade or bell.I chose to know and not to dwell.To gather horror in my hand,And make it part of where I stand.For men are weak, and men are brave —And both are buried in one grave.It matters not if you are scared —But if you write while you are bared.And now, some truths for you to keep:The beauty man forgets in hasteIs always etched in what he faced.The faith he trades for fleeting gainReturns in dreams, with ghostly pain.The lies he tells to feel aliveBecome the tombs where truths don’t thrive.The love he gives, then takes away,Still waits for him — on judgment day.I have no fear of ghost or ghoul.I fear the heart that plays the fool.The man who loves and yet betrays.The child who learns the crooked ways.The preacher who forgets to pray.The artist who won’t walk the gray.The friend who speaks with hollow breath.The soul who’s lost the fear of death.He came again last night in dream,No longer dark, but silver gleam.He sat, not as a beast or bane,But like a storm that knows the rain.And I — I asked him, soft and clear,“What is it that you want from hearers?”He said, “Just this — to be believed.To show the wounds that man’s conceived.Not every ghost is dead and gone.Some live in flesh, in dusk and dawn.And if your pen can mark them true,Then horror’s task is done through you.”And so I write — with fire, not fright.To speak the dark and birth the light.I walk with horror not in chain,But as a shadow to explain.For every man must one day choose —To dance with death, or death refuse.And when the tale is writ and done,I’ll stand — the hearer who did not run.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Poets
