The Ali Academy Community

Will I Be Well? I’m acidic, sour, I’m bitter, dour. I twist, I turn, I simmer, I burn.   My meadows are hushed, My toads silenced, My butterflies puerile, My bees sterile.   Noses singed, Eyes gated. Livers polluted, Cerebri coagulated.   Fumigated, pesticided, chemicalized, I’m not well. Scorched here, scalding there, How could I be well?   “Just war,”

Did Angels Stop Singing? In ocean’s toxic ooze, a dolphin, the ocean’s canary, circled like an inmate in an asylum.   How do I breathe oil? An octopus asked. How do I eat tar? a turtle choked. “How do I unglue my wings, O’ Oil-monster?” a black bird convulsed.   Once, loyal to its primal rhythm, true to its inner

THURSDAY Revisited Commentary from Tahsin Chowdhury Sunday I attended a Pakistani community event hosting Tahir Ul Qadri. I went because my father insisted on me attending, and because we thought Tahir Ul Qadri would discuss Sufism, as he usually does. Long story short, there was a mis-communication, and it was actually a politically driven event. We sat and heard the

Madrasa Mothers Death from hunger Slow but certain. Or a boy’s life saved Behind a mullah’s curtain. A murder in the street. Or a son lost to toxic meat. The options determine The madrasa mother’s choice The answer delivered In quivering words without voice. Whose son vanished In the fires he lit?. Who lingered, In the roulette he hit? Madrasa

HOLLOWS Why breathless? Why heartless? Why the shadows? Whence the sunshine? The moonlight? The luminous sky?   Every Icharus plummets, Every crown flutters, Every Dante betrays some Beatrice, Every Sufi suffers some mistress.   Why love unrequitted? Why heartache unrelented? Out there, what else? The mind cries. Why the yearning? Whence the nirwana?   The surging breeze, Washing the mind’s

SADNESS   Majid Ali, M.D.   In this section, I offer two poems from my book entitled “Drone Democracy” available at www.18006336226.com. The list of poems appears at the end of this firs poem.   Sadness   What is betrayal?   Letters to spell life.   What is suffering?   More letters to spell life.   And deep disappointments?   Two words to

Majid Ali, M.D. Oxygen-lovers have always shunned oxygen-shunners. On the evolutionary time scale, the former evolved and thrives because they were experimenters, forever engineering ways to escape invasion and decimation by the latter. How many oxygen-loving (oxyphil) species eventually succumbed to oxygen-shunners (oxyphobes) in this time scale remain a matter of speculation. In 2012-13, there was a widespread devastation of