GLORIOUS misfortune.

I remember vividly; back then…
I was all glory; I had wings and so much luster.
A bright shining star.
And expectantly, I walked haughtily in a cloak of pride.
Thinking myself a Mozart Wolfgang or a Beethooven
composing the symphonies and melodies of my Life
the orchestrator of my achievements.
Not until I started to erode;
My wings fell off, my shine was murky.
I was a Samson whose locks were given a clean shave;
From whence, I struggled but to no profit…
Like pushing a mighty castle wall.
Or a veteran scuba diver who couldn’t save himself in swimming pool.
Then, I knew God was behind every man’s greatness.
These were clear signs, I embraced it.
A chance to choose humility.
And let my patience fuel my faith.
My hope and perseverance, the ignition.
As I chase God’s grace like a Bugatti with no sympathy.
I believe better days will sprout from these algorithms of misfortune.
The downfall of a man should make him think twice.
Is there any hassle that never teaches a lesson?

HARSH REALITY

When the second ticks astray.
When the heart beats away.
My soul falls to knees, weakening.
These days, time is growing stingy.
And I am getting closer to expiration by the ticking.
Its deafening steps are echoing louder, drawing nigh than I ever thought.
It’s so scary, people wither away so quickly like leaves in Harmattan.
And vanish rather mysteriously like vapour.

It’s a reality.
The richest of mankind can’t bargain their way out.
The most powerful have all failed to conquer it.
Skilled surgeons can’t avert it.
Nor can the wizards…
Every man succumbs to its summons.
One day I’d lie in a narrow chamber.
Inhumed in the earth, all alone with my deeds.
Yea, the tears will soon dry up, and the mourning will cease.
And soon enough, I will be forgotten like nothing.
Thank God, some will still remember me… in prayers.

Most of us are victims of its terror.
Mother is turgid with grief anytime I leave the house.
That I might not make it back home.
We try so much crafting mechanisms to secure ourselves.
Thinking we’d increase our life spans; am sure death always flexes a grin…
… At our futile efforts; it never changes a thing, its destiny.
Sometimes, I am scared, not of death.
But that I haven’t done enough.
To please my Lord and earn a place of ease in the afterlife.


It’s hard to wonder;
These achievements I chase will someday fall to ground like dust.
My countenance to be deprived of flesh.
Every night I go to bed imagining…
Whether I’d wake up to meet the sun or open my eyes in a grave.
But I do pray “Lord if I don’t make it in the morning”
“Admit me into your beautiful garden”.
It’s a mystery that everyone will come to know, but wouldn’t be able to tell.
When the call comes, you can’t ignore, hold or press the end button.
It’s a harsh reality.
… Every soul shall taste death.

WHERE DO THOUGHTS COME FROM?

Most of the time, we often surpass one of the most basic questions in life; where do our thoughts come from?, where do we all these great ideas in our minds emanate from? The famous eureka moment relates of the well renowned Archimedes conceiving one of the most important theories in science as he took a bath in his sink, did he just conceived that theory out of sheer luck? What about Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, did he just walk into a prominent scientific discovery by accident? Well, these two are not the only excerpts, a number of imminent discoveries have succeeded through accidents and errors. Since the inception of humanity, man has built so many things, civilisation has always improved over and over the years as a result of discoveries that emanated in the neurones of the mind. But one of the questions that has always escaped us is the genesis of these great achievements tracing its way down to that simple idea that was conceived. Its amazing, how a simple idea that once lingered in mind could weave its way into a beautiful network of other ideas that would eventually be the foundation of an empire of success. In one moment, there are infinite ways, decisions, ideas and thoughts that our minds could conceive but how is it always a chance to pick the right one? There has to be something, an algorithm that always computes the probabilities and permutations to reduce it to the perfect one. There has to be a driving force that designs the blueprint of our lives by giving us the ideas that would make it a reality. All these voices that we sometimes here in our heads, they do have a source. There has to be tangible reason why we are all different, why we all have distinguished thought process, different intelligence quotient, why it is much easier for 'victims' synaesthesia to memorise things and why some others give in so easily to dementia. We all have a brain with the same features, but rather think in an absolutely different way...

"Recite in the name of your Lord who created. Created man from a clinging substance. Recite, and your Lord is the most Generous. Who taught by the pen. Taught man that which he knew not." - HOLY QURAN 96: 1 - 5.

There is a source to every single thought... great thoughts do come from GOD.

Rhyming Aspirations

Whether in the depths of penury.
Or in the summits of luxury.
In the radiance of ecstasy.
Or in the darkness of misery.
From whence I left the womb to the day I lay cold in the cemetery.
Nay, even in the companionship of freedom or the shackles of slavery.
In all my endeavours till the end of history.
I will always praise and worship God in my memory.
Live and preach His criterion of peace to all my friends and family.
Why the hatred, war, pride, mockery, felony and treachery?
All of these are not necessary.
Why can't we open the doors of knowledge and close the gate of a penitentiary.
Ignorance is the worst kind of mystery.
And wisdom pays the most, a handsome salary.
Life is but one, we can afford to live it like a lottery.
So I every day I seek refuge in my Lord from my worst enemy.
Right here within my soul, my closest adversary.
I pray that at the end of each single day, there is victory.

THE CALL

Behold, when it cometh, there is no bargain.
When it approaches, there is no appeal.
Nor is there bribery.
Whereof is one who can save me?
When then regrets shall flood in with intense impatience, but will be too late.

Many a people have joined the trail.
Many a humanity have boarded this train...never to come back again.
Whereof are the kings and queens of the earth?
Whereof are the great empires and the powerful dynasties?
Thereupon, all have witnessed the visitor and tasted of its fruit.

It lurks in the shadows.
An unannounced and unexpected guest.
Today it came, bypassed me and snatched my another.
But one day, it will come, overlook someone else and take me.
It will live with us till the trumpet is blown...
A question harasses my mind; "Am I well prepared to smile when it cometh to me one day?"

INSPIRATION: "EVERY SOUL WILL THE TASTE DEATH. THEN TO US WILL YOU BE RETURNED"
- HOLY QUR'AN 29:57

2. HOLY QUR'AN Chapter 75.

THE VALUE OF TIME.

♥ If you want to know the worth of one year, ask the student who failed last year.
♥ If you want to know the worth of one month, ask the mother who gave birth prematurely.
♥ If you want to know the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
♥ If you want to know the value of one day, ask someone who has great news or is awaiting a special guest.
♥ If you want to know the worth of one hour, ask the student in an examination room
♥ If you want to know the value of one minute, ask the lady who just missed a flight.
♥ If you want to know the worth of one second, ask the lad who just escaped an accident.
♥ And if you want to know the worth of one Milli-second, ask the man in the Olympics...

Reference: Sheikh. YASSIR.

"Time is relative to the observer" - Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Time is a valuable resource, let's cultivate it...
and make the maximum use of it.

THE ANNALS OF GREATNESS.

It is a beautiful day, the skyline explains it.
The melodies of the flying tribe announces a great blessing.
How the heavy clouds are submerged like feathers without pillars.
Rays of the sun travelling from years away revealing the beauty of nature.
So every morning let your sight meet the sky.
The beauty of nature; is there any other wonderful portrait?
God is one, God is greatest.

Eyes and telescopes steal a glance at greatness.
How mighty are the planets submerged into space without supports?
Travelling in perfect orbits with no blunder.
Even in the night, we are never in darkness; He appointed the moon as a lamp.
Verily, the annals of greatness are written in the heavens.
If you stare into the stars at night, they would confess to you…
God is one, God is greatest.

And when my lord sends her.
She meets my sight in her best appearance.
Glowing, sparkling and flexing all her colours.
My eyes are blessed with beauty, while emotions seep through my veins.
All my senses seem dead whiles my mind is alive.
And at that moment, I see God’s greatness in her.
I see God’s greatness in the aurora.

WHEN I WAS A CHILD...

He did wrong.
For that moment, he had gone stubborn.
And when mother scolded him.
He cried;
The wailing echoed in the walls of mother’s heart.
He cried;
And the tears stained his face.
And even though, the pain was still eating his flesh.
He raced graciously into mother’s arms.
Then mother opened her arms wide in reception.
And hugged her son.
Cuddled him in her warmth.
And kissed him on the forehead.
Despite the war that erupted between them.
There was a strong bond that intertwined their destinies.
A strong connection that is beyond blood and genes.
The bond between a mother and a child…

A GLIMPSE OF DEATH

It was gentle night; the breeze explained everything as I lay on my bed trying to comprehend all the figures and formulas in my engineering thermodynamics handout. I am the nocturnal type; I spend most of the time in the night reading rather than sleeping. Well, it is much easier an effort whenever I have a hot Lipton tea by my side. As usual, it was midnight and I was in my books. This time around, things didn’t go on well as after a while I could hear nature calling out for me; I was reluctant to respond. I taught I could play cunning as I stubbornly tried not to succumb to sleep, my eyelids were so heavy, I would probably say it felt like pianos were sitting on them. They struggled against slumber but nature did prove me wrong. I slipped into trance in a flash, unnoticed. It wasn’t like I was awake and it wasn’t a dream either, it was something in the middle. I found myself in a world I have never imagined; my body lay hopelessly on the floor, void of life. It seemed as if a black wall separated my soul from my body. I couldn’t move; my soul struggled to find its way back to the human body. At that moment, even time was petrified by the spectacle, as it budged into a slow pace and I could hear its ticking sound as the bold stumping sound of the African elephant. If I could steal a chance, I would tell the world Einstein was right – indeed, time is relative to the observer. As my heart abnormally beat like funeral drums, so did my time on earth count down like a time bomb – it was defined. Mother kept on calling out my name in the Dagbani dialect, “Nazif, wake up, Nazif wake up!!!, please wake up!!!, don’t do this to me” her shrill voice accentuating the degree of her anxiety. She tried to exterminate the despair that lived in her fears and rather feed the flames that would ignite her hope that her only son was still alive. I wished I could at least hold her by the hand and confess “Mama, I am dead, I am gone, please tell the world that God is alive” but I was robbed of speech, so numb, if not, worse than a deserted log - totally lifeless. I was caught in a war between two completely distinct realms, the thrilled voices of my blood lineage were now fading away into resounding echoes – I could barely hear them as their mouths screamed out my name. It was a ‘magic’ moment; the life of this material world was giving way for the other as it helplessly stood by the hallway and watched as I was been whisked away. Dirges played in the background and the entire atmosphere lacked even a whiff of life. I conceived the best of my moments, of my family and peers – I didn’t forget, I couldn’t forget. I had limited time, so I quickly flip through those great moments as if I was revising for a biology exam. And when I saw that perfect picture of mother and me on my eighth birthday, my eyes were a flood of tears and I would cry a river; if only I had tears, if only I had eyes by then. I felt like jumping out of the timeline but I am sure death flexed a grin after reading that thought because that was so impossible for the lad. If only I had a second chance. “O’ Lord, please spare me another chance” I cried out to the King, my faint voice tried to beckon the ears of the heavens. I was still very young, I hadn’t fulfilled my noble promises I made to this world and my Allah. More to the point, I didn’t want to hatch a pinch of thought about the state of mother after I lay six feet down the dust, mother? I don’t know how life would mean to her afterwards, and my dad, I was going to miss my best pal. “The good die very young”, I know, but I couldn’t tell my fate, my destination was a vague question in my mind. If I was perfectly assured that I would reside in heaven, in gardens where honey was a river, hard liquor overthrown by the purest of wines and more importantly where death was no more. “O’ Lord, give me another chance. Let me live. I promise I would voice this out to the world. I will let my friends know that life is but an insignificant dimension.” After uttering my last words, I just imagined how my roommates would wake up to the rising sun to meet a still Naz who was probably skipping a lecture in bed. I know that, after some minutes of fruitless efforts to wake me up, “He’s just playing dead” I bet that’s the first thought of anticipation that would echoe in the room of their ignorant brains. “Never miss, Sunday church service” that would be the parable I would preach to them, if I bargained with time for at least a Pico second. Just as I relinquished the hope that I would meet the next morning, I recapitulated – travelled through time, back to my birth date but yet, struggled to tell my death date. How sad? The only thing left on the menu was the arrival of the Angel of death, to execute his usual time-stringent duty - to strip me off my mortal soul. My greatest fear is death, well, it was just a few seconds away, I have never been scared in my life not until this moment. It all happened when I was whiling away time with these heart stabbing emotions, swoosh!!!, I gushed out of sleep like the fresh water of the springs. My eyelids slipped open and I could see the four corners of my room, and my roommates, as they comfortably lay in their beds still in slumber. If the statement ‘believing in this situation’ was a man, then I promise I had never seen him, the real world now seemed like a dream, but it wasn’t; God heard my cry, wiped my tears and gave me a second chance, Alhamdulillah my heart spoke. I wept, the tears stained my heart. I stole a quick glance at time, it all happened in a couple of minutes, how quaint? I lay on my bed and fixed my gaze on the ceiling, whiles my mind was absent trying to understand where I went and why I was still here, but it was too complicated. How useless I was a few minutes ago, how useless the Homo sapiens species were without their souls. And today, I confess that we are all nothing worthy of mentioning without God. Ikhlas, the verse of the Holy Quran that expatiates the oneness of God, I prayed and till now, it is as fresh as the morning dew in my memory - a favourite verse. This moment will forever remain in my memory, I have been saved and transformed. I don’t know what to say, I have had a glimpse of death. We may have fun in this world but I promise it is a scary realm out there. Let’s seek happiness in this world and the hereafter. The world needs change…

SOMETIMES... WHEN I AM ALONE

When I am alone.
Everything is still but silence.
Perfect timing, my thoughts come to life.
Emotions that lingered in refuge wake up and free themselves.
Flashback memories flip like a slide-show.
The pain is prevalent;
There is war burning down the peace everywhere.
Fueled by politics, money, fame and power.
A ravenous infection. Is slaying one another the antidote?
Even with everything, we’ll go to the grave with nothing.
Are we that forgetful? That we are all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve?
The newspaper read “Man beheads boy for money rituals”.
Stories like these can reduce the sincerest bravest of men surrender to tears.

When I am alone.
I just don’t get it.
“Home sweet home”
But sometimes, it tastes not less than gall.
Should even blood relations hold grudges?
We promise each other heavily at the feet of the mountain.
But when we reach the summit, we catch amnesia.
O’ God who else should I trust anymore?
Now that I see these shattered pieces of trust sleeping on the floor.
Kids are starving, striving for an ort.
Elsewhere, money is flying off and sleeping on the dance-floor.
Where’s the sympathy?
At times, I feel weak when I conceal the truth.

When I am alone.
I just don’t get it.
Those who deserve love are the ones served with hurt.
Whom who worked hardest, earned the least, left in the lurch.
These mysterious thoughts are the knots engulfing my neurons.
Loneliness is a poet’s best quill.
Emotions and thoughts are dumb and deaf, but a pen never is.
When it can’t stand agony, it squirts sentiments.
And before it falls asleep, I now seem to get everything.
The Verses of the Quran unweaves all these cryptic tendencies.
Then I reveal a faint smile…”God is perfect
And He promises the best of days” my brain says.
When I am alone…God is with me.
And I know, He’d never leave us alone.

SHATTERED DREAMS

He was a lad, one whom was bright.
Born in the corn fields with a transfixed first sight.
Still, rigidly locked unto the sky.
As years renewed, but for night cometh, he'd admire the birds fly.
How alluring to him, the fashion of their flight.
Thereupon He fell in love, always passionately flying a kite.
Under the harsh sun rays, behind fences, there he stood waiting to steal a glance.
At airplanes hurryng off the runway, springing into turbulence.
Verily, it inscribed a smile on a young fresh visage.
A dream dreamt long to sit behind the cockpit of a flying machine.
"At the least, i shoud afford a joyride behind a passenger seat" he wished.
To soar high, amongst the floridly adorned clouds.
Afloat, riding the turbulence and focusing his gaze at the beauty of nature crafted by God.
But, at a second thought, the ambition would always stall.
And he plummeted from his aspirations.
Despair loomed, patiently snatching remnants of hope.
The broad smile that once brightened evaporated and left gloom.
His dreams were shattered; nay, it was no fault of the young lad.
Father and mother hassled to provide sustenance.
In penury, the family were denizens.
How would he make it to flight school?
or the least, a plane ticket but by God?
A that trice, impossible was a feeling well understood than word.
His dreams rendered aphotic.
But I reckon, the world could have kidnled a torch.
To illuminate the path of his dream to success.
Many chaps today wear the same shoes.
And yea, someone can kindle a torch, and make their dreams a reality...
...Be a hero, wake someone up and help make their dream a reality.!

SOUL TRAIN

Fresh page, my pen relates the odyssey of a soul train.
Life often gives spectacles we can barely explain.
The tears are manifest, like clouds can barely restrain rain.
Doctor, doctor please, the anaesthesia succumbed to the pain.
In the midst of these earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes.
Despair emanates but faith restricts complain.
The news now a bare scare, the well-being my heart can barely maintain.
Genocide and homicide painting our walls with blood stains.
Hideous, tainting our memories with indelible stains.
Our hearts are heavy, whereof are the cranes?
Our leaders? they hoard, vague promises, they feign.
What a cruel bargain?
Someone tell me, whereof is the freedom? Tyranny is now shackles and chains.
The spoils of war, gore, mass graves marring our beautiful terrain.

Deep sentiments, my pen relates the expedtiton of a soul train.
The world needs positive change.
Everyone can be a hero, commence a camapign.
There resides a feat in every toil, labour and strain.
Yea, extinguish the scorn, chauvinism and disdain.
Peace in our hearts, peace in the world, we should sustain.
And feed hope, patience and supplications to the sane brain.
Great legacies, pave the way, like neon lights glowing on our lanes.
We are struggling, rowing but tomorrow we will soar like airplanes.
The bravest hearts are ones who free truth bare and plain.
Our prayers beckon the heavens, never to be in vain.
For a day, all the filth of the fiasco would go down the drain.
God will recompense the oppressed, decapitated and the slain.
In lofty mansions, in green gardens on high thrones to rejoice again and again.
As perfectly as God ordained.
My pen goes to sleep, from a voyage of a soul train.

Do they not look at the sky above them? How we have made it and adorned it and there are no flaws in it? And the earth - we have spread it out and set thereon mountains standing firm and produced therein every kind of beautiful growth (in pairs).

QURAN 50: 6 - 7.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

if today, you pray to God for a gold ring and tomorrow you get a wooden one, then that was the perfect choice.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

if you have't experienced mistakes and misfortunes, then you haven't learnt anything yet.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

invest in God and earn more than 100% interest.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

"i didnt fail the test, I only found out 100 ways how not to go wrong" - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

"In the eyes of destiny, there are no such things as accidents and casualities"

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" - NEIL AMSTRONG.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.

"A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty, has wasted thirty years of his life" - MUHAMMAD ALI.