Rehan Qayoom.

Born in the UK, read English Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. 'He has been involved in many independent literary projects in the UK and has recited his poetry in many countries of the world, currently writing a book on the subject of poetic inspiration.

‘FRAGMENTS, not a Meal’


I found nowhere to sit and read
Your chapter on the life of Bede
The ground of Oxford Street reveals
What deeds of daring do go on beneath

Who thinks mostly of his observance of breathing than his actual breathing? Takes a
glimpse at her photograph and then quickly puts it away. Stuck with a hasp of
deadlier gloom than death - Can it bring delight?


Gemma Boyd is better than you
Gemma Boyd is good
I'd like to meet this Gemma Boyd
and take her to the wood
If it's true we're born in sin
then open your legs and let me in!


O what enchanting eyes you have
How magical a smile
Your ruddy hair sets hearts on fire
oh your funky drunky style
Just hold my hand - Look in my eyes - Say nothing all the while


Laziness is white and pretty
London, you mock-savage city
Had we met in a way more real
would we have felt what we feel?

You will never not be dearer
To me ever nearer nearer
And your vision clearer clearer
it's a chilly wind that blows! Love me as I am -

So off to bed and up at 9!
I'll dream all night that you were mine
Or off to kip to wake at 10!
Begin another day - AGAIN!

Obliged to live his life in limbo
The forlorn poet
Forgot he was sane
so wrote in gibberish across the window-pane

Like a lie


She was pregnant and in pain
Stabbed by her ex
Lived, I think, on the local heathway
on sex
Allowance book, Bible, toothbrush: all covered in toothpaste
condoms coated in toothpaste flowed from her black handbag

She asked at the tissues for recipience
And she swore and she swore and she swore
But I can't now recall a word she said anymore
just that her mother had told her it was futile to flip
At people who stared at her
I stared at her
as she scribbled something in a notebook
(in case it rhymed)!

Days later I telephoned
Asking for a Ms Cheryl Cooper
They had let me go after some tests
and kept her
But none of the departments had an inkling
of who I was on about
 

CRUSADE

Fight for your word and fight for your right
Fight at daytime, fight at night
Fight this battle between darkness and light
show your courage reveal your might

Fight at midday noon and eve
Plot what your foe cannot conceive
Show this world what you can achieve
show them the magic of what you believe

Who are they to stop us they cannot decide
What is right or wrong, for god is on our side
God is our master his prophet our guide
we shall build a heaven in which man shall abide

This is the war to put an end to war
Fighting then shall be no more
Back in the arms of the one you adore
whose pain kept beckoning you back ashore

Love Letter

To Louise Wallis

The world goes on and on and on in bleak infinitude
What’s then the harm if I express my woes a little

Yes I swore to bear all ordeals at your luscious hands
let me catch my breath a while now, let me repose a little

Never could we rise up to our worth for all to see
someone had to push us down whenever we rose a little

Seems like no one here has ever heard of loyalty
could I be blamed if the cynic in me shows a little?

The moon awakens your memories, the moonlight thinks I love her
it shines in all its splendour when my anguish grows a little

If you are about to organise your memories
juxtapose what is left over, and dispose a little

That long awaited moment came fortuitously and went
our soul became a fireball, the body froze a little

Although somehow I will manage to relate this saga
factually I’ll hide a little and expose a little

Everyone I know is wealthy, I a mere poet
study poetry, speak poetry, and compose a little

And you too, Muse! Have known the pangs of Love
Of its not happening or happening
How lustily it strikes from up above
betimes cajoling, touching, flattering

O yes you've seen the warning signs, and yet
Being cruel to yourself, unmindful oft
Have loved alas to be consumed by it
and lost your loved one and have felt bereft

As now I find myself - Your Poet - YOURS
Set upon argosies of your desire
To love (whatever it may mean) the years
of all my life - My sweet Muse: love like fire

Burns in me now and will consume me too
one day and prove my Love - That it was true
 

 SONNET

And you too, Muse! Have known the pangs of Love
Of its not happening or happening
How lustily it strikes from up above
betimes cajoling, touching, flattering

O yes you've seen the warning signs, and yet
Being cruel to yourself, unmindful oft
Have loved alas to be consumed by it
and lost your loved one and have felt bereft

As now I find myself - Your Poet - YOURS
Set upon argosies of your desire
To love (whatever it may mean) the years
of all my life - My sweet Muse: love like fire

Burns in me now and will consume me too
one day and prove my Love - That it was true
 

POEM

Neither conquest won, both mad
Love enshrined the dreamy room
Nor delighted and not bad
who is now in love, with whom?

Much desire of apposite
Peering an executive
Don Giovanni is tonight
ignorant and recondite

Who dares love? And who dares win?
Who can bear to lose their life?
This a life of double-spin
dry and iron and no wife

Saskia Rabinovich
Glad of her argenticum
Daughter's mother, canard, bitch
'This is my Praeconium'

Boundaries a blur again
What is right and what is wrong?
Who's to listen who's to speak
blotting out oblivion?

And an odd computer geek!
Does he know what now is not
Why the England that is rot
far exceeds what he has got

Do I dare to be in love
Even tho' I'm ever out
3 below and 9 above
do I claim to be about?

Diss the city death has built
Brilliantly and very neatly
Silently but so completely
in its comely guilt