English Literary Circle of Bannu

29/07/2026

The Image of Love
By Ali Soren

Let me love you like never before
Just a gentle bite of your lower lip
And a slight tilt of your wavy hair
A little pretended ire of your eyebrows
With an extended hand that I may take
That’s all you need to do…
Ah! Just like this, yes.

On my knees I am down
With pouted lips and half shut eyes
I slowly take your ivory hand
And kiss it softly like one would kiss
The elixir of life in human form.

Now round I go my starlit vine,
Arms over arms and chin on shoulder
Take a deep intoxicating breath
In the fragrance of your serpentine locks
Skimming your earlobe and back of silvery neck
Gently turning my chalice of ruby w**e
Towards my thirsty, yearning, long awaited lips
For the culmination of unexpressed love.
The elongated, reverential stamp
From the cusp of lips lingers on and on
To where the ends of our souls meet.

15/07/2026

We Made from Water Every Living Thing ( Al Quraan).
By Ali Soren
Al rights reserved@alisoren

Life is tough, sometimes tedious and even futile but at others, it is full of adventures, romance and challenges. To understand life, is a herculean task but every thinking mind so far, has contributed something at least, trivial may be in nature, but vital in importance to the understanding of the concept. William Hazlitt called it “a mingled tissue of laughter and tears”, a phrase that has now become a cliché. But for me, the concept of life carries a deeper meaning, more philosophic and grounded in theology than a mere emotional overtone as Hazlitt has put it.
Life for me, as Allah says “We Made from Water Every Living Thing” (Anbya 21:30), is Water. Water that is in the oceans, it flows through rivers, stormy and terrifying, yet peaceful and serene as in a lake overshadowed by snowy peaks. From the enormous seas to the drop of a tear held in the socket of my eye, it is water the whole living creation is made of. Life in its inception, creeps and crawls, stands on its feet and falls, then like a toddler it goes on all fours, then gets strong and bounds carelessly upon the verdant green under the azure skies. It stands tall and brave in front of its other half, the better half, in all its zeal and zest, it sings and dances and makes vows, goes to the extent to burn down even cities, as in Dr. Faustus, where Marlowe wonders at the mere sight of Helen, “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”
Then it gets sobered and calmed like the dead deafening silence that prevails after a roaring storm in some far away sea where a cheering ship is suddenly overtaken by a typhoon, crumpled and submerged momentarily, as if nothing, absolutely nothing has just happened, as if the whole uproar was but in a dream. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lives are rounded with sleep”, Tempest, Shakespeare.
Life takes its turns and twists, meandering like glistening little rills, rolling down the folds of a mountain side, turns into streams and then rivers, only to be absorbed by the sea, finally becoming one with The One.
One can never understand life if one tries to dissect it logically. It certainly is not made to be understood in bits and pieces. One has to have a broader vision, and imaginative eye, a philosophical mind deeply imbued with religious leanings, only then he will be able to grasp it in its entirety. As in the words of the bard, William Black, “To see a world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour.

15/07/2026

08/07/2026

"The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled!—Rome’s azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak."

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais

07/07/2026

Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay.
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize."
"Not so," quod I, "let baser things devize,
To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."

Edmond Spencer

08/01/2026

𝗠𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗲 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂
(𝒁𝒂𝒉𝒊𝒓 𝑲𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝒗𝒗𝒂𝒂𝒃)

𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑒, 𝑤𝒉𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑒,
𝐴 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝, 𝑡𝒉𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝒉𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔𝒉.
𝐴 𝒉𝑢𝑔 𝑡𝒉𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙, 𝑎 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐𝒉 𝑠𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒,
𝐴 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝒉𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑝𝑢𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒.

𝐼'𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝒉𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝒉𝑢𝑔𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐𝒉𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑜,
𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙, 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑠𝒉𝑜𝑤.
𝑈𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑑, 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑦𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑑𝑎𝑦'𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑒,
𝐼'𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒, 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝒉 𝑎 𝒉𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝒉𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑙.

𝑁𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑔𝒉𝑡, 𝐼'𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑚 𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡,
𝐴 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝒉𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒, 𝑤𝒉𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝒉𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑙 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡.
𝑁𝑜 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑠, 𝑛𝑜 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝒉𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑐𝒉𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑠,
𝐽𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑚𝑒, 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝑏𝑖𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝒉𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝒉𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔𝒉 𝑡𝒉𝑒 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠.

𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑛𝑖𝑔𝒉𝑡, 𝑤𝒉𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝒉𝑖𝑔𝒉,
𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝒉𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒, 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑, 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑙𝑦.
𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝒉𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑑𝑜, 𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝒉𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒,
𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝒉𝑜 𝐼 𝑎𝑚, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝒉𝑜𝑤 𝐼 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒.

𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑒, 𝑤𝒉𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑒,
𝐴 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑝, 𝑡𝒉𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝒉𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔𝒉.

01/01/2026

I lost them all
Only in figments of my memory
I still have the glimpses of what once was
The smiling faces, strong and sturdy
Of my parents, uncles and aunts
Of the mud house in which i was born
My brothers, sisters and cousins.

I saw love and care seeping through
Every pore of our bodies,
Even the air itself was laden with fragrance
Of the sweetness of inexplicable solace.
We bounded on trodden paths amid the green
Crisscrossed by meandering rills that shone
With silver sheen on cold frosty winter mornings.

Dandilines, sunflowers, bluebells
And even thistles decorated our paths.
The scent of the grass i feel even now,
The scent of the soil after the first rain in summer
Even dulls my senses, saturates my being
I breathe in the dim memories of my past.

Now that i see my own children, little angelic faces
My wife, my home, my friends, my family
Now that i hear the sounds of distant barking dogs
The horns of cars, the noise of motor bikes,
The fast mood of life on roads, in offices,
My heart aches with pain and a feeling of loss
Grips my imagination, pulling me apart
From my present to my past.

But i cannot rip my self in two
We are destined to fulfill our tasks
To take home our responsibilities
Just like our parents and uncles did.
We are caught between two worlds
The one on the verge of death
The one in its bloom
But the end will be the same
We too will get old, wrinkled faced
Time will take its toll
And one who has changed the very nature of this planet
Will have to perish, leaving the world
To its familiar, mundane course.

We were, we are, we will be
Without us.

Ali Soren

31/12/2025

Another year has passed and yet another year is about to begin tonight. With every passing day we immortalise a few of our most cherished moments and try to bury those that hurt us deep inside. This is our nature---they we we are. Human history has always followed this same pattern since times unknown, a zingzag movement on a fixed path, more like the life line on an ECG chart. Every second sounds a Beep----muffled and deep, but throbbing with the energy of life. It is this deep muffled Beep sound that we must focus on. It is the strongest proof that we are alive and we must put it to use in the best possible way. Let us immortalise every single Beep of life and live life it to the brim. I. The immortal words of A. L. Tennyson, let raise a cry with Ulysses;
"I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;"
Let us become a Name.
Happy New Year
From
Alisoren

24/11/2025

People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind with the power of ignorance, they cheat, steal, kill their people, put on stakes old men and women, when they kill an innocent young kid or riddle the last existing elder of our community with bullets, they like to think that the Bane entering homes at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.

With apologies to
Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5)

09/11/2025

George Orwell slept in Paris flop houses, washed dishes in filthy hotel basements, and begged on London streets all to tell the truth about poverty.
In the early 1930s, he had every reason to stay comfortable. Educated at Eton, born Eric Arthur Blair, he could have lived a quiet life teaching or writing polite essays. Instead, he threw himself into the gutter to understand what Britain tried not to see. The result was Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), a raw chronicle of hunger, humiliation, and survival that exposed the myth of class dignity.
Orwell didn’t just write about the oppressed; he lived among them. He pawned his clothes for food, slept in hostels beside the destitute, and earned pennies scrubbing greasy plates twelve hours a day. “You have talked so often of going to the dogs,” he wrote, “and—well, here are the dogs.” That experience burned into him a lifelong hatred of hypocrisy and totalitarianism, a fire that would later ignite Animal Farm and 1984.
When Animal Farm was published in 1945, its attack on Soviet tyranny made him a target from both left and right. The British government kept him under surveillance, Soviet sympathizers called him a traitor, and publishers feared his next book would be banned. But Orwell refused to soften his convictions. “In a time of universal deceit,” he wrote, “telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
By the late 1940s, he was coughing blood from tuberculosis, writing 1984 in a freezing Scottish farmhouse. His health collapsed, but his focus didn’t. He typed through fever and night sweats, insisting that freedom’s greatest enemy was comfort. When the book was released in 1949, it stunned the world and gave English the vocabulary of oppression: Big Brother, Thought Police, doublethink.
He died six months later, only 46 years old, broke but unbowed.
George Orwell, the privileged man who chose the gutter to tell the truth, didn’t die rich — he died right.
He proved that real courage isn’t rebellion for fame; it’s suffering for honesty in a world that rewards silence.