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Saturday, April 22, 2023

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī "someone hidden" & "My Moon"

 

 

 Here someone is hidden
who has taken hold of me and does not let me go.

Here someone is hidden
softer than the soul who led me to the garden of spirit
and made me homeless.


Here someone is hidden
a radiant face as delicate and fleeting
as the ephemeral moment before sleep.

Here someone is hidden
like sweetness in sugar cane,
an invisible magician who has captured my soul.

Hidden somewhere inside, my beloved and
I have dissolved in each other.

No beauty in the world can ever tempt me
for I see only the face of my Beloved.
Tired and in pain I searched the world for help
until I found in love the cure for my pain.

Here someone hidden whispered:
"Pass beyond your tears and
you will see the broken hearted lovers
are the lords in heaven."

Here someone hidden appeared
holding love's wine
and to him I've given all my vows. 

 


I will give up anything to win your love
but if you say no,
I will accept and walk away filled with
the sweetness of your denial.
I have come secretly to seize your flame for my soul
I have come to steal from the King's treasure
but if I do not succeed,
I will accept and walk away knowing
where the gold is hidden.
Play your tricks, pinch my hat if you like
but I will walk away with your golden belt!

Tempted for so long to have a vision of you8
I myself have turned into a vision.
You have seized the fortress of my heart,
your love arrows can split even a mountain,
How can my poor heart ever escape them?
I don't even dare to mention your name
and call you "My Moon"
jealous that others may discover you.
This poem is for the time when you held
the cup before me saying,
"Drink, drink now because if you don't,
I will pass the wine to someone else."  




 

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Fakhruddin Iraqi - The tavern's Secrets

 

 

 In the street of wineshops, when
     should I pray? since my
drunkenness and sobriety alike
     are all the same as prayer.
There, no one accepts the coin
     of righteousness, piety and self-denial:
The only good currency in that street
     is beggary.
None but the drunkard knows
     the tavern's secrets --
how could the sober unveil
     the mysteries of that street?
As soon as I met those
     cunning haunters of the wineshop
I realized that other work than theirs
     is nothing but a fable.
Do you want a guided tour
     of the Mecca of Love?
Come, sit in the tavern, for the trip
     to Arabia is long and tedious.
They refused me entrance at first
     at the wineshop
so I went to the monastery
     and found an open door -- but
I heard a voice from within the tavern
     crying, "'Iraqi!
Open the door for yourself, the gates
     of drunkenness are always agape!"

 


 

Sheikh Abu-Said Abil-Kheir's poetry

 

Source poetry: 

Poetry Chaikhana

 

 

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī - Watch me whirl

 

 

 I am a Golden Compass –
Watch me whirl.
 
To the east and to the west,
To the north and to the south,
In all directions I will true your course
Toward laughter and unity.
 
To everywhere I will deliver enlightenment
On the backs of camels, birds
And strong pilgrims.
 
Into every country
I will carry the Holy Names and dance
And dance.
 
I am a Golden Compass –
Watch me sing and spin
Illustrious strands of lyrics and truth.
 
I am a divine Agent.
Your passage to light, your ticket,
May need my stamp.
 
My feet and verse are now ecstatic
And midair;
Just place your self beneath our leaping arch –
We will sweetly rain upon you.
 
Watch me whirl into nothingness
Your fears and darkness –
Just keep tossing them onto my golden plate.
 
I am a Holy Instrument always tuned by God
I live beyond every dimension.
 
I have been lifted drunk off the floor
In a Magnificent Tavern.
 
Now at my seat upon Divine Love
I gaze at Everything with brilliant, clear eyes.
 
I can so easily lean my cheek across this small table
Of time and space
 
And let you touch my beautiful laughing
Wooly beard.
 
Hafiz is an Emerald Compass.
My knowledge will put manna in your purse.
 
My only duty that now remains
To this world
 
Is from every direction
To forever serve you wine and
Hope.
 
Hafiz is a Golden Skirt
The Beloved has lifted off a magnificent floor
And has tied around His waist.
 
Watch us whirl, whirl,
Whirl!

 


 

Saturday, April 15, 2023

Ibn Arabi - The very secret of servanthood

 

 

 “Seeking and aspiring, nearness and farness,
these are all qualities of the servant:
so what can the servant attain through his own qualities
with respect to One who is Incomparable and Transcendent in His Essence?
The true place of every creature is total incapacity,
standing in humility before the door of Exalted Glory,
without any ability to grasp this Treasure.
How can I know You
when You are the Inwardly Hidden who is not known?
How can I not know You
when You are the Outwardly Manifest, making Yourself known to me in every thing?
How can I realise Your Unity when in Uniqueness I have no existence?
How can I not realise Your Unity when Union is the very secret of servanthood?”

 


 

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Eric Baret ~ Things happen by themselves

 


“Doing happens,
and then you appropriate the doer-ship,
but there is no doer-ship.
Things happen.
When you breathe, you don’t need to think
that you’re a breather.
When your heart beats, you don’t need to think
that you’re a beater.
When you’re digesting, you don’t need to think
that you’re a digester.
These things happen by themselves.
The same way, thinking happens by itself;
there is no thinker, there is only thinking.
The thinker is a thought of other thoughts.
So, "there’s nothing to do" actually means
that there is no appropriation in life.
Thus, you must give yourself to the fact
that life is happening through you,
but there is no need to pretend to be the doer.
It’s not that there is nothing to do,
it’s just that things happen by themselves.”

 


 

https://www.bhairava.info/ 

 

 

Friday, April 7, 2023

Nancy Neithercut - A sea of delicious unknowing

 

 

 Tan skinny fingers sliding across the key board...
love writing itself, 'L O V E'
and no notion of what love is,
what a cat is,
what this coffee is,
what taste is....
and not looking for any answers, I swim in a sea of delicious unknowing, not knowing what unknowing is....
I am amazed and astounded at the hugeness,
the unspeakable wondrousness of things and thing-less-ness...
that I am and that I am not, simultaneously....
naturally, spontaneously, life sings itself as I am the singing,
poems splashing colors and shapes and the hum of aliveness into a river of space and time...
the rippling of sky soars the echoes of memory overflow all notions of solidity and liquidity,
existence and non existence...
I watch my reflection in the window
cat on my lap
reflections of apples, and my hand reaching...
darkness
still
and the robin

 


 

 

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Thursday, April 6, 2023

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī - Pain & Sorrow

 

 

 “How does
a part of the world
leave the world?
How does wetness
leave water?
Dont' try to put out fire
by throwing on more fire!
Don't wash a wound
with blood.
No matter how fast you run,
your shadow keeps up.
Sometimes it's in front!
Only full overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.
But that shadow
has been serving you.
What hurts you,
blesses you.
Darkness
is your candle.
Your boundaries
are your quest.
I could explain this,
but it will break
the glass cover
on your heart,
and there's no fixing that.
You must have
shadow and light source
both.
Listen,
and lay your head
under the tree of awe.
When from that tree
feathers and wings
sprout on you,
be quieter than a dove.
Don't even open your mouth
for even a coo.”