Consuming yourself in “Me, me, me!”
The sentence that condemns you to never be.
DEATH IS THE THIEF
Death is the thief who is sure to come
Careless of whom he takes, or takes from
So cling, O Passerby, to what you love the best
Let death and the thief deprive you of the rest.
HE KNOWS
“I know not what he knows, but I know he knows”
Thus the pupil fulfilled from the Master goes.
DEATH BE NOT PROUD
O Rich One, will your silks be your shroud?
Or will you wear the earth and leave death to be
proud?
IN THE BEYOND
In the beyond, my friend, there is traffic and trade
In the deeds you stored and the mess you made
What He will count are the treasures of that store
Not your pretence and piety. These are toys, no more
As children set up shop and wed in fantasy
So the world’s conceits are but games—let them be!
And when nightfall comes, the child’s game ends
He returns home hungry, without his friends.
MATERIAL THE EARTH
Material is the earth and material the stars
O Rumi, seek the spirit—the water not the vase!
ASS
Unruly ass, your kick will only fracture your hoof,
Your stubbornness takes you beyond reason or proof
You live by the laws that you yourself have made
O Adam, your disobedience is heaven’s law betrayed!
QUARANTINE
There is no cure for the sickness of the heart
Quarantine all lovers, keep them apart
Affliction though it seems to be, love is God’s gift
Anchoring to beauty, the human soul adrift.
EARTHLY KNOWLEDGE
You acquire earthly knowledge, passerby.
My friend that isn’t knowledge, it’s a lie!
The only truth you need to know is Him
Only he can fill your measure to its brim.
Knowledge like water flows from high to low
Be humble then, my brother, and let His presence
flow.
FINAL ECSTASY
Reason cannot ever grasp
That final ecstasy
To bring a thinker to his God
Is to make a blind man see
THE MOTE
Observant of your neighbor’s sin
You fail to see the fires of hell within
Mullah, Censor, Judge and Hypocrite
You will burn in the fire your arrogance has lit.
LOVE, THE MOTHER AND CHILD
To proclaim His peace, God sent a dove
This messenger of mystery is called Love—Love
herself, though mother of all men,
Is the child of faith and only when
Our faith in Him is strong, she will be seen
As moons emerge from out of their cloudy screen.
And when your faith in Love is waning low
She’ll wait behind her veil for faith to grow.
FLY
The fellow feeling of the human race
Is the portrait of His divine face
Your fellow traveller can feel your pain
He shares with you the sin and mark of Cain
If you can free yourself from jealousy
You and the world would venture free
And like the dove the trapper did untie
You can rise up and soar into the sky.
SECRET LOVE
You are the joy that dances in my breast
My secret love that’s hidden from the rest
The miser’s coin will sometimes leave the purse,
So you escape and give birth to my verse.
UNSCHOOLED PROPHET
Galen’s potions could not conquer death
As Issah could with just one healing breath.
Moses with his single wooden staff
Conquered Pharaoh who was king of half
The known world. All philosophical claim
Was by an unschooled prophet put to shame!
THIEVING EYES
O thieving eyes, you’re punished for the theft
Of her beauty—now she’s turned and left!
DO NOT GO
I hear you intend to leave me, I hear
You have a new friend, that you call him, “dear”
How could you wound your constant lover so
And threaten this estrangement? Please don’t go,
O moon for whom the very heavens shake
What betrayal is this? How can you take
The promise we exchanged so lightly now
O you who command paradise and hell
You whose eyes weave heaven’s dizzy spell
How could you mix this poison in the sweet
How could a lover turn to such deceit?
My soul’s an open furnace for your flame
Yet you leave it darkened, O the shame
Of being abandoned. Lover, do not go
Leave the moon of my night still aglow
Your leaving is the drought, my lips are dry
The only moisture, wells up in my eye.
HE LIVES
They told me the immortal one had died
I threw their words back in their teeth—they lied!
Who dares to say the sun has left the skies?
Who would embrace the eclipse of his eyes?
IN DISGRACE
Beside myself I wander in disgrace
To catch a glimpse of my beloved’s face
I circle the bazaars and roam the streets
Through drunken dens and muttering retreats
Admitting I am drunk and full of sin
I knock at your locked door,
O, let me in!
Thousands take the plunge of ecstasy
Deliver but one pearl of truth to me
Jalal of Rome through ecstasy does rave
Protesting he is Shams the Master’s slave.
BE STILL
Be still as stone
Refrain from speech
And laughter
You shall be given
A silken tongue
In the world, hereafter.
EXPERIMENT
Try this experiment
and think of nought
But only that
which creates all thought.
THE PRISON
When God has made the earth for you to roam
Why have you made a prison cell your home?
TRUE MOSQUE
Do not praise and magnify the mosque
However beautiful, it is the husk
And not the grain. Go seek the holy saints,
By delving in their hearts, the soul acquaints
Itself with where the fount of life resides
And where the light of Him alone abides.
ATTRIBUTES
One attribute of God is that he sees
Every atom’s movement and of these
Our lives are made and all the worlds revolve.
We call him “knowing” because he can solve
What are to us dilemmas but to him
Are a millionth part of his creative whim.
These are no simple names that men invent
They have not come about by accident
But are the qualities of that first cause
That gave us life and disciplines and laws.
THE FRIEND
Go my friends and fetch the Friend to me
He stays away, he lingers wantonly
He’ll try and say he’ll come another day
Just ignore that and fetch him anyway.
MESSAGE TO A STAR
Last night I gave a message to a star
To carry to the moon, however far
To deliver to the sun whose rays can turn
The rocks to golden emblems as they burn.
I bared my breast and pointed to the pain
Just so the star could make my message plain
You rock the crib to give an infant rest
My pounding heart I cradled in my breast
And yet my heart for hunger was not still
It wouldn’t find its fulfilment until
He who all the multitude doth feed
Would lend his love to my heart’s fervent need.
He is the heartache all I say to him
Is, “Saki, fill my cup up to the brim.”
ELEMENTS
Man was not made of water
nor of fire,
wind or clay.
The spirit of desire
Has made us what we are
and we transcend.
So don’t dabble
In this babble
Of elements, my friend.
LIGHT ON LIGHT
A hundred beings like me can turn to dust
A thousand take my place who in Him trust
“Why,” he asks, “do you gaze in my face?”
“You are the light that dominates all space.”
So where else in creation would I look?
You are the stars, the ocean, mountain, brook.
As Ishmael turned his bare breast to the knife
To Abraham and Him I give my life
Of flamboyance my love is now accused
My heart’s a drum, its beating is excused
By he who sent an Issah to the fight
To spread the vision of the light on light.
ROSES
Lovers find the roses,
A tangle of thorns poses
No threat to lovers’ hands
Love’s innate reason stands
Logic on its head
And postulates instead
The way of the sixth sense—
The lovers’ intense
Vision can expose
Arenas beyond those
In which logic operates.
As the Sufi vacates
The earthbound Mullah’s chair
He knows he would go where
His heart would find its use
He would embrace the noose
Knowing that even death
Breathes in every breath
So friend, deny the thorn—
Be to the rose reborn.
MAJNUN
Majnun loved Layla with total passion
Though demonstrative love wasn’t the fashion
He seemed indifferent to the supreme hurt
To him dust was gold and gold was dirt.
To Majnun the material world was nought
She was entwined in every living thought.
Love granted him supreme protection—
His body gave off a sweet confection
Which could keep wild beasts at bay.
So Majnun took the lover’s way
Which is the way of all desire:
Come melt with Majnun, in the fire
Only vision can transcend
And grant the vision of the end
Who is the one beyond all worth?
Who boils the seas and shakes the earth?
CAPACITY
Moonlight stretches out against the skies
Your share of it depends upon the size
Of windows in your room. Your glass of wine
Dictates the granted measure of divine
Infinite love; and you’ll receive His grace
According to the breadth of your embrace.
MOSES AND THE SHEPHERD
(For Moin Khan)
Moses once passed a shepherd at his prayer
And paused to hear this simple man declare
His love for God by promising to tend
To the Almighty’s every need and lend
Him all the comforts that he could afford
Promising milk and honey to the Lord.
Hearing which Moses flew into a rage
He asked the shepherd, “How can you engage
In idle bribes and chatter in this way
With Him Infinite, and how dare you pray
To God as though he were some needy friend?
Stop offering these silly things and bend
Your body and your mind in total awe
And pray as you were taught to pray. No more
Of babbling about baubles to the King
Of all the heavens that infinite thing
Which surpasses all our worlds and resides
Beyond the light of a thousand suns, besides
You must know that we mortals have no right
To involve God in our miserable plight.”
So saying, Moses left the shepherd and
Went on to prophesy to all the land.
Then God breathed these words into Moses’s ear
“You know that shepherd? You were too severe
With the poor man; he wanted to convey
His love for me, so he began to pray
And what he said came straight from his heart
You must have heard, he was willing to part
With anything he owned or thought would please
What better worshippers are there than these?
To tell the truth, Moses, prayer has no form
Like inner lightning, shapeless as a storm
In its sincerity resides its force
No other value shapes this intercourse.’
Then Moses sought the shepherd out again
To admit that he was in error when
He interrupted him and specified
How he should pray. Then on that same hillside
Both Moses and that joyful Shepherd knelt
And each offered a prayer that was heartfelt.
THE POWER OF LOVE
The power of love is to contradict
Its raging and its roaring can be tricked
Into the softness of a fading star
Love does not care a whit for who you are
He says, “Don’t come and clutter up my space.”
He passes through our lives and leaves no trace
He says, “You are the candle”—it’s a joke,
He knows I am a humble spume of smoke
Love says, “You are my guru and my guide”
Mocking the one who never can decide
Which way to go and how and where and why
And whether birds with wings were meant to fly.
And then a subtle change did overcome
The rippling shadows separated from
The fountain of all light which is the sun
And suddenly the light and shade are one.
The chess master in silence moves his piece
I’m grateful for the game—for this release!
AYAZ AND THE PEARL
The king held a pearl
It covered half his hand
He asked a courtier what it was worth
“More gold than we have in all the land.”
“Then take the pearl and crush it,”
Demanded the king
“How can I waste the kingdom’s wealth
By doing such a thing?”
The minister said and handed
Back the precious gem
The king rewarded him with gold
And the title of knight of the realm
Choosing one by one the king
Questioned all his lords
And receiving the same answer
Handed out rewards
Until he came to Ayaz
And asked him what he thought
The price was. Ayaz said,
“No price. It can’t be bought.”
The king then handed him the pearl
And went through his charade
Ayaz took a couple of stones
And crushed the pearl so hard
That it crumbled into powde
r
It was reduced to dust
The king asked Ayaz, “Why?”
He said, “A humble servant must
Obey the king’s every wish
And honor the king’s word
Above the price of a shiny stone.”
When the other princes heard
Ayaz, they regretted
Their worldly conceit
And flung themselves
At their monarch’s feet.
And begged him for his mercy
He ordered his axe to chop
Off their heads but Ayaz
Arose and bade him stop.
“Let them live, O King
And allow them to hope
For union with you. Spare
The knife and axe and rope
They should not be punished
These are but herded sheep
Or say they fell to error
Following others like sleep-
Walkers or like drunkards
Going where others lead
I was drunk with obedience
So let me intercede
For my friends and co-sinners
And punish them only when
I am sober, because I
Shall never be sober again.
Those who bow are changed
And whomsoever prostrates
Himself before the king
By that act alone creates
A new man. Every gnat
That falls into your drink
Will absorb its essence
And in the wine will sink
As I, O King, have sunk
Or been crushed like this pearl
So let this manic mystery
Endlessly unfurl.”
THE LIGHT INSIDE
The light you radiate you cannot trace
Back to the womb. Your features and your face
Did not begin in semen. Do not hide