Topic: Saints and Mystics

[nichi]

All My Inhibition Left Me In A Flash

All my inhibition left me in a flash,
When he robbed me of my clothes,
But his body became my new dress.
Like a bee hovering on a lotus leaf
He was there in my night, on me!

True, the god of love never hesitates!
He is free and determined like a bird
Winging toward the clouds it loves.
Yet I remember the mad tricks he played,
My heart restlessly burning with desire
Was yet filled with fear!

~Vidyapati
(spoken in the voice of the beautiful Radha)

[nichi]

Then Winks

Everything is clapping today.

Light,
Sound,
Motion,
All movement.

A rabbit I pass pulls a cymbal
From a hidden pocket
Then winks.

This causes a few planets and I
To go nuts
And start grabbing each other.

Someone sees this,
Calls a
Shrink,

Tries to get me
Committed
For
Being too
Happy.

Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere,
Don't always agree it's real,

Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door

My address is somewhere else.



~Hafiz by Ladinsky~


 

[nichi]

The Hatcheck Girl

Why
Are there
So few in the court
Of a perfect
Saint?

Because
Every time you are near Him
You have to leave pieces
Of your
Ego

With
The hatcheck
Girl

Who won't give them
Back--

O
O
O
U
C
H
.

~Hafiz  by Ladinsky

[nichi]

God in the Stew

Is there a human mouth that doesn't
give out love-sound? Is there love,

a drawing-together of any kind, that
isn't sacred? Every natural dog

sniffs God in the stew. The lion's
paw trembles like a rose petal.

He senses the ultimate spear coming.
In the shepherd's majesty wolves

and lambs tease each other. Look
inside your mind. Do you hear

the crowd gathering? Help coming,
every second. Still you cover

your eyes with mud. Watch the horned
owl. Wash your face. Anyone who

steps into an orchard walks inside
the orchard keeper. Millions of

love-tents bloom on the plain. A
star in your chest says, None

of this is outside you. Close your
lips and let the maker of mouths

talk, the one who says things.



Rumi


Ghazal (Ode) 958
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance", Viking-Penguin, 1999

[Michael]

I want

a howling hurt.

[nichi]

The sun can only be seen by the light
of the sun. The more a man or woman knows,
the greater the bewilderment, the closer
to the sun the more dazzled, until a point
is reached where one no longer is.

A mystic knows without knowledge, without
intuition or information, without contemplation
or description or revelation. Mystics
are not themselves. They do not exist
in selves. They move as they are moved,
talk as words come, see with sight
that enters their eyes. I met a woman
once and asked her where love had led her.
"Fool, there's no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite."

 
~Farid ud-Din Attar~

[nichi]

A Salve Made with Dirt

I was a thorn rushing to be
with a rose, vinegar blending
with honey, a pot of poison turning
to healing salve, the pasty
wine-dregs thrown into whitewater.

I was a diseased eye reaching
for Jesus' robe, raw meat
cooking in the flame.

Then I found some dust
to make an ointment of
that would honor my soul,

and in mixing that,
I found poetry.

Love says, "You are right,
but don't claim those changes.

Remember, I am the wind.
You are an ember
I ignite."



Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 1586
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"

[nichi]

I WRITE OF THAT JOURNEY


I remember how my mother would hold me.
I would look up at her sometimes and see her weep.

I understand now what was happening.
Love so strong a force
it broke the cage,

and she disappeared from everything
for a blessed
moment.

All actions have evolved
from the taste of flight;
the hope of freedom
moves our cells
and limbs.

Unable to live on the earth, Mira ventured out alone in the sky,
I write of that journey
of becoming as
free as
God.

Don't  forget love;
it will bring all the madness you need
to unfurl yourself across
the universe.



~ Mirabai ~

[nichi]

Can love be latched and hidden? A trickling tear
Will proclaim it loud.

The loveless grasp all; while the loving
With their very bones help others.

The soul, it is said, is enclosed in bones
That human love may be.

From love, devotion comes; and from that unsought
Priceless enlightenment.

Bliss hereafter is the fruit, they say,
Of a loving life here.

"Love helps only virtue," say the fools:
But it also cures vice.

As boneless worms wither in the sun, so too
The loveless in a just world.

A loveless life is a withered tree that would fain
Sprout in a desert.

What good are outward features if they lack
Love, the inward sense?

Love's way is life; without it humans are
But bones skin-clad.


~Tiruvalluvar
7th Century India

[erik]

Love is This, Love is also That


Love is the road that leads
Our souls to union vast.
Love is the passion-storm
That sports with our vital dust.

Love's child is emotion-flame. 
Love's eyes are freedom, fear.
Love's heart is breath or death.
And love is cheap, love dear.


Sri Chimnoy

[nichi]

I practiced what I read,
And learnt what was not taught.
From its jungle abode
I brought the lion down
as I a jackal would;
(From pleasures of the world
I pulled my mind away).
I practiced what I preached,
and scored the goal.


~Lalla~

[nichi]

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison.

I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.

I should be suspicious
of what I want.

Rumi

[nichi]

And then You are like this:
 
A small bird decorated
With orange patches of light
Waving your wings near my window,

Encouraging me with all of existence's love-To dance.

And then You are like this:

A cruel word that stabs me
From the mouth of a strange costume You wear;
A guise You had too long tricked me into thinking
Could be other-than You.

And then You are ...

The firmament
That spins at the end of a string in Your hand
That You offer to mine saying,
"Did you drop this-surely
This is yours."

And then You are, 0 then You are:

The Beloved of every creature
Revealed with such grandeur-bursting
From each cell in my body,
I kneel, I laugh,
I weep, I sing,
I sing.

 
Hafiz by Ladinsky
The Gift - Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master

[Michael]

O lord white as jasmine

she is one of my favourites

[nichi]

While unperishing love melted my bones,
     I cried
I shouted again and again,
     louder than the waves of the
     billowing sea,
I became confused,
     I fell,
     I rolled,
     I wailed,
Bewildered like a madman,
Intoxicated like a crazy drunk,
     so that people were puzzled
     and those who heard wondered.
Wild as a rutting elephant which cannot
     be mounted,
     I could not contain myself.


 

Manikkavacakar
9th Century India