Variations on Hafiz
[A]Zikr
You wake up or think You have woken up.
And again pain Hobbles you, till
Your lips touch The frosted ground.
How many tears You have shed
All these years! This earth is caked
With salt. What can Grow in such soil?
Wonder why these swift Days, this warm bread,
These clear starry nights, Leave no taste on your
Complaining tongue?
Tell me, friend, how many
Seconds has it been since you Last remembered the Beloved, Who lives in your chest?
[B] Rounding the lines
You think if you do this You will be loved Or if you don’t do this You will not be loved.
This may be so among The sleepwalking fools.
But when you circle These lines of doing And not-doing inside,
What holy foolishness follows!
[C] Cleaning the Muck
When she meets you Your happiness knows No bounds,
At least for the first Five seconds. Then Everything becomes
As before. The hunger Still remains, and love Quickly leaves
By the back door. Friend, how can you Claim
To have seen her When your glasses Are covered
With muck!
My Poems
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Some words in the afternoon...
Photograph by Gisela
[A] One blind man looks for the Truth among the labyrinth of books. What did other blind men look at in those years we can now label B.G. (Before Gutenberg)? Stars, Or autumn leaves perhaps, for some sign of arrival? [B] One winter the master gleefully hacked the Buddha standing at the gate into firewood. What will remain of this afternoon? Drawing water. Cutting firewood.
Image-ned Word
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Occasional Sunday Poems
[A]
You demand a poem.
I can give you only this:
A piece of my voice bone to gnaw on, your memory, which I don't want to forget or remember, glass beads, cheap because they fall often from the box hidden behind my eye, this one which sees cold night clutch the heart again, if you need sight, this line of words on your palm, each falling one after another, henna for your wedding night, this night, every night.
[B] In the street of lights women gather to sing wedding songs. The bride sits in the center, flaming like the lamp. Worlds adorn her, she adorns herself, eyes turn to the sky, stars stud her robes. The poet sits in the tarven, drinking and laughing In the moonlight.
She didn't invite him, forgetting he is called the moon!
[C] She shows me her palm and demands her fortune to be told in verse.
I, the fortune teller, who deciphers lines in glib lines, fall silent.
The sword has cut me in two. Her hands are covered in blood!
[D] How does one bind her, whose hair falls like the rain? How does one answer her, pensive her, whose silences shatter on skin like tears? Someone tell me, how does one love her, the dark eyed her, who moves like a cloud and makes the days disappear?
My Poems
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