How long to write a poem: Twenty Five Words Toward the Truth is…

A collection of 25 word short poemettes that were inspired by something; or they are simply petals fallen from the rose, clipped from the thorns.

Sometimes 120 seconds to jot, sometimes an hour to write, sometimes years to finish… but I never completely understand a single one of these poems.

With mere seconds to write, a poem then becomes a slow growing youth; whenever I reread my own, it needs more guidance, pruning, allegorical fine-tuning.

In my mind, the pen gets in the way. Poetry is really, for me, finding the shortest possible distance from my heart to the keyboard.

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Posted in poetry, quote, Short Stuff | 7 Comments

Poverty and Pride

“Faqr Fakhri”

The poverty of the heart,
empathizes with the lonely, the downtrodden.
For it shares what little it has,
and the less it has,
the more valuable what it gives becomes.
I’ve only one thing,
there is no other,
so who can be poor,
when choosing one among one,
and receiving it all?

I am the poor scribe of my own soul.
A wealthy writer
wields a pauper’s pen…
for only that kind of thirst
could draw up the ink
from the unfathomable well of the divine.

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Ishq

“Water derives its color form the vessel that holds it.”

~~ Sufi Al-Junaid of Baghdad

moon4sufiBehold the Moon, she loves the Sun so deeply,
that all we see of her
is the solar light of her beloved
reflecting off of her lunar surface,
otherwise dark and invisible.

How pleased the Sun must be,
to behold such a blushing beauty –
to know that of himself –
his own disclosure,
manifested within another
so supplicant
as his moon.

With such burgeoning love,
all the moon comes to know of herself
is the source which fulfills its desire
which blushes her cheeks.

Thus, the Sun and Moon,
become indistinguishable
in the shared singular light.
Mirror images,
each mirroring the other.

The Moon speaks,

What else can I be
but the reflection of my Beloved,
what else then is my Beloved,
besides that which illuminates
my own hearts essence.

And so the Divine One
Presented humans with the Cosmos
so that their human hearts might look up and observe
these celestial bodies,
and take lesson.

What I see within the heart of another,
is my heart looking into itself.

It is God’s “plan of reflection,” that two thus exist
so that God’s pure light
is reflected in and by both.

A vision of oneself
with the psycho-physical faculties of oneself
is a State of Solitude
and Attribute of Aloneness.
It is meditative Gnosis of Self

When the place of vision is shifted
through the presence of another
Their relationship itself
fulfills the archetype of that union we seek with
God.

The conjoined reflection itself,
finds a Deeper State of Solitude
within the nexus of a placeless place.
And this nexus is in the Heart.

 

So what of the Moon and the Sun, themselves
In their solitude – how do they reconcile
Divine and Human love?

From Gnosis of Self
The seeker within the lover
moves toward Gnosis of Universe
then Gnosis of God.

‘–   from Ghanood to Adraak
to immersive Warood
Then Kashaf
a key turns
Fatah of Shahood
Then fana al fana
toward fana fillah
Silent
AllaHu
wa Baqaa billah  –‘

As the gaze of
the supplicant lover
and the beheld beloved
volley in the same light between them,
their love for the other
ponders the archetype of there being “no other.”

Who then to love, if the Sun and Moon become one
how are they to be none-other to each other,
if there is no “other.”

So begins the haj and jihad between
Ishq-majazi (Love of Gods Creation) and Ishq-haqiqi (love of Truth)
The Moon and Sun seek haqiqi with None-other but God
but have majazi for no other but each other
Can the moon and sun unite
to dissolve “other-ness”
Or does the annihilation of self (other) in majazi
become idolatrous?

Perhaps, the Sun and Moon
are alone as one with each other,
but One Alone In God.

Nothing can be more truthful
than beholding with the heart,
that which cannot be seen with the eyes
It is God’s indescribable light
streaming through.

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Posted in essay, love poems, Poems Beyond Their Words | 2 Comments

On Beloveds: 25 Words Away From Truth

There are pearls in you
So I’ll slip without splash
Into the pools between your lashes
For the eyes have depths
Only lovers can dive.

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What is forgotten

olive fields

Olive fields in Alentejo, Portugal

What is forgotten
Is easily replaced
All else remains, divine
quiet rings of ripples last
long after the Beloved’s pebble cast
to vanish beneath the water line.

From the still axis
a deeper message heard
in the silence,
between the echo,
rising in the azure
on the thermal rise
where prayers go.

A deluge of words
wails the ears
and not a drop
to quench the drought
or bathe away
salt-powdered tears.

Soundless
is the river drift
That carries us
through parted lips
Home to harvest
the black fruit orchards
dotting the red walled fields
where the divine rain falls
and the fertile heart yields.

Where it’s buried
cracks the seed
to grow and ripen on the vine
then plucked and pressed,
and poured in cup,
ripens in the drunkards mind.

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I Followed a Writer Up a Tree

autumwritten
I followed a writer
up a prodigious tree
Every leaf I brushed,
his poem.

From the crown
I scanned the pastoral
a poetic landscape in repose,
A resplendent chorus of
Glistening verdant wisdom.

O’ vast vibrato of sibilance
slipping the breaths of
Thalia and Melpomene!
Alight by dusk, I lingered.

Comes the long wind of winter
to undress each tree!
So from my aerie,
through gaunt branches,
I could see…

The low-slung place
where each poem fell
I thought, “here so many,
clothed in so much comedy
and tragedy…
recite their odes
of heaven and hell.”

And down I climbed
and away I walked
Over quiescent leaves
while red and russet
ran from their dendritic veins
Moldering into the palette
of dormant memories.

O’ even now
The sweet scent of decay
Reminds me of Spring
when I will climb again.
From the rot of the roost
to the dust below boots,
by the pen of the winter writer
Spring will come again.

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The Mind is Lumber: Twenty Five Words Away from Truth

I climbed the highest tree
within the forest of my mind…
only to look down
to find my heart at it’s base,
holding an axe.

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Divine Inkling: Twenty Five Words Away from Truth

We were given but a divine inkling
of what lies beyond mystery
so that our minds might imagine
what only our hearts know for sure.

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Who is Poet: Twenty Five Words Away from Truth

Some of us
just write the poems
we hear in the hearts of others,
so tell me then,
who is poet
and who is listener?

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The Writing Hand is Raised a Slave

“Such tiny hands,” he said
shoving elephantine thoughts
Into them
wielding such power –
knife clutching,
caressing, pen.

He took his eyes off the screen
for a moment,
to watch them go. He pondered,
“Long is the journey along nerves
from heart to paper,
nothing can be squandered.”

One day his hands will die
having bled for God and country
having spit and wept
along the path
tapping time
from the tip of his fingered infancy.

To the top of his wrist,
where youth dons hero’s cloak
stirring loins in angst
fire carriers of thrumming tribes
whose eye’s purl water
from the smoke.

Then up arm and shoulder
shuffles age, a road
along his neck, that forks
where one goes south
where memories start,
the other towards the forgotten north.

Fateful, the besieged tellurian
Seeking whence his end began,
A northern throne for
a southern heart
thereupon ascends, proclaims
“I’ve come to free this writing hand.”

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